Call me a pessimist, but... (On Sustainable Development)

The idea of "sustainable development" is not radical, crazy or hard to understand. Most anybody would have a hard time arguing against it, in theory. It just means economic development today that doesn't happen at the expense of future economic growth. Some people have called unsustainable development a "tax on the future" because it's indeed stealing prosperity from the young and generations that haven't been born yet. 

The obstacle to sustainable development is not a lack of know-how or technology. By and large, we know what to do. But it does require trade-offs and sacrifices; and the pain won't be equally distributed. And that's the rub. 

The obstacle to sustainable development is politics -- to be more precise, power. Those with power don't like it. (As an aside: I posit that those in power, among them some very "smart" and "visionary" thinkers, rarely think seriously about the future, alas.) 

The people seriously concerned with sustainable development are by and large powerless: scientists, professionals in the "biz," activists, mid-level bureaucrats and such. They say and do and write enough to force those in power to pay lip service to their arrived at consensus. But that's about as far as it goes. 

No, I'm not talking about an opposing global conspiracy. Real conspiracies are rare, and they're usually stupid, for stupid, shortsighted aims.... 

The real obstacle to change is that power is concentrated in a few hands, yet separated by nations, cultures and geographies, with few formal nodes of interdependence, where common aims can be realized.... 

An attendant obstacle is certainly capitalism. More broadly, the obstacle is our global political economy, with its capitalistic innovations tacked on to feudalistic holdovers and narrow nationalistic structures. 

"There is a lack of global leadership," we hear again and again. True. But from where are the necessary global leaders supposed to emerge? It's asking too much from our global political economic systems. 

Ideally, democracy should save us. The good ideas should convince the majority of what is needed, and republican leaders should pay heed to their wishes. Ideally, yes. But that's naive.

First, we don't have real republican democracy in most countries, either by force of regimes or by failed states of many stripes. Second, even where there is formal democracy, concentrated power (read: wealth) still trumps democracy by various well-understood technical means. (Again: there is no conspiracy here; secrecy is not at all necessary for concentrated power to subvert democracy; the facts are are all well-documented for those who take the time to pay attention.)

So where does that leave us? Up the proverbial creek, I'm afraid. 

The richest nations do tend to be democratic. And democratic polities can exercise their power -- when dramatic events move them. But unfortunately, the world -- and sustainable development -- cannot wait for dramatic events to awaken the confused and slumbering giant of democratic public opinion. By the time the giant comes to, it will be too late.

Yes, I'm talking about global warming. And the death of our oceans and fisheries. And water shortages. And new global pandemics. And massive extinctions. And die-offs of millions if not billions of people. -- And for those ensconced in the relative safety of the developed, democratic world, something beyond mere discomfort and inconvenience, but drastic cuts in standards of living and overall well-being. 

By nature I'm not a pessimist. But I simply do not see how our current political economic system can react -- or should I say, fail to react -- otherwise. Everyone is to blame -- and hence no one. I hope I'm wrong and that smarter, more visionary and leadership-worthy individuals will prove it.

This post was inspired by this book review : http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61215-6

A Year That Did Truly Suck

2014 sucked. That's pretty much the consensus. Here's an (incomplete) list why, in no particular order:

> Russia attempted to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi and dark comedy ensued... 

> ...Including Russia's re-drawing Europe's borders for the first time since World War II (HA! HA! Who's laughing now, decadent West!)

> Commercial airplanes were shot down (with no repercussions), or just disappeared without a trace. 

> Global warming is definitely happening and it's probably unrealistic to do anything about it now.

> Foreign tax inversions to avoid U.S taxes officially became a cool "thing" in the corporate world.

> Old wars became young and bloody again in Syria and Iraq.

> Ebola scared the shit out of us -- no deaths though -- and killed from 5 to 15 thousand of them, over there, where they tend to be scared less and die more.

> ISIS / ISIL / Islamic State / Daesh / Those Crazy Murderers In Two Countries Where Lots of People Get Murdered.

> It became news to us (but not to them, or the people they've been shooting) that U.S. police can shoot just about anybody and get away with it.

> Although the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent of the labor force in November 2014, the lowest since July 2008, the labor force participation rate (i.e. excluding those too young, old, sick or beaten down by failure to work) is still below 63 percent; and wages were up only 2 percent for the year.

> Congress did not raise the minimum wage, again.

> Voter ID laws are still in effect (mainly in the South) and still doing what they're intended to do: suppress youth and minority votes.

> Red Lobster (a fav of ur's truly) became an economic bellwether instead of that place with the cheesy biscuits.

> We found out (but weren't really surprised) that up to 18 percent of NCAA revenue sports athletes read like children.

> We discovered that sandwich makers earning minimum wage are being asked to sign non-compete agreements.

> We found out the CIA is filled with sadistic, sicko torturers (and their defenders) who are nonetheless incompetent.

> The GOP held onto the House and took over the Senate.

> The GOP put taxpayers on the hook in the amount of $300 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street's derivatives bets.

> U.S. corporations are even more, uh, endowed with personhood than ever.

> Likewise, robots (AI) continued their exponential Moore's-rate progress toward enslaving humanity... or just taking all humanity's jobs.

> Still no federal prosecutions of Wall Street banks that committed securities fraud, wire fraud, perjury during Congressional testimony.... (Thanks, Obama and Eric Holder)

> Stephen Colbert put to rest The Colbert Report -- and worse -- his genius farcical Bill O'Reilly persona.

> Dick Cheney managed to stay alive -- and stay on FOX -- for another year.

Did I miss anything?

2014 sucked for conservatives as well. I hear their whining so I know. Yet few of these will sound like victories to liberals (and notice that most involve Obama):

> Obamacare remains the law of the land (because the federal government remains funded).

> 44 states have adopted Common Core standards.

> Obama escaped an impeachment vote on (take your pick).

> The Keystone XL pipeline is still not approved.

> Obama remains extremely popular abroad.

