The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market / Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, NY: Bloomsbury Pub., 2023

 In 2010, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway released The Merchants of Doubt, an account of the actions of the fossil fuel industry and their agents to sow doubt in the public mind about the reality and danger of climate change.  Their book had a powerful effect on how the public understands the politics of climate policy, and it set the stage for numerous legal actions to hold the "merchants of doubt" responsible for the current and accumulating harms of climate change.  Law suits are slowing making their way through state courts around the country.  If these cases succeed, the transition toward a clean and reliable energy economy will be much accelerated.

Among the questions raised by The Merchants of Doubt was how four scientists, who were the leading figures challenging climate action, could deny the scientific consensus regarding the fact and danger of climate change.  Oreskes and Conway concluded that they were entranced by the ideology of "the free market."  How did this ideology become so powerful?  The Big Myth provides a powerful case that it was the result of a decades-long public relations effort by American business and industrial associations.

The propaganda effort began in the early decades of the 20th century when the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), founded in 1895, fought progressive era regulations to restrict child labor, establish workers' compensation relief systems, and empower unionization.  They were, of course ultimately unsuccessful, but their opposition demonstrated the necessity of government regulation to protect the interests of ordinary citizens from exploitation by business and industrial elites. 

Later, in the 1920s, the nation's privately owned electrical grids were failing to bring electricity to rural areas.  This led to a drive for "rural electrification" legislation that would create a rational electrical grid system serving urban and rural regions alike.  The effort was opposed by the National Electric Light Association (NELA), an association of electric utilities founded in 1885 and which later became the Edison Electric Institute.  NELA was successful until New Deal legislation finally established the Rural Electrification Administration and imposed regulations to expand access to electricity.  Here we see government action, as opposed to unregulated market forces, being responsible for creating the conditions for expanded economic prosperity.

The danger of regulations, unionization, and government planning alleged by NAM and NELA was, of course, said to be the slippery slope leading to socialism.  They argued that once government intrudes in one sector of life, it will inevitably intrude in every sector.  Oreskes and Conway point out that this reveals the false dilemma that lay behind the propaganda: economies must either be laissez faire or entirely controlled by a central authority.  The business propagandists never acknowledged that there are countless ways to organize an economy between these two poles.  

Despite the massive market failure that produced the Great Depression, business and industry lobbyists doubled down on their commitment to unregulated capitalism and resisted New Deal efforts to restore economic stability and security.  Out of this, NAM developed what Oreskes and Conway call the "indivisibility thesis," i.e., that political, religious, and economic freedom were "indivisible."  This meant any assault on the prerogatives of the private sector was also (or ultimately) an assault on political and religious freedom.  Later, this "tripod of freedom" was boiled down simply to the inseparability of "democracy" and "free enterprise," though Billy Graham continued to promote a connection between religious freedom and "free markets."  

Business leaders created several organizations, most notably NAM's National Industrial Information Council (NIIC).  These organizations were established to propagandize in favor of unregulated capitalism.  Edward Bernays, the founder of modern public relations, was enlisted for support. The NIIC played a major role in the the campaign to shape public opinion through films, slide shows, newspaper advertisements, direct mail, billboards, posters, pamphlets, window displays, and other media.  In the late 1930s, NAM produced an extremely popular radio program, The American Family Robinson, which promoted "free market" fundamentalism.  In the 1940s and 1950s, NAM, with the assistance of Hollywood, was responsible for numerous films and news reels.

Also in the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder was publishing her "little house" books, particularly Little House on the Prairie.  These books contained an intentional and not-so-well-disguised severe libertarian message.  The message was in large part due to the editorial influence of Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.  Lane is considered among the three most important founders of the modern libertarian movement, along with Ayn Rand and Isabelle Paterson or "the three furies" as William F. Buckley dubbed them.

Oreskes and Conway also provide an interesting account of General Electric's television series General Electric Theatre, hosted by Ronald Reagan.  General Electric Theatre, airing weekly from 1953-1962, provided well-produced and engaging stories that promoted unregulated capitalism.  Reagan's involvement with the program is widely recognized as what transformed him from a supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal to the "anti-government" ideologue that he became.  

Much of the public relations efforts on behalf of unregulated capitalism came from business interests.  As this would easily be seen as self-serving, business leaders sought academic economists to give their ideology independent credibility.  Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman served this purpose.  The careers of each were made possible by financial support from libertarian business interests despite strong opposition from the profession.  It is noteworthy, though, that the economic views of each were far less austere than how they were promoted by their patrons.  For example, Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom, was republished in a dumbed-down version in Reader's Digest in 1945, where any recognition of the important role of government in economic affairs was edited out.  A similar redaction of pro-government passages in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was done by George Stigler for the University of Chicago Press in 1957.

