BOOK REVIEW
March 17, 2011
Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming
Greystone Books (Vancouver, 2009)
William LeFeuvre, University at Buffalo Law School
September 24, 2010
Brief Summary
“Talk of global warming is nearly inescapable these days — but there are
some who believe the concept of climate change is an elaborate hoax.
Despite the input of the world’s leading climate scientists, the urgings of
politicians, and the outcry of many grassroots activists, many Americans
continue to ignore the warning signs of severe climate shifts. How did this
happen? Climate Cover-up seeks to answer this question, describing the
pollsters and public faces who have crafted careful language to refute the
findings of environmental scientists. Exploring the PR techniques, phony
“think tanks,” and funding used to pervert scientific fact, this book serves
as a wake-up call to those who still wish to deny the inconvenient truth.”
What the publisher aptly summarizes in this quote is a fact of which most
Americans are unaware – there is evidence of a sophisticated plot to
undermine the public’s understanding of climate change science, much
like the campaign to cover-up the misdeeds of the tobacco industry.
Climate Cover-Up documents the trail of deception and the think tanks
and funding behind it.
Author James Hoggan, co-founder of DeSmogBlog, president of awardwinning PR firm Hoggan & Associates, and leading authority on public
perceptions of environmental issues, details the campaign to discredit the
scientific consensus on climate change – the history of climate change
science, the pinnacle of scientific consensus, and the people behind the
shift in public perception from believers to deniers.
Facts and Findings
"Climate change skeptics regularly denounce me as a disgrace to
journalism for declining to accept their dogma, which is mostly received
wisdom from sources that I'd trust to evaluate the published science about
as much as I'd trust a plumber to perform open heart surgery.
Nothing against plumbers, mind you. They're just not heart surgeons. And
the economists, statisticians and agenda-driven politicians routinely cited
by the skeptics aren't glaciologists, botanists, biologists, oceanographers,
atmospheric physicists or computer modelling specialists."
This colorful quote by the author sums up neatly the premise of this book.
Most of the global warming deniers on the circuit out, often quoted by
media and politicians, are not climate scientists at all and are not published
in credible scientific journals. These “junk scientists” are mostly paid for
by think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry.
Hoggan begins in the second chapter – The Inconvenient Truth – by
detailing the scientific consensus and what went wrong. He states that by
1988, “[t]he great scientific bodies of the world were concerned, and the
foremost political leaders were engaged. So what happened between now
and then?” (p. 20).
He explains that “with each new experiment, with each new report of the
IPCC, with each new article published in legitimate peer-reviewed
scientific journals, the scientific community became more certain that they
were on the right track” (p. 20).
Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the
University of California, confirmed that statement in the journal Science in
2005. Professor Oreskes searched the ISI Web of Knowledge for refereed
scientific journal articles on global climate change “on the basis of
whether they supported, contradicted, or took no position on the consensus
that the human release of greenhouse gases was causing climate change.
She found 928 articles –– and not a single one took exception with the
consensus position” (p.20).
What was happening in the media during the same time, however, shows a
different picture. In 2003, Jules and Max Boykoff answered that question
in the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Change, in the article titled
“Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the U.S. Prestige Press.”
The brothers searched the libraries of the New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and
analyzed their coverage of climate change between 1998 and 2002.
“They found that while the scientific press was coming down 928 to zero
in accepting or, at the very least, not denying climate change, in 53 percent
of their stories these four newspapers quoted a scientist on ‘one side’ of
the issue and a spokesperson on the other” (p. 21).
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Hoggan explains that media, in order to protect themselves, “frequently
fall back on the notion of balance: they interview one person on one side
of an issue and one person on the other” (p. 21).
He suggests that this is legitimate when the subject matter is political,
economic or even moral. When it comes to science, however, “there are
legitimate subject experts, people whose knowledge is weighed and
measured by their scientific peers. This is the process people use to decide,
for example, on a new surgical method or on the structural strength or a
new metal alloy. If a doctor recommended that you undergo an innovative
new surgical procedure, you might get a second opinion, but you’d
probably ask another surgeon. You wouldn’t check with your local
carpenter, and you certainly wouldn’t ask a representative of the drug
company whose product would be rendered irrelevant if you had the
operation” (p. 22).
“That’s not what’s been happening in the public conversation about global
warming,” says Hoggan. “For most of the last two decades, while
scientists were growing more convinced about the proof and more
concerned about the risks of climate change, members of the general
public were drifting into confusion, led there by conflicting stories that
minimized the state of the problem and exaggerated the cost of solutions”
(p. 22).