> Uppity blacks (no, they don't use that adjective anymore!) protested and rioted about police all over the country and didn't seem to be punished for it.

> The Tea Parties' power in the GOP diminished and the Establishment came back.

> The gay marriage steamroller is unstoppable.

> Obama's Ebola "czar" wasn't qualified to thwart an Ebola epidemic that wasn't coming anyway.

> Obama granted "amnesty" to approx. 11 million illegals.

> Unlike the last guy, this Pope is a flaming lib.

> Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder got to leave his job at the time and manner of his own choosing.

> Obama tightened rules for US coal power plants and made a deal with China on greenhouse gas emissions.

> And all of Obama's other "tyrannical" executive orders (yeah, you know the ones, don't get me started).

> White conservatives lost their best black spokesman for personal responsibility among African-American males when it was revealed he was a serial rapist. (On the other side, liberals lost a great stand-up comedian).

> The latest (the 10th?) GOP Congressional report on Benghazi! did not conclude that Hillary Clinton murdered those four Americans with her bare hands.

> And Hillary seems like an unbeatable juggernaut in 2016 when compared to (insert RINO or TP wacko's name here).

2014 sucked for me as well. Maybe the worst year ever. For instance, being unemployed for most of it. Of course there are always silver linings, silver linings...

Begone and good riddance, 2014!  2015, you'll have to try really hard to suck worse. Talk to you next year, folks!

Navy Rear Admiral: DoD preparing for climate change

Republicans can call global warming science "political" all they want, but the U.S. Military cannot afford to be so blithe about the real effects of real climate change. Hence they are getting prepared.  

Gee, if only the party that says it most adores our nation's military would take note!

DOD: Climate Change Is A Volatile Factor In International Security 

By Rachel Martin

October 19, 2014 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/1whlp6k

Pentagon is planning for global warming

This libertarian, Koch- and Hagel-loving Nazi that I correspond with blamed this story on President Obama, of course. So I told him that he had sorely underestimated our nation's military. Why?

Because our military can't afford to engage in short-term corporate thinking where the C-levels and middle managers still make out if it all goes to shit. We have islands sinking, military bases flooding, unrest and potential wars over fresh water resources... the U.S. military must understand and plan for all of it, regardless of his dumb corporate/FOX news agenda of denying what's happening. They can't afford denial; they must be right. 

Incidentally, is it any wonder that rah-rah military guy Sen. John McCain of all Republicans gets it? He said if the scientists are wrong about global warming then the costs are manageable and we get all these wonderful sustainable energy technologies to boot; but if we're wrong, and unprepared, the costs will be ginormous and the consequences unpredictable and unmanageable.  

Unlike some other liberals I have a lot of respect for the U.S. military, not least because they are the most forward-thinking, long-term planning organization you will find in the world. Sure, some of the generals have cushy corporate or lobbying jobs waiting for them when they jump ship, but as an organization it's all about the mission, and how they define potential threats and safety are not determined by the POTUS; these are concepts always in flux and under their monitoring.  

Pentagon: global warming will change how US military trains and goes to war

By Suzanne Goldenberg

October 13, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/42d6z

You have no business challenging scientists

For my conservative friends who fancy themselves level-11 paladins at Googling self-affirming summaries or excerpts of somebody's scientific articles, this article will dismay and disappoint. That's the point [emphasis mine]:

Read all the online stuff you want, Collins argues—or even read the professional scientific literature from the perspective of an outsider or amateur. You'll absorb a lot of information, but you'll still never have what he terms "interactional expertise," which is the sort of expertise developed by getting to know a community of scientists intimately, and getting a feeling for what they think.

"If you get your information only from the journals, you can't tell whether a paper is being taken seriously by the scientific community or not," says Collins. "You cannot get a good picture of what is going on in science from the literature," he continues. And of course, biased and ideological internet commentaries on that literature are more dangerous still.

That's why we can't listen to climate change skeptics or creationists. It's why vaccine deniers don't have a leg to stand on.

So you and I can't debate scientific research because we're not scientific experts, we're not part of the scientific community. We can only acknowledge or ignore the scientific consensus. But that's not a real debate; it's recognition vs. denial.

If you feel left out then, well, tough. That's the choice you (or your parents) made when you decided to study business or psychology instead of a higher education in a hard science. You're also left out of the NFL, NASA and a lot of other closed groups that influence your life. Deal with it. Maybe in some other group or hierarchy you're a big deal, just not in this group.

The good news is twofold.  First, these guys really care about what they do; there is intense international competition and human rivalry; yes, corporations do have their say in it all; and somehow, little by little and through intense collaboration (not through "eureka" moments) scientific knowledge is advanced all the time. Indirectly, we all reap the rewards of their collective efforts.

Second, the policy debate belongs to us: we must decide what to do about the reality of man-made climate change, for example. Certainly we should consult with scientists, economists and other experts, but ultimately what we do about it is ours, a political decision.  

I for one tip my hat to these scientists and don't imagine that I can tell them their business. As I've said before, if there were any justice in the world, we'd have statues dedicated to physicists instead of athletes in our cities....

This Is Why You Have No Business Challenging Scientific Experts

By Chris Mooney

May 30, 2014 | Mother Jones

URL: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/harry-collins-inquiring-minds-science-studies-saves-scientific-expertise

Solution to climate change is simple, elegant

The scientific consensus is that man-made climate change is real, it's happening now. (Tea Party friends: don't send me an article about some scientist who stormed out of the IPCC in protest; that doesn't negate the IPCC's findings.)  And the consensus of economists is that a carbon tax is the easiest and cheapest way to rectify climate change.

Why?  Because of the free market, and all that.  As long as there is no market for CO2, then the market can't react to it.  Taxing CO2 emissions suddenly puts an economic cost on it, and then businesses can put their creative and technical genius to work at reducing their emissions, i.e. their production costs.

It's pretty simple.

The boringly mainstream solution to climate change

By Tim Worstall

April 9, 2014 | Pando Daily

URL: http://pando.com/2014/04/09/my-very-mainstream-solution-to-climate-change/

NOAA report: 2012 warmest year ever in U.S.