One reoccurring theme in The Big Myth is that claims that a "free market" will better provide for economic prosperity and general social well-being are belied by the historical facts.  Instead, the unregulated capitalism has led to numerous significant market failures (especially the climate crisis), and that nearly all of the material and technological advances that make our lives safe and comfortable today have been the result of either direct government action or public-private partnerships initiated by the public sector.  Oreskes and Conway make a powerful case that the popular admiration of "free markets" is a product of special business and industrial interests working for their private gain without regard for the well-being of workers and consumers.   

The Big Myth is a massive work (565 pages, including bibliography and index).  This review provides only a slim sample of the history of the "free market" propaganda that has shaped so much of our discourse today.  It is a brilliant, extensive study that deserves anyone's attention who is interested in the controversies over the present day organization of our political and economic institutions.   

Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists as the Earth Heated Up / Raymond S. Bradley -- Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011

In 1998, the journal Nature published an article by Michael Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes (MBH).  It included a graph that showed a recent, steep rise in the Earth's surface temperature.   The article presented evidence that the recent temperature was as high as it has been since the fifteenth century.  In 1999, the journal Geophysical Research Letters published another paper by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes that extended the data back to 1000 A.D.  In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, included their graph in its third Assessment Report.  While the graph illustrated only one piece of research that supported the claim that the Earth's climate was rapidly changing, it was a striking "infographic" which helped to focus attention on the developing climate crisis.  It also triggered a surprising backlash from conservative pundits and politicians.  Global Warming and Political Intimidation is Raymond Bradley's account of the ensuing controversy over the MBH or "hockey stick" graph.

From time to time, conservative pundits and politicians seize upon a minor error, a cautious qualification, or a poorly phrased statement made by climate scientists to discredit the growing body of research that has demonstrated that our climate is changing at a catastrophic rate.  Their attacks also are sometimes tied to the work of a small number of contrarian scientists or others with vaguely related academic credentials.  In this instance, the excuse for criticism of the MBH graph came from an article written by Stephen McIntyre (an economist) and Ross McKitrick (a mathematician).  Their article was initially published in an obscure journal Energy & Environment and latter published in Geophysical Research Letters, though GRL did not apply its normal review process before publishing the article.

Since then, MM's critique has been shown to be unfounded, but it was sufficient to prompt the Wall Street Journal to publish an article making reference to the critique.  This, in turn, prompted two conservative congressional representatives to Joe Barton, chair of the House Energy Committee, and Ed Whitfield, chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, to write letters to Mann, Bradley, and Hughes asking for an enormous amount of information related to their research and its financial support, not just for their 1998 Nature paper, but for all the work they had conducted in the course of their career.  Clearly, a frivolous investigation was now underway, aimed at obstructing their work and possibly smearing their scientific reputations.  It was comparable to a lawyer's massive discovery motion aimed at burdening the opposing litigants. 

In the end, Mann, Bradley, and Hughes were able to avoid the worst  possible outcomes of this partisan governmental intrusion into science,  because the Republican chair of the House Committee on Science, Sherwood Boerlert, objected to Barton and Whitfield's harassment of scientists.  The standoff between powerful Republicans was widely covered in the national and foreign press and eventually led to the National Academy of Science investigating the issue and larger issues related to climate change research.  Unsurprisingly, the National Academy of Science found the MBH graph supported by "an array of evidence."  Barton continued to harass Mann, Bradley, and Hughes over the graph, but the real threats to their work were largely over.

This incident is merely one of many efforts by the climate crisis deniers to attack the scientist who are working to understand the dangers we face with the continued pollution of our atmosphere with greenhouse gases.  While it is quite valuable to read Bradley's insider account of the "hockey stick" debate, one is left wishing he had included more information about other incidents.  He does provide some detail on the theft of emails from several climate scientists (most prominently Phil Jones) that were made public just prior to the Copenhagen UN climate summit in 2009.  Bradley also briefly describes the harassment of Ben Santer, the lead author of Chapter 8 of the second IPCC Assessment Report (1996). Chapter 8 focused on the causes of climate change.  Its qualified conclusions were that "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate."  We now know this beyond any doubt, but this was one of the first times that anthropogenic climate change was so publicly endorsed.  The reaction was swift and ruthless from the carbon industry lobbyists and libertarian bloggers.  Santer's work was said to be the result of a "corruption of the peer-review process."  Fortunately for Santer, the criticisms did not result in governmental harassment as occurred in the "hockey stick" and stolen email affairs and the overwhelming evidence of the human impact on the climate has made his critics look utterly foolish, but not before causing him a great deal of headache and unnecessary distraction.