Throughout the book, Hoggan documents the trail of evidence that leads to
back to the smoking guns – that is, think tanks and junk scientists funded
by fossil fuel companies.
He uncovers certain memos and documents that detail the plan to inundate
newspapers with letters and articles from “scientific” skeptics – a
campaign devised by some of the very people that worked for the tobacco
industry and directed similar campaign of misinformation and deceit.
He also reveals the truth about several anti-climate change petitions
compiled by the Heartland Institute and friends that claim the signatures
of thousands of scientists from around the world. Among the names on
these petitions: dead scientists, scientists with no peer-reviewed climate
research, and in some cases, well-respected climate scientists whose
names were attached without their consent.
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The Heartland Institute
(Notable Anti-Global Warming Think Tank)
In one shocking story, Hoggan details the manipulation of renowned
climate scientist Roger Reville into “coauthoring” a climate paper and his
subsequent lawsuit against the graduate student who deceived him.
Recommendations and Implications
Much like Noam Chomsky in “Manufacturing Consent,” James Hoggan
describes the practice of “Manufacturing Doubt.”
Hoggan reveals, what he believes to be, the true nature of the so-called
debate: an attack campaign against science, in an effort to sow doubt
where none existed, funded by the fossil fuel industry, and carried out by
think tanks and junk scientists.
His recommendation is to always ask yourself three questions:
1. Does this ‘expert’ have relevant credentials? For example, have
they trained in an area of science that is at the very least connected
to climatology or atmospheric physics?
2. If an ‘expert’ is talking about science, are they still practicing
science? Are they still conducting research and publishing in
legitimate peer-reviewed journals? Or are all of their ’scientific’
pronouncements appearing on newspaper opinion pages, edited by
people who think it’s just great to provoke debate?
3. Is this ‘expert’ taking money from vested interests or is he or she
associated with ideological think tanks – the people who rely for
their employment on promoting the agenda of their major funders?
For Hoggan, these questions have uncovered many inconsistencies. (p.
231)
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Analysis / Critique
This book has many strengths. It is well-researched and well-sourced.
What Hoggan uncovers is revelatory. Perhaps Hoggan’s biggest oversight,
however, was not addressing the flip side of his arguments.
Many climate change deniers make the same argument about climate
science. They say: “follow the money.” Skeptical politicians and public
alike often point to the millions of dollars funding climate science
research. They also point to the millions of dollars “green” industries stand
to lose if climate deniers are right.
A recent Washington Post article (June 4, 2010) is worth quoting at length:
If even half the sins exposed in "Climate Cover-Up" are true (and I suspect
more than half are), the contrarian camp has some serious penance to deal
with. However, the authors imply that such conditions (like Big Energy
funding, shaky credentials and Orwellian language games) make the
contrarian position a weak one. Note, though, such arguments go both
ways. Volumes have been written wedding the same faults to the
"consensus" position.
But some of these foibles, as identified by "Climategate" for instance, are
actually defended or mitigated by "Climate Cover-Up" and DeSmogBlog.
And, what about funding? Because "Climate Cover-Up" looks at Big
Energy as something akin to inherent evil, Big Energy's money is dirty.
However, its contributions to its causes are quite small by comparison
with that of say "Big Government" largesse, which "Climate Cover-Up"
seems to favor, at least when it comes to IPCC research and forcing people
to cut their carbon emissions.
Regarding the IPCC, note that its role is "to assess on a comprehensive,
objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and
socioeconomic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis
of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options
for adaptation and mitigation." Thus, as Mr. Gore has referenced Upton
Sinclair's quote, so do his disciples in "Climate Cover-Up," proclaiming
"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends
on him not understanding it."
All this aside, I believe the authors would agree that it's the truth that
matters, not the fallible evangelists of it. Here is where the authors, neither
of whom has even an undergraduate degree in science, have to take the
science of human-caused climate change on faith. They believe their faith
is well grounded, since it is in "incredibly intelligent people who are doing
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a Nobel-prize winning job." And, there is some reliance, for example, on
climate-science training by Nobel laureate Al Gore. Such training
apparently trumps an education and subsequent career in a science field
either in, or closely related to, climatology.
Nevertheless, it should take only a little education in science and perhaps a
lot of common sense to see through the billowing incense when anyone or
any group, no matter how intelligent, saintly and sincere, assures you it
sufficiently deciphered the mysteries of climate to be able to confidently
foretell global conditions 10, 20, and even 100 years from now.
Anthony J. Sadar is a certified consulting meteorologist and primary
author of "Environmental Risk Communication: Principles and Practices
for Industry" (CRC Press/Lewis Publishers, 2000).
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