It goes without saying that all 384 of these scientists, not to mention the NOAA, are on the payroll of George Soros and the global academic-climate hoax complex:

Worldwide, 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record according to the 2012 State of the Climate report released online today by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The peer-reviewed report, with scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., serving as lead editors, was compiled by 384 scientists from 52 countries (highlights, full report). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on land, sea, ice, and sky. 

“Many of the events that made 2012 such an interesting year are part of the long-term trends we see in a changing and varying climate — carbon levels are climbing, sea levels are rising, Arctic sea ice is melting, and our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place," said Acting NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D. 

Seriously though: Mom, please read this and stop assuring me the Earth is cooling:  "Four major independent datasets show 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, ranking either 8th or 9th, depending upon the dataset used. The United States and Argentina had their warmest year on record."

2012 was one of the 10 warmest years on record globally

August 6, 2013 | NOAA

URL: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130806_stateoftheclimate.html

Krugman: 5 litmus tests for true conservatives?

Krugman is totally right about one's values determining one's view on the welfare state. (I would say it's more a question of aesthetics.)  It's not something you can really debate. Believe me, I've tried.

There really are people who believe in the "work or starve" / "let the devil take the hindmost" philosophy of social Darwinism, and they make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population and the core of the Tea Parties and Republican Party.

When it comes to the general welfare, they are not interested in outcomes, but rather in ideology, in establishing ideal, Randian rules of the game that don't impede the unlimited accumulation of wealth with no responsibility to give anything back.  For them that belief is ironclad; it's beyond argument.

Krugman offers 5 issues, on the other hand, that do hinge on results, on empirical evidence.  One side is definitely right or wrong.  For these issues it's not a question of values or what's "right," but rather what's provably correct.  Krugman observes that while liberals can and do disagree on these 5 issues, and still call themselves liberal without suffering ideological exile, conservatives must answer a certain way on all 5 or else be confined to an ideological reservation for "RINOs."

The Closing of the Conservative Mind

By Paul Krugman

May 25, 2013 | New York Times

URL: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2013/05/25/the-closing-of-the-conservative-mind/

Forget global environmental 'tipping point'

Never let it be said I'm some kind of eco-hack.  I'm pro-science all the way, wherever that leads us.  This does not mean that climate change isn't a threat -- it is -- it just demands a more nuanced, localized view of the problem.  Making bold, broad claims that global events will not bear out will not help the environmentalists' cause. If environmentalists and conservationists subjugate themselves to good science then they can never be wrong. The good news is that good science is on their side, as long as they don't stray from it.

Time to forget global tipping points

By Erle C. Ellis

March 11, 2013 | New Scientist

How much can our poor Earth take? We've already transformed most of the biosphere beyond anything our early ancestors could have imagined, clearing, ploughing, burning, building, damming, domesticating, driving to extinction, dousing with chemicals and even changing the climate. Surely at some point, the biosphere will simply collapse in the face of such a massive and unrelenting onslaught.

Or will it? This is a question that inspires intense debate among ecologists and global change scientists. Some say that we are heading rapidly for a global tipping point – a threshold beyond which the entire biosphere will shift into a new and mostly undesired state. Others, like me, are convinced that no theoretical or empirical evidence exists for such a claim, and that a widespread belief in the existence of such a point of no return threatens to push ecological science and its application in the wrong direction.

Let us examine the evidence. Ecologists have long been aware that tipping points exist in local and regional ecosystems. For example, when nutrients are added to a lake, its ecological properties tend to continue as before until the lake suddenly shifts to a new state. The water changes from clear to turbid; communities of plants, fish and other species change almost completely. Shifting the lake back into its previous state is possible, but requires massive efforts.

Among other examples of local and regional tipping points are the rapid collapse of coral reefs in the face of rising ocean acidity and the transformation of ecosystems by the extinction of a dominant species, or the introduction of a new one.

With such strong evidence of tipping points in regional ecosystems, why wouldn't we expect such tipping points to exist in the biosphere as a whole? Examine the mechanisms that produce tipping points, and the answer becomes clear.

Tipping points happen when the components of a system respond gradually to an external force until a level of change is reached at which the response becomes non-linear and synergistic. This amplifies the effect of the force and rapidly drives the system into a new state.

To respond in this way, systems must meet certain requirements. Either external forces are applied uniformly and each part of the system responds in the same way, or the system must be highly interconnected to allow synergistic responses to emerge. Or both.

Do these criteria apply to the biosphere as a whole? I think not. For planetary tipping points to exist, the forces of humanity would need to act uniformly across the planet, all ecosystems would need to respond to them in the same way, and the response would need to be transmitted rapidly across Earth's many ecosystems and continents.

Even the force of human-induced climate change, so evident across the planet, does not meet these requirements. For example, it warms and dries some regions while cooling and moistening others. Even if it did uniformly heat Earth's ecosystems, this would not produce a coherent global shift in ecology because local ecosystems respond so differently, often in opposing ways.

Finally, organisms and ecosystems in different biomes and on different continents are not strongly connected. Animals, plants and microorganisms are limited in their interactions by distance and barriers such as oceans and mountain ranges. Even with human-induced species invasions, there is no species capable of colonising all of Earth's biomes – not even the mighty cockroach.

So there is little chance of anthropogenic climate change leading to a global tipping point in the biosphere. When it comes to other changes, including land use, habitat fragmentation and extinction, the case for a global tipping point is even weaker.

How, then, does the biosphere as a whole respond to human pressures? To put it simply: every ecosystem changes in its own way. We are driving massive long-term changes in the ecology of our planet, one ecosystem, one community, one species at a time. The biosphere's response to human pressures is merely the sum of all of the changes.

Viewing things this way puts the emphasis back where it belongs: on understanding and managing ecosystems at the local and regional level.While we must continue to think and act globally, it is the local and regional levels that are the key for conservation and management.