It is commendable perhaps that Bradley sticks to his first hand experiences with his Nature graph, but asking Jones and Santer to give him a brief account of their experiences that he could fold into his book would have helped establish his main argument that partisan political intrusions into the conduct of science is common and significant and that in order for public policy on climate change to be based on an accurate understanding of the physical world, we must insist that politicians stay out of the scientific debates.  We must allow the tried and true methods of scientific enquiry to light our way toward solutions to our mounting environmental problems.

Bradley's book is a welcome contribution to understanding how politics is interfering with science.  Perhaps the best book on this subject,however, is Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway (reviewed in this blog).

Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate / George Lakoff -- White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2004

In 1996, linguist George Lakoff published Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think in which he presented his theory that American politics is driven by two models of the family: the Strict Father Model and the Nurturing Parent Model. These models serve as frames for how conservatives and liberals respectively think, not just about family life, but also politics and other spheres of life. Lakoff argues that conservatives have implicitly recognized that emphasizing the values inherent in the Strict Father Model reinforces voters' tendency to employ these values when thinking about politics. After following this strategy for four decades, conservatives have established in the electorate a way of thinking about politics that prevents voters from accepting (and sometimes even understanding) the policies advanced by liberals.

Following the election of George W. Bush in 2000, a number of liberal activists began taking Lakoff seriously, helping him travel the country to talk about "framing" issues inside a liberal value system. By 2004, Lakoff published Don't Think of an Elephant to serve as "short and informal...practical guide both for citizen activists and for anyone with a serious interest in politics." Lakeoff hoped to equip liberals with an understanding of how to change the way in which political discourse is framed and thereby create a resurgent progressive movement. His book quickly showed up on best seller lists around the country.

On the surface, the basic thesis seems interesting and perhaps reasonable. Furthermore, Lakoff's ability to connect the values he identifies in the two family models to politics and public policy issues deepens his thesis. The values residing in the two family models have strong affinity to values that can be identified in various policy positions and they seem to bring together exactly those issues that constitute the constellations of conservative and liberal views. Finally, it is quite reasonable to think that our upbringing is central to our way of thinking and that specific values about families -- learned at an early age -- will play a dominant role in our thinking. No doubt there is very much to Lakoff's thesis; however, closer examination indicates that he is likely overstating the causative role that the family model plays in determining how Americans vote.

Lakoff's thesis could be tested were we able to replace our two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Currently, our political system nearly ensures that voters will only have two choices on the ballot, particularly because which ever candidate wins a plurality usually is elected to office. Moreover, restrictive ballot access laws frequently prevent independents and third parties from appearing on the ballot at all. This makes voting for anyone but a member of one of two major parties seem fruitless. Under these circumstances, voters, motivated by very different values and ideologies, are forced to join into a heterogeneous coalition to elect the candidate they find least objectionable. If there were more candidates on the ballot and if we had proportional representation in our legislatures, then these forced coalitions would quickly break up and the real factors motivating various voters would be more apparent.

Lakoff does not test his theory with this thought experiment. Instead, he looks at the two political coalitions and constructs a theory that best connects their various ideological elements and then declares that his theory explains the driving force behind the coalitions. It is more likely that the values making up the two family models are a rhetorical intersection views -- a least common denominator that appeals to a large percentage of the disparate members of the conservative or liberal coalitions. Without the need to motivate the disparate elements of the coalitions, these values would not stand out and many of them would be disregarded, if not openly attacked, by the various partners in the coalition as they go their separate ways.

Perhaps the most significant divide within the Republican Party is, of course, between social conservatives and libertarians. The idea that their views grow out of the same set of values is almost preposterous. Within the Democratic Party, the labor elements and the environmentalist elements would hardly seem to be natural partners, except that they both oppose capitalist drive to make large profits for shareholders at the expense of all else. It is much easier to explain the motives of the elements in the two major political coalitions by appealing to more obvious interests that they do not share.

