DeSmogBlog has just handed out their very first SmogMaker Awards This is the first year for the SmogMaker Awards, honoring those who have subverted honest and forthright public conversation on global warming. Judged by an expert panel of fraudbusters – the staff at the climate change watchdog DeSmogBlog.com – these awards recognize clever, deceptive or merely devious public relations campaigns.
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The Denial Machine
Convenient Untruths
You may have heard that recently someone in the UK challenged a school district in court to try and block them from showing Al Gore’s Oscar winning documentary to the students. This court challenge was based on a set of 9 alleged “errors” in the movie. Well, first of all, it turns out that (unsurprisingly), this court challenge was funded by fossil-fuel industry money. And then the court actually endorsed the movie. And now...
Fred Thompson on Science and Global Warming
I thought that recently announced Republican Presidential Candidate and Law & Order actor Fred Thompson looked like a smart and reasonable guy, but then I read the transcript of his interview with Paul Harvey: Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar...
Oreskes responds to Schulte
Many readers will no doubt know the 2004 paper in Science by historian of science Naomi Oreskes, a paper which discussed the consensus position regarding anthropogenic climate change. Predictably, the paper received much vitriol from the climate contrarians and denialists. Now, a medical researcher (Klaus-Martin Schulte, who appears to be a consultant in endocrine surgery) has claimed that Oreske’s paper is not only outdated but also wrong. This claim has been extensively crowed over...
The Truth About Denial
This article by Sharon Begley in the August 13th edition of Newsweek provides a nice analysis and detailed timeline of the climate denial movement in the USA. It is long, but well worth reading. Here’s an extract: Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being...
You Can’t Spin Mother Nature
Here’s an excellent speech given to the Canadian Public Relations Society’s National Conference by James Hoggan. In this speech, Hoggan does a brilliant job of exposing what some of his cohorts have been doing (confusing the public on important issues like global warming) and the damage it is doing to the reputation of PR Firms. This speech was given in oil-rich Alberta, of all places, and he was expecting a lot of push back....
eXXon caught with fingers crossed, new report
www.DeSmogBlog.com 17 May 07 Despite ExxonMobil’s denials, a report released today by Greenpeace’s ExxonSecrets.org project, reveals that the largest oil company in the world continues to spend millions on a stealth public relations campaign aimed at discrediting global warming science. According to the report, Exxon provided $2.1 million in 2006 to 41 “think” tanks and associations that actively sow doubt about the realities of climate change. Since 1998, ExxonMobil has spent a staggering $23...
Tobacco vs Global Warming
Here’s some excellent video footage showing the Tobacco lobby’s use of tactics to create an impression of confusion around the science. The same PR organizations and so-called scientists (like Fred Singer) are using the very same tactics today to make it look like there is no scientific concensus. Â
Fun with Statistical Correlation
The excellent RealClimate.org website is poking fun at The Great Global Warming Swindle and their manipulation of solar activity vs warming graphs. It’s an entertaining read.
Debunking the “Great Swindle”
Ever since the “Great Global Warming Swindle” came out, some of my contrarian readers have repeatedly pointed to it as proof that Global Warming is a hoax, and I have repeatedly pointed out the producer’s past “swindles”, as well as the lack of credibility of most of the “scientists” they used, and the fact that one of the real scientists was actually sueing them for misrepresentation. Well, two more scientists have stepped forward to...