Tomgram: Michael Klare, Perpetuating the Reign of Carbon
Think of it as the uncertainty principle. By the nature of things, doubt, the unknown, and uncertainty are naturally part of the big picture in science, especially when it comes to creating “models” of the future. As Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway showed in their blockbuster book, Merchants of Doubt, the giant oil companies (following the playbook of Big Tobacco) proved adept at taking advantage of the uncertainty principle to protect their positions as themost profitable corporations in history. They funded a small group of scientists to not quite deny the reality of climate change, but to emphasize the element of doubt in its science, as in all science. Major fossil-fuel producers used their money both to create a network of outright climate deniers and a subtler if no less dismissive attitude toward climate change based on uncertainty. Think of them as the Yo-Yo Ma’s of doubt. And proof of their success at this effort is evident in a new Congress in which few self-respecting Republicans would dare claim (“I’m not a scientist…”) that there’s any reality to human-produced climate change, while the leading “environmental” figure in the party, Senator Jim Inhofe, dismisses the world’s climate scientists as part of a gigantic plot against the free market.
It hardly matters that climate change is, by now, an obvious reality or that the evidence piling up indicates that it will prove devastating for us and the planet unless the burning of fossil fuels is in some way significantly curtailed and most fossil fuel reserves are somehow kept in the ground. And here’s another point not to remember: uncertainty is actually a two-way street. The oil companies, not surprisingly, placed their bet on the direction that headed toward doubt that climate change was a serious issue for humanity. That part of the street is now largely blocked. However, the other direction is unnervingly open — and it leads into uncertainty about whether the effects of climate change will be more devastating than presently predicted by, for instance, the consensus science of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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