To be fair, the foregoing criticism perhaps assumes that Lakoff's thesis is more ambitious than it is. A more charitable reading of his thesis is not that the values of the two model families explain the current political coalitions, but that given the legal framework ensuring two parties, appealing to values of the model families are the most effective way of mobilizing the coalitions. Certainly Lakoff has recognized a powerful rhetorical tool used by the Republican coalition. The values described in Strict Father Model of the family clearly resonate across many segments of the political right and Lakoff explicitly is calling on liberals to employ similar countervailing tactics. The "guidebook" features of Lakoff's work show striking similarities to memos by Republican framing strategist Frank Luntz.

The material in Don't Think of an Elephant appears in a more expanded form on the Web site of Lakoff's think tank, the Rockridge Institute; however, while still maintaining the Web site, Rockridge has folded for lack of funding. This is very telling. Lakoff's argues that framing issues in a progressive way is essential to a liberal renaissance in politics and while he recognizes the advantage that rich funding sources give to conservatives, he doesn't seem to acknowledge their overwhelming importance. This, along with is failure to recognize the true motivating forces behind the conservative and liberal agendas shows that his perspective on politics is overly ideological. A more accurate analysis will explore the material and economic forces at work in American politics.

Heaven and Earth / Ian Plimer -- Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2009

A propaganda war is in full swing over the facts of, effects of, and responses to climate change. Anyone interested in how the public understanding of any topic, particularly scientific topics, can hardly witness the struggle dispassionately. Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth stands as a major offensive by the "skeptical" forces. Close analysis reveals that it is, however, a paper tiger, but in a propaganda war, a paper tiger can be just as dangerous as a real one, if it is not effectively countered.

Heaven and Earth is ostensibly a well-referenced tome packed with scientific observations and conclusion, but upon closer examination, its credibility becomes suspect. Most obvious of all is Plimer's numerous graphs and illustration. They are poorly presented, often unintelligible, unreferenced, and unexplained by the surrounding text. Next most obvious is the lack of references for important claims. One frequently is provided with supporting references for tangential and uncontroversial claims, but when a claim that is critical to Plimer's argument is presented, it usually rests only on Plimer's authority. In the rare instances when it does receive a citation, it often refers to studies that have been discredited by subsequent research.

As early as the third chapter, one gets the general picture: Heaven and Earth is faux research. It has all the trappings of a scientific monograph, without any real substance. It is a blizzard of unrelated facts about earth science, some of which can be employed to give the appearance of an argument against one or another conclusion that has been established by legitimate scientific research. One might be tempted to do more than sample the remaining chapters to look for a change in the tone or substance, but fortunately others have provided a detailed critical examination of the work. This can be found at http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91. The critique is edited by Ian G. Enting of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems at the University of Melbourne. Conscientiously sampling the remaining chapters of Heaven and Earth and cross checking the criticism assembled by Ian Enting is enough to verify that the first three chapters are fully representative of the whole of the book.

The main question one is left with is why such a work would be written and published in the first place. Simply examining the source of and seeking the motives for the work is, of course, not enough to credit or discredit it, but once it has been discredited on scientific grounds, an examination of its source and motives provides insight into its role in the propaganda war.

Plimer is a geologist closely associated with the mining and energy industry, working for or sitting on the board of directors for at least four companies. He is also promoted by the Heartland Institute, the mission of which is "to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies."

While it is not immediately evident that these are Plimer's motives in publishing Heaven and Earth, Plimer's perspectives on economics and government are made clear enough and are in line with the Heartland Institute. Plimer appears to be a willing spokesperson for politically and economically motivated interest groups that need someone to give the appearance of scientific support for claims that have been discredited among the vast majority of working scientists. The shoddiness of Plimer's Heaven and Earth is clear enough to any mildly skeptical reader. It naturally leads one to question the motives of its author and anyone promoting it.

Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand / Haydn Washington and John Cook -- London: Earthscan, 2011

In recent years, a number of books have been published exposing the corporate-sponsored cottage industry that is challenging the conclusions of climate science. See, for example, James Hoggan's Climate Cover Up and Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway's Merchants of Doubt. Haydn Washington and John Cook's Climate Change Denial is clearly within this genre. Indeed, much of its research relies on the work of these other books. It does, however, take an important step beyond the critiques of the denial industry by inquiring into the psychology of denial and by noting the extent to which our entire culture is in denial about the consequences of climate change.