To deny the likelihood of an impending global tipping point is not to deny that we are transforming the biosphere profoundly and permanently in ways that are likely to disgrace us in the eyes of future generations. Much of our planet's ecology can and will be lost unless we focus much greater effort on conserving and restoring it.

With this in mind, the concept of a global tipping point has major policy implications. It suggests that below some threshold nothing serious will happen, but after that all will be lost. Holding such a view risks breeding complacency on one side and hopelessness on the other. Both are misplaced: to lose even one species is more than we should accept lightly. The same holds for our local ecosystems. To conserve them is to conserve the biosphere.

The claim that the biosphere is approaching a global tipping point remains no more than a contested and untested hypothesis. As we strive towards more sustainable stewardship of our planet, we must think globally – but let us not lose track of problems on smaller scales. The fate of the entire biosphere depends on it.

Exposé: $118 million funneled to climate change deniers!

So here is the real "climate change conspiracy," and it's not about a bunch of scientists who already have tenured jobs at universities, NASA and NOAA "cashing in" on their "biased" climate science.

The real conspiracy is these so-called "donor-advised funds" secretively distributing $118 million to 102 U.S. climate-change deniers, who, as a rule, do not produce fresh scientific data but merely muddy the waters by misinterpreting others' studies, or doing selective meta-analysis. This is not to mention the $ millions that Exxon, the Koch brothers, et al spend openly every year on denying climate change.

So obviously, if your aim is to get rich on bad science, it's more profitable to be a climate-change denier.

Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

By Suzanne Goldenberg

February 14, 2013 | Guardian

Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, operating out of a generic town house in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Donors Capital caters to those making donations of $1m or more.

Whitney Ball, chief executive of the Donors Trust told the Guardian that her organisation assured wealthy donors that their funds would never by diverted to liberal causes.

"We exist to help donors promote liberty which we understand to be limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise," she said in an interview.

By definition that means none of the money is going to end up with groups like Greenpeace, she said. "It won't be going to liberals."

[...] 

By 2010, the dark money amounted to $118m distributed to 102 thinktanks or action groups which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations.

The money flowed to Washington thinktanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore.

[...]

The rise of that movement is evident in the funding stream. In 2002, the two trusts raised less than $900,000 for the anti-climate cause. That was a fraction of what Exxon Mobil or the conservative oil billionaire Koch brothers donated to climate sceptic groups that year.

By 2010, the two Donor Trusts between them were channelling just under $30m to a host of conservative organisations opposing climate action or science. That accounted to 46% of all their grants to conservative causes, according to the Greenpeace analysis.

The funding stream far outstripped the support from more visible opponents of climate action such as the oil industry or the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, the records show. When it came to blocking action on the climate crisis, the obscure charity in the suburbs was outspending the Koch brothers by a factor of six to one.

"There is plenty of money coming from elsewhere," said John Mashey, a retired computer executive who has researched funding for climate contrarians. "Focusing on the Kochs gets things confused. You can not ignore the Kochs. They have their fingers in too many things, but they are not the only ones."

It is also possible the Kochs continued to fund their favourite projects using the anonymity offered by Donor Trust.  [...]

Sandy relief vote shows the New GOP's true colors

You can criticize 67 "No" votes in the House of Representatives -- all Republicans -- against the Superstorm Sandy relief bill that passed unanimously in the Senate on a few grounds. Take your pick:

Man-made global warming. Total free-market fail: we're consuming too much, using too many fossil fuels, and Sandy is the blowback (pun intended). How are free enterprise and hands-off government supposed to deal with this? Republicans' reply: they're not. Learn to swim. That goes for your house and belongings, too.

If, "You made your bed [by consuming too much], now swim in it," was their answer, I might give them some points for scientific principle, but that's not their point of view. In their world, free markets are supposed to fix everything.

Not MMGW. Ditto the above. Although we didn't do anything wrong and burning everything we can dig out of the ground has no effect on our climate, nevertheless, the climate inextricably smacked us down and it's beyond the power of rugged individualists or "free markets" to fix the damage in a time frame and a cost that's allocable and acceptable. So then what?  [Crickets chirping.]

Government exists to keep us safe. So... a super storm that knocks out basic services in the Center of the Universe, New York City, doesn't meet that standard?  So WTF is government for then? To dole out radio spectrum frequencies to Clear Channel?

So by Republicans' logic and ours, opposing relief for victims of Sandy makes no sense. So what is their logic, if any? It's simple: government shouldn't do jack, ever, except fight the Nazis and maybe some bearded baddies who live in caves 5,000 miles away. Er, uh... just like the Founding Fathers wanted.

Even the next GOP Presidential nominee unloaded on Speaker Boehner and the House GOP for its failure to act.

This is an object lesson, folks. The GOP is being taken over by a "devil-take-the-hindmost" philosophy, otherwise known as libertarianism. (But with the 2 P's -- pot and prostitution -- to make it make this jagged pill more palatable to youths and corporate hotshots.)  Don't be fooled!

Try EPA's new greenhouse gas data tool!

This tool from the good folks at the EPA is kind of neat. It allows you to see what enterprises are emitting the most greenhouse gases in your area, whether it's carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) or others.

So it lets me see, for example, that the biggest polluter near me in my home state is a coal-fired Duke Energy power plant spitting out 4,117,452 metric tons (MT) of carbon dioxide, 10,219 MT of methane and 21,942 MT of nitrous oxide a year.

Using their handy-dandy equivalencies calculator, I can see that amount of greenhouse gas equals the amount emitted by 1.98 million passenger vehicles a year, or the CO2 emitted by consuming 23.5 million barrels of oil.

EPA ghgdata

URL: http://www.ccdsupport.com/confluence/display/ghgp/Home

MMGW is a BMBISF -- TGIF!

Now we all know MMGW isn't real, and even if it is real it's only GW, not man-made, and all those climate scientists at dozens of universities and agencies are in a global conspiracy to milk research money; meanwhile, the poor oil/coal/gas companies and CO2-belching corporations can't spare their pocket change to fight these powerful nerds, but anyway...

