We call it lies.
By now you may have seen the TV ads produced by ExxonMobil’s lobby group CEI, The Competitive Enterprise Institute which argue that, far from being a dangerous pollutant when too highly concentrated in our atmosphere, CO2 is fact the bringer of all life and energy. Today’s UK Independent is running an interview with one of the scientists who wrote the a key report cited in the following ad, headlined TV ads that doubt climate change are ‘misleading’.
See for yourself.
However as The Independent explain,
[A] scientist whose report about the Antarctic ice-sheet is featured in the adverts has denounced the CEI and said they have quoted his study out of context. Professor Curt Davis of the University of Missouri-Columbia, said: “I think they are confusing and misleading the public.”
Asked if he doubted the evidence of global warming, he replied: “Personally, I have no doubts whatsoever.” Mr Davis’s June 2005 study examined the ice-sheets of east Antarctic which showed an increase in mass. However, he said his study did not look at coastal areas which are known to be losing ice and said the “fact that the interior ice sheet is growing is a predicted consequence of global warming”.
Indeed the ads are a sad, sick joke that only serve to endanger the lives of millions of people, trillions of living things, thousands of entire species and many of the world’s critical ecosystems. The narration itself is breathless and condescending. The dialogue could have come from one of those old 60s educational films such as A world without Zinc.
Kert Davies, a Washington-based campaigner with Greenpeace, said: “The bottom line is that we are seeing a series of last gasps from the sceptics. They are losing ground so quickly. They are so laughable they do not need to be parodied.”
Maybe they don’t require parody but they do need sober contradiction by serious scientists.
David Doniger, the climate policy director with the Natural Resources Defence Council, said climate change sceptics did not even represent “the minority … they’re the fringe”. He added: “It’s the same as with tobacco. To claim that fossil fuel emissions don’t cause global warming is like saying cigarettes don’t cause cancer.”
But CEI don’t care about the facts, they have a mission to achieve on behalf of an increasingly isolated core group of backers such as ExxonMobile. And CEI don’t just make ads of course.
Last year The Independent revealed how one of the CEI’s officials was behind a lobbying effort to undermine support for the Kyoto treaty among European nations. The plan sought to bring together corporations, academics, commentators and lobbyists to undermine EU support for the treaty.
Climate change is the greatest moral challenge to our species. Reducing atmospheric CO2 must be our number one priority. Bogus ads produced by bogus lobby groups for dinosaur corporations that by now should know better are a distraction and thus a danger. — DS
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