The first chapter distinguishes denial from skepticism and attributes the former to those who reject the fact or significance of climate change. It attributes the latter to the scientific community which increasingly is warning us about the dangers of climate change. The second chapter provides the mandatory outline of the conclusions of climate science. Chapters three and four recount various forms of denial and the history of the denial industry. The work is fine, but the two books mentioned above provide greater detail. A great deal of space is devoted to criticizing Ian Plimer's 2009 book Heaven and Earth. Washington and Cook begin by noting that it is tempting to dismiss Plimer's book out of hand, and after a cursory examination of it, this option does not seem unreasonable; however, Washington and Cook believe the work has become too important within the denial industry to ignore. Their critique is trenchant, without becoming mired in detail.

Chapters five through seven are, however, the most important of the book, though not necessarily the most well-written. In these chapters, Washington and Cook take up the social, political, and psychological questions as to why the denial industry's public relations efforts have been so successful in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary. The answers, roughly put, are that we have allowed the denial industry to get away with too many distortions and falsehoods and that we ourselves have fallen prey to a form of denial they call "implicatory denial."

The necessary response is to recognize that we are all -- to some extent -- in denial about the consequences of climate change. Washington and Cook exhort us to "Accept reality!" and begin acting to transform our lifestyles in ways that will reduce our carbon footprint. Furthermore, we need to acknowledge that our politicians will do nothing about the pending catastrophe until we force them to act. We must not be content with nice sounding policy statements and instead demand concrete actions that will reduce the world's carbon emissions. In particular, we must find a way to put a price on carbon so that there is an incentive to conserve and so that alternative energies can become more competitive.

In chapter seven, Washington and Cook discuss six alternative energy sources that don't emit significant amounts of carbon. They make valuable references to other books that discuss these alternatives in greater detail. They go on to discuss two more very controversial non-carbon alternatives: nuclear power and the technology to capture and sequester the carbon that results from coal fired power plants. Washington and Cook are critical of both, claiming that they will not quickly and significantly reduce carbon emissions. They also note the dangers that these technologies pose. In the same vein, they warn against geoengineering.

If we take Washington and Cook's advice and accept that the pending climate catastrophe requires action, we still need to be careful about assessing the extent of the danger and the consequences of our actions to address the problems of climate change. It is here that the environmentalist community must come to terms with the role of nuclear power, carbon capture and sequestration, and geoengineering projects. A number of writers concerned about climate change, particularly, James Hansen and George Monbiot, look favorably on some of these options which probably reflects their concerns about reaching a "tipping point" with regard to climate change. As such a future is not at all impossible, it seems prudent not to summarily reject options for reducing carbon emissions; however, Washington and Cook correctly recognize that the dangers these options pose are extreme. If it is prudent not to rule out extremely dangerous measures, then it is even more prudent to re-double our efforts to bring about not just a low carbon society, but a low energy society. Much can be gained by returning to lifestyles where the quality of life is not dependent upon the profligate energy consumption of the last one hundred years.

Merchants of Doubt / Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway -- N.Y.: Bloomsbury Press, 2010

If I were to nominate a "Book of the Year," it would certainly be Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Their history of "how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming" is timely and important.

Meticulously researched, Merchants of Doubt traces the formation and development of a contrarian cabal of scientists. Funded by commercial interest groups, these scientists implemented a concerted strategy to discredit scientific research that might lead to the regulation of industry. In some instances, the effort led to the defamation of the scientists behind the research.

Four names stand out in the origins of the effort: Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg, Fred Seitz, and Fred Singer. All were physicists who had worked on important defense projects during the Cold War and all were ardent anti-communists. Two of their early efforts to affect the public debate surrounding scientific conclusions were the defense of the tobacco industry and the defense of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.

In the 1960s, Seitz led the effort (paid for by the tobacco industry) to sew doubt on the connection between tobacco and cancer, despite the industry's full knowledge that smoking caused cancer. This was done through the "Council for Tobacco Research," formerly the "Tobacco Industry Research Council," which had been renamed to avoid its obvious connection to the tobacco industry. Seitz was following the footsteps of C.C. Little whose work for the tobacco industry also attempted to sew doubt about the dangers of smoking. There is "no proof" served as the public relations mantra of the industry and it was lent credibility by a small number of scientists on their payroll. Eventually, they could delay public acceptance of the science no longer. Tobacco was regulated and the industry was convicted of racketeering.