... I just thought it was interesting that these discredited scientists are now trying to tell us that walruses are now living on land instead of ice, and spiders, birds, mice, etc. are moving north at the rate of several feet/miles a year to flee warmer temperatures.

Yeah, right! Spiders!? And pikas!? What the hell is a pika? Who cares? Give us a break, scientists!

The real problem is getting people moving again. And since cash-strapped Americans spend more money on transportation than food, we need to bring back cheap gasoline, damn the CO2. Wait!... Michelle Bachmann to the rescue! If we elect her, she promised to bring gas down to $2 a gallon. She didn't tell us how in the world she'd do it, but who cares? We need answers, not solutions!

What's that you say? This is like Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war? Oh, don't be so skeptical. That is, when it concerns MMGW, be skeptical, be cynical, but when it comes to the bright future of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels -- burn, baby burn!

Conservative scientists confirm MMGW

Scientist proves conservatism and belief in climate change aren't incompatible

MIT professor Kerry Emanuel is among a rare breed of conservative scientists who are sounding the alarm for climate change and criticizing Republicans' 'agenda of denial' and 'anti-science stance.'

By Neela Banerjee

January 5, 2011 | Los Angeles Times

URL:  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientist-climate-20110105,0,6481221.story

Must-read Congressional hearing on climate change

Everybody, please read National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief's testimony before Congress on Dec. 2, along with President Obama's science adviser. The real stuff begins on p. 13, but you're welcome to read the Congressmens' biased opening statements. Rep. Sensenbrenner's comments are particularly awful.

Transcript: House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee Holds Hearing on the State of Climate Science

Some excerpts from Dr. Lubchenco's statements:

"Today we know that it's [climate change] happening now."

"I emphasize that climate change is not a theory. It is a documented step of observations about the world."

"The NOAA data used in the IPCC report are open and available widely -- openly available."

"Global average surface temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900 and is projected to rise another 2 to 11.5 degrees by 2100. The current atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is estimated at about 385 parts per million, which is higher than the highest point in the last 800,000 years." [emphasis mine]

Rep. Inslee's opening question to Obama's science adviser Holdren is classic:

"It's interesting to me. And the only way that I've been able to understand it is that some people believe there's a massive global conspiracy that's intent on world domination associated with phonying up information about pteropods and the fact that the Arctic is melting. So I just want to ask you if you're part of that massive international conspiracy? Are either one of you members of the Trilateral Commission, SPECTRE or KAOS?"

Dr. Holdren, Obama's science adviser, on the e-mail controversy:

"And as to exactly what went on in the way of manipulation of data, I think that remains to be seen. To the extent that there was manipulation of data that was not scientifically legitimate, and I emphasize that scientists manipulate data all the time in order to make them comprehensible and consistent -- but if there was manipulation of data that was not scientifically legitimate, yes, I regard that as a problem, and I would denounce it." [emphasis mine]

Dr. Holdren on Dr. Mann's "hockey stick" graph:

"I think there is reason to believe that some of the statistical methods that Dr. Mann used were not the best for the purpose. The Academy [of Sciences] pointed that out and it nonetheless concluded that his -- that his basic finding that the last 50 years were the warmest half century in the last 1,000 to 2,000 years, was nonetheless robust.

"And again, I would point out that arguments about what the best statistical techniques to use are pervasive in the scientific community, and it's no surprise that one has a difference of opinion. It's no surprise that a scientist may have made a mistake in the

method chosen to analyze a particular dataset. Again, the key thing about science is not that scientists are always right. It's that they fix their mistakes over time."

Dr. Holdren on temperature fluctuations:

"If you look at the actual temperature data, and I have in front of me the NOAA dataset for the global average surface temperatures through 2008, what you see is that nine of the 10 warmest years in the 140-year thermometer record, the period of time since 1880 when we've had enough thermometer measurements around the land and the ocean to meaningfully define a global average surface temperature, nine of the 10 warmest years in that period occurred since 1998.

"1998 itself was the second-warmest year in the record, 2005 was the first-warmest, all 15 of the warmest years in the 140-year record occurred since 1990. You look at the numbers and you do see a bump as you see up there on the screen on the far right, where in the last few years there is no discernible upward trend. But this is completely consistent with having natural fluctuations, natural ups and downs super-imposed on a long-term warming trend associated with greenhouse gases."

Here is Rep. Insleee (D-Wash) talking to Holdren about scientific conspiracies:

"INSLEE: Dr. Holdren, you have testified several times listening to you that given the extensive review by the National Academy of Sciences and using information based from NOAA, NASA and a whole host of other -- of other datasets, that there is no reason to revise their fundamental conclusion that humans are contributing to change in climate and NOAA not to change a fundamental conclusion that the oceans are becoming more acidic.

Mr. Sensenbrenner suggested that there's some "scientific fascism," and that's a quote. Is there any evidence of fascism in the NASA organization, scientific fascism associated with this?

HOLDREN: I'm not even sure exactly what that term would mean, but I don't -- I don't -- I'm not aware of any cabals, conspiracies, misbehavior in the characterization and use of data in NASA or in NOAA.

INSLEE: Well, I'll tell you, it's troublesome to me that people who put the man on the moon, the people who discovered water on the moon, the people who are doing great research figuring out how the oceans are becoming acidic, some of whom are my constituents, it's disturbing to me that people would come to this chamber and call them fascists."

Of course, if the head of the NOAA is engaged in a global conspiracy, she's not going to admit it! But that just goes to show you the impenetrable rhetorical armor of the conspiracy theorists: absence of evidence of a conspiracy is not evidence of absence of a conspiracy.

So, if you persist in believing in this global conspiracy which must permeate all levels of gov't and academia, then you're placing yourself in the same yellow submarine with 9/11 Truthers and Birthers. I don't care how many people are joining "your side," since this issue is not a debate, it's science. There is only 1 right answer.

