However I’ve been following Al Gore again since he did Inconvenient Truth and I have to say what a remarkable change he’s undergone since his 2000 race and the post election blues when he grew that beard.

we would not be denying the climate crisis; we’d be solving it.

It’s nice to read, but also very sad.

Best,

D

This morning I got up early and read some more of Monbiot’s _Heat_. His ch. 2 on the denial industry is now familiar ground (SEPP, TASSC, Milloy, Seitz and Singer.) It’s striking how much these guys can make doing this stuff. Monbiot points readers to http://www.exxonsecrets.org for background on just how much money Exxon has poured into denialist astroturf front groups. Now maybe the next Big Lie we need to expose and document is the huge P.R. campaign by the not-yet-clean coal industry.

One interesting point Monbiot makes is that the key anti-climate astroturf groups were not *started* at Exxon’s prompting; rather, the tobacco industry went looking for some cover for their specific line of disinformation, and their hired liars hit on the clever plan of building a false front of multiple anti-science agendas all thrown together. The intent seems to have been to allow big tobacco to fund front groups that said more than just “2nd hand smoke doesn’t (necessarily) cause cancer” but that also denied lots of other science at the same time. That might help hide the craven tobacco agenda, suggests Monbiot. One big hit for this approach was to attach climate science. They then got additional money from Exxon, and the astroturf groups multipled and began popping up like weeds as this strategy started to pay off.

I know people who do real grassroots advocacy on health issues, and they struggle to pay the bills. A big ethical issue for them is refusal to accept any donations from drug companies, in order to maintain total independence to say whatever they must and to be free to criticize. Cleary the astroturf tycoons have no such ethical hesitation.

I got to wondering if there is any way to blunt this weapon of mass deception? Tougher financial disclosure rules for activist groups? For people coming to speak to Congress? For people giving “guest editorials” in magazines and newspapers? Of course there’s ample room for money laundering through multi-stage channeling of the oil or coal blood money.

In my view, there is a…ahem…”market” for this sort of thing you decry. There is a segment of society that needs this sort of narrative.

IMHO this is an aspect of human nature where psychologically this narrative is preferred. Being an ecologist, I can absolutely empathize with Aldo Leopold who said “Having an ecological education means living in a world of wounds.”. Some (many) can’t function in such an environment, thus the need for the denial industry. Others look for an excuse for their behavior and look for such a narrative to justify it.

That said, I’m a glass half-full guy (altho it is half-full of groundwater tainted by big ag) and Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”. Meaning: immovable object, irresistible force.

Best,

D

So far, nobody has started.