Robert Jastrow lead the effort to promote the perception that a space-based anti-ballistic missile system would not only be possible, but would ensure the safety of the public, adopting the premise that a nuclear war was winnable. This effort pitted him against Carl Sagan whose research with four other scientists suggested that even a limited nuclear exchange would plunge the world into a "nuclear winter." Later research suggested that the consequences would not be a severe as Sagan et al. thought, but they would be sufficient to destroy global food production. So contrary to Jastrow's claims, a nuclear war could not be won. Nonetheless, Jastrow pressed his claims by creating the George C. Marshall Institute, with Fred Seitz as the founding chair. In the end, not only has it been accepted that a limited nuclear war would have dire consequences for the planet's ecosystem and vital global economy, but that the possibility of a workable space-based nuclear defense shield is a fantasy.

As the debate over the Strategic Defense Initiative wound down, one participant in the debate, William Nierenberg, co-founder of the Marshall Institute, was appointed by President Reagan to chair the Acid Rain Peer Review Panel, charged with reviewing the results of U.S.-Canadian research on acid rain. His panel included Fred Singer who was suggested to him by the White House. Nierenberg's panel recommended significant reductions in sulfur emissions to control acid rain; however, after showing the draft to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Nierenberg returned the report to the committee with changes that significantly reduced the level of confidence in the danger of sulfur emissions.

More amazingly, Fred Singer, charged with writing the final chapter, could not draft anything that the other eight members of the committee could accept. Still, Singer's chapter became an appendix that completely rejected the force of the Panel's report. To top it off, at the behest of the OSTP, Neirenberg attached -- without the consent of the committee -- an executive summary which belied the report's conclusions. These changes confused the public reception of the panel's conclusions, resulting in significant misunderstandings of the science of acid rain.

After leaving the Acid Rain Peer Review Panel, Fred Singer, supported by the Marshall Institute, began promoting a counter narrative to the science establishing the depletion of ozone by CFCs. He was joined in this by Fred Seitz and Patrick Michael, an agricultural climatologist who would later participate in casting doubt on the effects of green house gasses on the climate. The counter narrative to ozone depletion once again stressed the uncertainty of the science, despite the fact that the relationship had been firmly established among the experts in the field.

Beginning in 1998, Fred Seitz and, shortly after, Fred Singer took up the cause of discrediting the dangers of second hand smoke on behalf of the tobacco industry. In this effort, the tobacco industry's public relations firm APCO Associates formed The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition led by lobbyist Steven Milloy to help sway public opinion against the conclusions of the EPA which was warning of the dangers of second hand smoke. Milloy and TASSC coined the tag line "junk science" to smear whatever scientific conclusions (or scientists) were the target of their anti-environmentalist campaigns. This tag line is currently being used by Milloy to attack climate science.

By now the basic pattern of attack was well established: find any reason -- even assert demonstrable falsehoods -- to cast doubt on the scientific conclusions that might possibly call for commercial regulations, and make use of non-peer reviewed mass media channels to confuse public opinion.

By 1979, climate science was arriving at the conclusion that green house gasses are a significant threat to the planet's climate. Of all environmental threats, green house gases, particular CO2, strikes at the core of the world's industrial economy. So it is no surprise that the merchants of doubt would quickly turn there guns on climate science and its scientists. The first responses came from economists Tom Shelling and William Nordhaus, but other familiar actors soon joined the fray, particularly William Nierenberg.

In 1988, James Hansen's testimony to Congress asserting empirical evidence of climate change, raised the stakes, and the Marshall Institute responded, enlisting Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg. Singer joined the attack by publishing an article he purported to be co-authored by Roger Revelle, an eminent scientist who had warned the world of the threat of global warming. Singer's article suggested that Revelle had changed his mind about the certainty of global warming, but Revelle's family and closest friends denied that he had changed his mind. Singer appears to have taken advantage of an ailing (indeed dying) octogenarian to advance Singer's own political agenda. Also joining the global warming deniers was Patrick Michaels who previously had risked depleting the ozone by defending CFCs.

Perhaps the most amazing attack of the doubt merchants is a recent attack on Rachel Carson's indictment of DDT in her book Silent Spring. In this instance, the campaign appears to be generated by a number of libertarian think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Hoover Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Oreskes and Conway suggest that attacking Rachel Carson and the long settled debate about the dangers of DDT is a deeply strategic move. They write that if the deniers could effectively suggest that "Carson was wrong, then the shift in orientation [that Silent Spring inaugurated]might have been wrong, too. The contemporary environmental movement could be shown to have been based on a fallacy, and the need for government intervention in the marketplace would be refuted." Whether this is the deniers' intent or not, the campaign against Carson at very least shows the extent to which the merchants of doubt are willing to go to attack environmental science.