You're also dooming yourself to ignorance, since you don't trust anybody. (Well, you trust the debunkers, who don't do any original research, but really that amounts to the same thing: you don't trust scientists.)

15 worst industry-paid GW deniers

If for nothing else, peruse this list of oft-quoted Deniers to see whose money they take.

I'll say it again: real scientists do actual research. They do not open up corporate-funded institutes which do none of their own research, and dedicate their professional lives to debunking.

The BEAST 15 Most Heinous Climate Villains

Some of the bastards responsible for subverting public understanding of climate change

By Michael Roddy & Ian Murphy

December 29, 2009 | THE BEAST

URL: http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=1237

Bearded climate scientists? No, it's Siemens

This is from Siemen's web site, a document called "The Company 2010:"

Megatrends that shape our future

Climate Change

• The average global surface temperature has increased by 0.76 degrees C compared to the 18th century.
• 11 of the 12 years between 1994 and 2005 rank among the 12 warmest since weather observations began.
• Greenhouse gas emissions have risen dramatically since industrialization. Today we face the highest CO2 concentration in the atmosphere for the past 350,000 years.

This is a multi-billion dollar mutli-national corporation saying this. And they're making big-money bets with shareholders' money that these facts mean something.

Here's your well funded climate change conspiracy

Like I've said before, if you're looking for a well funded conspiracy, you need look no further. Follow the money.

Just take a look at all these quacky "experts," think tanks, "institutes," and "research centers" making millions from Big Oil and Coal for their "research," which, by the way, they don't do any of.

BTW, the name of the industry-funded organization "FACES of Coal" is the most unintentionally alarming/funny one I've seen in a while.

The Dirty Dozen of Climate Change Denial
By Josh Harkinson
December 4, 2009 | Mother Jones

URL: http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-exxon

'Manufactured Doubt' is their product

Masters puts real numbers behind what I've been saying all along: if there is a conspiracy in the global warming "debate," it is a conspiracy funded and orchestrated by multi-billion dollar multinational corporations and their army of Washington lobbyists. It just strains and tears all credulity to think that scientists and environmentalists are "winning" this debate (debate is the wrong term to use, since the outcome must be decided by hard data, not by persuasive oratory) thanks to paid-for research, when we all know that industry has the deepest pockets and the most to lose financially.

And yet some of you persist in your conspiracy theorizing. Don't be a kook -- follow the money!

The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the Hacked Email Controversy

By Jeff Masters

December 7, 2009 | Common Dreams

In 1954, the tobacco industry realized it had a serious problem. Thirteen scientific studies had been published over the preceding five years linking smoking to lung cancer. With the public growing increasingly alarmed about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco industry had to move quickly to protect profits and stem the tide of increasingly worrisome scientific news. Big Tobacco turned to one the world's five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out. Hill and Knowlton designed a brilliant Public Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry. The CTR did a masterful job at this for decades, significantly delaying and reducing regulation of tobacco products. George Washington University epidemiologist David Michaels, who is President Obama's nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. In the book, he wrote: "the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain". The title of Michaels' book comes from a 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy". Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the "Manufactured Doubt" industry.

The Manufactured Doubt industry grows up

As the success of Hill and Knowlton's brilliant Manufactured Doubt campaign became apparent, other industries manufacturing dangerous products hired the firm to design similar PR campaigns. In 1967, Hill and Knowlton helped asbestos industry giant Johns-Manville set up the Asbestos Information Association (AIA). The official-sounding AIA produced "sound science" that questioned the link between asbestos and lung diseases (asbestos currently kills 90,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization). Manufacturers of lead, vinyl chloride, beryllium, and dioxin products also hired Hill and Knowlton to devise product defense strategies to combat the numerous scientific studies showing that their products were harmful to human health.

By the 1980s, the Manufactured Doubt industry gradually began to be dominated by more specialized "product defense" firms and free enterprise "think tanks". Michaels wrote in Doubt is Their Product about the specialized "product defense" firms: "Having cut their teeth manufacturing uncertainty for Big Tobacco, scientists at ChemRisk, the Weinberg Group, Exponent, Inc., and other consulting firms now battle the regulatory agencies on behalf of the manufacturers of benzene, beryllium, chromium, MTBE, perchlorates, phthalates, and virtually every other toxic chemical in the news today....Public health interests are beside the point. This is science for hire, period, and it is extremely lucrative".

Joining the specialized "product defense" firms were the so-called "think tanks". These front groups received funding from manufacturers of dangerous products and produced "sound science" in support of their funders' products, in the name of free enterprise and free markets. Think tanks such as the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been active for decades in the Manufactured Doubt business, generating misleading science and false controversy to protect the profits of their clients who manufacture dangerous products.

The ozone hole battle

In 1975, the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) industry realized it had a serious problem. The previous year, Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina, chemists at the University of California, Irvine, had published a scientific paper warning that human-generated CFCs could cause serious harm to Earth's protective ozone layer. They warned that the loss of ozone would significantly increase the amount of skin-damaging ultraviolet UV-B light reaching the surface, greatly increasing skin cancer and cataracts. The loss of stratospheric ozone could also significantly cool the stratosphere, potentially causing destructive climate change. Although no stratospheric ozone loss had been observed yet, CFCs should be banned, they said. The CFC industry hired Hill and Knowlton to fight back. As is essential in any Manufactured Doubt campaign, Hill and Knowlton found a respected scientist to lead the effort--noted British scientist Richard Scorer, a former editor of the International Journal of Air Pollution and author of several books on pollution. In 1975, Scorer went on a month-long PR tour, blasting Molina and Rowland, calling them "doomsayers", and remarking, "The only thing that has been accumulated so far is a number of theories." To complement Scorer's efforts, Hill and Knowlton unleashed their standard package of tricks learned from decades of serving the tobacco industry:

• Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.
• Predict dire economic consequences, and ignore the cost benefits.
• Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don't publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.
• Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.
• Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.
• Use data from a local area to support your views, and ignore the global evidence.
• Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.
• Disparage environmentalists, claiming they are hyping environmental problems in order to further their ideological goals.
• Complain that it is unfair to require regulatory action in the U.S., as it would put the nation at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.
• Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.
• Argue that it is less expensive to live with the effects.

The campaign worked, and CFC regulations were delayed many years, as Hill and Knowlton boasted in internal documents. The PR firm also took credit for keeping public opinion against buying CFC aerosols to a minimum, and helping change the editorial positions of many newspapers.

In the end, Hill and Knowlton's PR campaign casting doubt on the science of ozone depletion by CFCs turned out to have no merit. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995. The citation from the Nobel committee credited them with helping to deliver the Earth from a potential environmental disaster.

The battle over global warming

In 1988, the fossil fuel industry realized it had a serious problem. The summer of 1988 had shattered century-old records for heat and drought in the U.S., and NASA's Dr. James Hansen, one of the foremost climate scientists in the world, testified before Congress that human-caused global warming was partially to blame. A swelling number of scientific studies were warning of the threat posed by human-cause climate change, and that consumption of fossil fuels needed to slow down. Naturally, the fossil fuel industry fought back. They launched a massive PR campaign that continues to this day, led by the same think tanks that worked to discredit the ozone depletion theory. The George C. Marshall Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been key players in both fights, and there are numerous other think tanks involved. Many of the same experts who had worked hard to discredit the science of the well-established link between cigarette smoke and cancer, the danger the CFCs posed to the ozone layer, and the dangers to health posed by a whole host of toxic chemicals, were now hard at work to discredit the peer-reviewed science supporting human-caused climate change.

As is the case with any Manufactured Doubt campaign, a respected scientist was needed to lead the battle. One such scientist was Dr. Frederick Seitz, a physicist who in the 1960s chaired the organization many feel to be the most prestigious science organization in the world--the National Academy of Sciences. Seitz took a position as a paid consultant for R.J. Reynolds tobacco company beginning in 1978, so was well-versed in the art of Manufactured Doubt. According to the excellent new book, Climate Cover-up, written by desmogblog.com co-founder James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, over a 10-year period Seitz was responsible for handing out $45 million in tobacco company money to researchers who overwhelmingly failed to link tobacco to anything the least bit negative. Seitz received over $900,000 in compensation for his efforts. He later became a founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and used his old National Academy of Sciences affiliation to lend credibility to his attacks on global warming science until his death in 2008 at the age of ninety-six. It was Seitz who launched the "Oregon Petition", which contains the signatures of more than 34,000 scientists saying global warming is probably natural and not a crisis. The petition is a regular feature of the Manufactured Doubt campaign against human-caused global warming. The petition lists the "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" as its parent organization. According to Climate Cover-up, the Institute is a farm shed situated a couple of miles outside of Cave Junction, OR (population 17,000). The Institute lists seven faculty members, two of whom are dead, and has no ongoing research and no students. It publishes creationist-friendly homeschooler curriculums books on surviving nuclear war. The petition was sent to scientists and was accompanied by a 12-page review printed in exactly the same style used for the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A letter from Seitz, who is prominently identified as a former National Academy of Sciences president, accompanied the petition and review. Naturally, many recipients took this to be an official National Academy of Sciences communication, and signed the petition as a result. The National Academy issued a statement in April 2008, clarifying that it had not issued the petition, and that its position on global warming was the opposite. The petition contains no contact information for the signers, making it impossible to verify. In its August 2006 issue, Scientific American presented its attempt to verify the petition. They found that the scientists were almost all people with undergraduate degrees, with no record of research and no expertise in climatology. Scientific American contacted a random sample of 26 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to have a Ph.D. in a climate related science. Eleven said they agreed with the petition, six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember the petition, one had died, and five did not respond.

I could say much more about the Manufactured Doubt campaign being waged against the science of climate change and global warming, but it would fill an entire book. In fact, it has, and I recommend reading Climate Cover-up to learn more. The main author, James Hoggan, owns a Canadian public relations firm, and is intimately familiar with how public relations campaigns work. Suffice to say, the Manufactured Doubt campaign against global warming--funded by the richest corporations in world history--is probably the most extensive and expensive such effort ever. We don't really know how much money the fossil fuel industry has pumped into its Manufactured Doubt campaign, since they don't have to tell us. The website exxonsecrets.org estimates that ExxonMobil alone spent $20 million between 1998 - 2007 on the effort. An analysis done by Desmogblog's Kevin Grandia done in January 2009 found that skeptical global warming content on the web had doubled over the past year. Someone is paying for all that content.

Lobbyists, not skeptical scientists

The history of the Manufactured Doubt industry provides clear lessons in evaluating the validity of their attacks on the published peer-reviewed climate change science. One should trust that the think tanks and allied "skeptic" bloggers such as Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit and Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That will give information designed to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, there are respected scientists with impressive credentials that these think tanks use to voice their views, but these scientists have given up their objectivity and are now working as lobbyists. I don't like to call them skeptics, because all good scientists should be skeptics. Rather, the think tanks scientists are contrarians, bent on discrediting an accepted body of published scientific research for the benefit of the richest and most powerful corporations in history. Virtually none of the "sound science" they are pushing would ever get published in a serious peer-reviewed scientific journal, and indeed the contrarians are not scientific researchers. They are lobbyists. Many of them seem to believe their tactics are justified, since they are fighting a righteous war against eco-freaks determined to trash the economy.

I will give a small amount of credit to some of their work, however. I have at times picked up some useful information from the contrarians, and have used it to temper my blogs to make them more balanced. For example, I no longer rely just on the National Climatic Data Center for my monthly climate summaries, but instead look at data from NASA and the UK HADCRU source as well. When the Hurricane Season of 2005 brought unfounded claims that global warming was to blame for Hurricane Katrina, and a rather flawed paper by researchers at Georgia Tech showing a large increase in global Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, I found myself agreeing with the contrarians' analysis of the matter, and my blogs at the time reflected this.