With the amazing advance of science and technology, our ability to affect the planet has been significantly increased. Understanding the consequences of those effects is critical to our survival, whether they are various carcinogens, ozone depletion, acid rain, or global warming. Oreskes and Conway have made an unimpeachable case that the ideological agenda of libertarian think tanks and lobbyists and their hired scientists is to discredit whatever scientific research supports regulation. This is a grave threat to the planet and to the quality of our life on it. Oreskes and Conway's expose of these machinations should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand current environmental debates.

Science as a Contact Sport : Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate / Stephen H. Schneider -- Washington D.C.: National Geographic, 2010

While the science related to climate change is becoming more and more refined and firmly established, the political struggle over its acceptance within decision making circles remains troubled. This is due primarily to the economic and political power of industries that are dependent upon the burning of fossil fuels. From the perspective of oil, coal, natural gas, automobile companies, and others, the primary threat is not climate change, but government regulation of their profitable businesses. Consequently, these industries have given financial support to a number of "think tanks" dedicated first of all to libertarian economic policies. In defense of these policies, writers (generally not scientists) have sought to raise doubts about the conclusions coming out of climate science and related disciplines. By throwing in question the emerging scientific conclusions, threatened industries are able to buy time to continue their profit-making activities, regardless of the effects on the planet.

Numerous methods are used to sew doubt. Anomalous results are presented as refutations of well-corroborated hypotheses, lists of so-called experts are compiled to challenge the claim that there is widespread agreement among climate scientists, and in some cases, law suits are filed against scientists to badger them into abandoning their work.

Reports written by libertarian "think tanks" are published by political presses and reproduced on numerous blogs, and occasionally disseminated by conservative newspapers, talk radio, and television stations like FOX News. The result is an "echo chamber" of propaganda that reaches a wide audience.

Stephen Schneider has been intimately involved in confronting and responding to these public relations tactics in defense of the climate science that he has been in part responsible for discovering. As a student in the late 60s and early 70s, Schneider began studying the climate through computer models. His first conclusions were that the climate was cooling, but as climatology improved its observation and methods, he came to understand that the climate is in fact warming. Since then, he has been one of the leading researchers, playing a significant role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report.

In Science as a Contact Sport, Schneider recounts his career in climatology. He is justly proud of several accomplishments, including promoting a system of tiered models for refining climate predictions and establishing an agreement among scientists to quantify ordinary language descriptions of probabilities. What is, however, the most interesting aspect of his book is his accounts of interactions with climate change deniers and the media that enable them. Typically, one does not find accounts of the doing of science mixed with refutations of the claims of climate deniers, but Schneider's smooth passage between both kinds of accounts gives urgency to his science and credibility to his criticism.

While other works are more effective in exposing the deceptions of the climate change deniers (see for example Climate Cover-Up by James Hoggan), none that I have read are so compelling in showing the personal toll that climate change deniers take on responsible scientists. One is left wondering how much more we might understand about the climate if people like Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and Stephen Schneider were not compelled to respond to the groundless, but well-funded attacks from political operatives.

Sadly, Stephen Schneider died just a few weeks ago. It is a blessing that his determination to understand the world and apply this understanding to solve the planet's problems lives on in so many of his colleagues.

Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming / James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore -- Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2009

Two discussions are taking place regarding climate change: one among scientists and another among policy makers. The former is well-advanced and making progress daily. The latter seems mostly mired in conflict and confusion. James Hoggan's book Climate Cover-Up sheds light on why there is such a lack of progress in the policy discussion -- why there has been little progress toward adopting sensible public policies regarding climate change. With the perspective of a public relations professional with decades of experience, Hoggan identifies and describes several sophisticated public relations campaigns designed to block needed mitigation policies and stall the policy debate.

The great majority of climate scientists accept the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This should come as no surprise, since the mandate of the IPCC is to review and report on the conclusions drawn by the great majority of climate scientists. It is, of course, possible that the IPCC misunderstands -- and so is misreporting -- the state of knowledge among climate scientists, but the breadth and detail of the IPCC's review of the literature makes this unlikely.

Certainly, there is no comparable study that suggests something different from the IPCC's reports. Indeed, the only other literature review of this kind, conducted by Naomi Oreskes and published in Science (2004), confirms the IPCC's summation of the views of climate scientists. Broadly speaking, the scientific conclusions are that the planet is warming quickly, that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are the primary cause of this warming, and that we will face serious problems if we do not significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that we are pouring into the atmosphere.