The contrarians and the hacked CRU emails

A hacker broke into an email server at the Climate Research Unit of the UK's University of East Anglia last week and posted ten years worth of private email exchanges between leading scientists who've published research linking humans to climate change. Naturally, the contrarians have seized upon this golden opportunity, and are working hard to discredit several of these scientists. You'll hear claims by some contrarians that the emails discovered invalidate the whole theory of human-caused global warming. Well, all I can say is, consider the source. We can trust the contrarians to say whatever is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view. Rather, I see dedicated scientists attempting to make the truth known in face of what is probably the world's most pervasive and best-funded disinformation campaign against science in history. Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change--which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines--is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.

Exaggerated claims by environmentalists

Climate change contrarians regularly complain about false and misleading claims made by ideologically-driven environmental groups regarding climate change, and the heavy lobbying these groups do to influence public opinion. Such efforts confuse the real science and make climate change seem more dangerous than it really is, the contrarians argue. To some extent, these concerns are valid. In particular, environmentalists are too quick to blame any perceived increase in hurricane activity on climate change, when such a link has yet to be proven. While Al Gore's movie mostly had good science, I thought he botched the treatment of hurricanes as well, and the movie looked too much like a campaign ad. In general, environmental groups present better science than the think tanks do, but you're still better off getting your climate information directly from the scientists doing the research, via the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Another good source is Bob Henson's Rough Guide to Climate Change, aimed at people with high-school level science backgrounds.

Let's look at the amount of money being spent on lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry compared to environmental groups to see their relative influence. According to Center for Public Integrity, there are currently 2,663 climate change lobbyists working on Capitol Hill. That's five lobbyists for every member of Congress. Climate lobbyists working for major industries outnumber those working for environmental, health, and alternative energy groups by more than seven to one. For the second quarter of 2009, here is a list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity of all the oil, gas, and coal mining groups that spent more than $100,000 on lobbying (this includes all lobbying, not just climate change lobbying):

Chevron $6,485,000
Exxon Mobil $4,657,000
BP America $4,270,000
ConocoPhillips $3,300,000
American Petroleum Institute $2,120,000
Marathon Oil Corporation $2,110,000
Peabody Investments Corp $1,110,000
Bituminous Coal Operators Association $980,000
Shell Oil Company $950,000
Arch Coal, Inc $940,000
Williams Companies $920,000
Flint Hills Resources $820,000
Occidental Petroleum Corporation $794,000
National Mining Association $770,000
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $714,000
Devon Energy $695,000 Sunoco $585,000
Independent Petroleum Association of America $434,000
Murphy Oil USA, Inc $430,000
Peabody Energy $420,000
Rio Tinto Services, Inc $394,000
America's Natural Gas Alliance $300,000
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $290,000
El Paso Corporation $261,000 Spectra Energy $279,000
National Propane Gas Association $242,000
National Petrochemical & Refiners Association $240,000
Nexen, Inc $230,000
Denbury Resources $200,000
Nisource, Inc $180,000
Petroleum Marketers Association of America $170,000
Valero Energy Corporation $160,000
Bituminous Coal Operators Association $131,000
Natural Gas Supply Association $114,000
Tesoro Companies $119,000

Here are the environmental groups that spent more than $100,000:

Environmental Defense Action Fund $937,500
Nature Conservancy $650,000
Natural Resources Defense Council $277,000
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund $243,000
National Parks and Conservation Association $175,000
Sierra Club $120,000
Defenders of Wildlife $120,000
Environmental Defense Fund $100,000

If you add it all up, the fossil fuel industry outspent the environmental groups by $36.8 million to $2.6 million in the second quarter, a factor of 14 to 1. To be fair, not all of that lobbying is climate change lobbying, but that affects both sets of numbers. The numbers don't even include lobbying money from other industries lobbying against climate change, such as the auto industry, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Corporate profits vs. corporate social responsibility

I'm sure I've left the impression that I disapprove of what the Manufactured Doubt industry is doing. On the contrary, I believe that for the most part, the corporations involved have little choice under the law but to protect their profits by pursuing Manufactured Doubt campaigns, as long as they are legal. The law in all 50 U.S. states has a provision similar to Maine's section 716, "The directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interest of the corporation and of the shareholders". There is no clause at the end that adds, "...but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates, or the dignity of employees". The law makes a company's board of directors legally liable for "breach of fiduciary responsibility" if they knowingly manage a company in a way that reduces profits. Shareholders can and have sued companies for being overly socially responsible, and not paying enough attention to the bottom line. We can reward corporations that are managed in a socially responsible way with our business and give them incentives to act thusly, but there are limits to how far Corporate Socially Responsibility (CSR) can go. For example, car manufacturer Henry Ford was successfully sued by stockholders in 1919 for raising the minimum wage of his workers to $5 per day. The courts declared that, while Ford's humanitarian sentiments about his employees were nice, his business existed to make profits for its stockholders.

[Man, this is a great point, and one I've made before: corporations are not moral or immoral, they are amoral. And that's by law. If we want more ethical or "kinder" corporations, we need to pass laws to make it happen, otherwise Shareholder Value rules. -- J]

So, what is needed is a fundamental change to the laws regarding the purpose of a corporation, or new regulations forcing corporations to limit Manufactured Doubt campaigns. Legislation has been introduced in Minnesota to create a new section of law for an alternative kind of corporation, the SR (Socially Responsible) corporation, but it would be a long uphill battle to get such legislation passed in all 50 states. Increased regulation limiting Manufactured Doubt campaigns is possible to do for drugs and hazardous chemicals--Doubt is Their Product has some excellent suggestions on that, with the first principle being, "use the best science available; do not demand certainty where it does not and cannot exist". However, I think such legislation would be difficult to implement for environmental crises such as global warming. In the end, we're stuck with the current system, forced to make critical decisions affecting all of humanity in the face of the Frankenstein monster our corporate system of law has created--the most vigorous and well-funded disinformation campaign against science ever conducted.