In the face of this, governments around the world have done little. Some have made promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the promises of the most important emitters (the U.S. and China) are not legally binding ones. China's motives are easily understood: industrial development holds the promise of reducing the dire poverty of its citizens, but a more nuanced explanation is needed to account for the reluctance of the U.S. This is where Hoggan's Climate Cover-Up makes a valuable contribution. Hoggan explores the various public relations campaigns designed to confuse the issue and convince the lay public that doubt remains within the scientific community. With public confusion as a backdrop, lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry have been able to block needed governmental actions.

Hoggan's book is packed with revealing accounts of how lawyers, public relations professionals, writers, and libertarian think tank fellows have enlarged minor points of uncertainty, distorted the statements of scientists, and at times, propagated outright falsehoods about the climate. Their goal has not been to refute the scientific research, but to delay the day when the public widely accepts these conclusions and demands governmental action.

One early PR campaign was launched by the Western Fuels Association, a creation of the coal industry, using half a million dollars "to reposition global warming as theory (not fact)." This was done by testing and using advertising slogans selected for their persuasive effectiveness, not their scientific accuracy.

Another significant PR campaign had its origins in the Public Relations firm APCO Worldwide. Philip Morris hired APCO in the early 1990s to discredit the science connecting cigarettes to cancer. To do this APCO Worldwide created a foundation called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). Its stated purpose was to sew doubt among the public that cigarettes cause cancer. To disguise the connection between TASSC and Philip Morris, APCO diversified TASSC by finding other industries that would support TASSC. These included the fossil fuel industry.

But as the effort to protect Philip Morris from medical science became hopeless, APCO began using TASSC to protect the interests of the fossil fuel industry against the emerging conclusions about global warming. The strategy was identical to their effort to save the cigarette industry: convince the public that there is no scientific agreement about climate change and/or that carbon emissions are not responsible for climate change.

A key technique of both the Western Fuels and the APCO campaigns was to amass the names of scientists who they said rejected the conclusions of the IPCC. Hoggan shows how these scientists often were either unqualified to critique the IPCC's reports or were not scientists at all. Frequently, the scientists appearing on these lists were unaware that they had been listed, and when told, they were indignant that their names are being used to advance views that they do not hold.

Hoggan's experience in the public relations industry enables him to reveal the techniques and tactics of many of the most prominent people and groups behind these and other PR campaigns designed to discredit the IPCC and key climate scientists. In Climate Cover-Up Hoggan clearly establishes the connections between the fossil fuels industry and think tanks that support what can only be called a disinformation campaign.

Most critical to the effort is the nexus of mostly libertarian think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Frasier Institute, the Heartland Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, and the Hoover Institution; but foremost among these is the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

These organization do not employ climate scientists. Instead, they publish and re-publish the public relations materials, thereby creating an "echo chamber" that magnifies and reinforces the confusing message. Their writers serve as "expert sources" for conservative media, like Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and Canada's National Post and Calgary Herald, along with other smaller market media, and sometimes in more liberal national media.

The careful exploitation of media is critical. The APCO campaign specifically targeted smaller market media outlets, on the assumption that their message would be more readily received and disseminated. While the markets are small, they are numerous, and collectively, they are large enough to sew sufficient doubt in the public mind to delay mitigation policies. Hoggan is particularly disdainful of the credulousness and/or complicity of media outlets, when the evidence for climate change and the poor credentials of the skeptics are so readily available.

Another tactic is to file law suits against anyone criticizing the actions of the spokespersons of the public relations campaign, regardless of the merits of the suit. In such cases, defendants are often unable to afford to defend themselves and agree to retract their criticisms. In this way, the plaintiff can effectively silence their critics without actually refuting the criticism. Hoggan describes three such cases, but cautions the reader that he can not be certain of the motives of the plaintiffs.

None of this is very surprising. It would be surprising, instead, if powerful industries with a large stake in climate change mitigation policies would stand back and allow public policy to be fashioned in a manner that harmed their interests, particularly when they have in-house public relations departments paid to address just such threats to their profitability. That climate science is demonstrating the links between carbon emissions and our rapidly warming climate only means that the fossil fuel industries must confuse the issue as long as possible to protect their interests, just as the tobacco industry did years ago. It's up to us to see through this and to insist upon public policies that will protect us from the economic, social, political, and environmental catastrophes that are unfolding.