Manufactured Doubt and the Climate Debate

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

 

In 1954, the tobacco industry realized it had a serious problem. Thirteen scientific studies had been published over the preceding five years linking smoking to lung cancer. With the public growing increasingly alarmed about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco industry had to move quickly to protect profits and stem the tide of increasingly worrisome scientific news. Big Tobacco turned to one the world's five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out. Hill and Knowlton designed a brilliant Public Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry. The CTR did a masterful job at this for decades, significantly delaying and reducing regulation of tobacco products. George Washington University epidemiologist David Michaels, who is President Obama's nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. In the book, he wrote: "the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain". The title of Michaels' book comes from a 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy". Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the "Manufactured Doubt" industry.

The Manufactured Doubt industry grows up
As the success of Hill and Knowlton's brilliant Manufactured Doubt campaign became apparent, other industries manufacturing dangerous products hired the firm to design similar PR campaigns. In 1967, Hill and Knowlton helped asbestos industry giant Johns-Manville set up the Asbestos Information Association (AIA). The official-sounding AIA produced "sound science" that questioned the link between asbestos and lung diseases (asbestos currently kills 90,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization). Manufacturers of lead, vinyl chloride, beryllium, and dioxin products also hired Hill and Knowlton to devise product defense strategies to combat the numerous scientific studies showing that their products were harmful to human health.

By the 1980s, the Manufactured Doubt industry gradually began to be dominated by more specialized "product defense" firms and free enterprise "think tanks". Michaels wrote in Doubt is Their Product about the specialized "product defense" firms: "Having cut their teeth manufacturing uncertainty for Big Tobacco, scientists at ChemRisk, the Weinberg Group, Exponent, Inc., and other consulting firms now battle the regulatory agencies on behalf of the manufacturers of benzene, beryllium, chromium, MTBE, perchlorates, phthalates, and virtually every other toxic chemical in the news today....Public health interests are beside the point. This is science for hire, period, and it is extremely lucrative".

Joining the specialized "product defense" firms were the so-called "think tanks". These front groups received funding from manufacturers of dangerous products and produced "sound science" in support of their funders' products, in the name of free enterprise and free markets. Think tanks such as the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been active for decades in the Manufactured Doubt business, generating misleading science and false controversy to protect the profits of their clients who manufacture dangerous products.

The ozone hole battle
In 1975, the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) industry realized it had a serious problem. The previous year, Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina, chemists at the University of California, Irvine, had published a scientific paper warning that human-generated CFCs could cause serious harm to Earth's protective ozone layer. They warned that the loss of ozone would significantly increase the amount of skin-damaging ultraviolet UV-B light reaching the surface, greatly increasing skin cancer and cataracts. The loss of stratospheric ozone could also significantly cool the stratosphere, potentially causing destructive climate change. Although no stratospheric ozone loss had been observed yet, CFCs should be banned, they said. The CFC industry hired Hill and Knowlton to fight back. As is essential in any Manufactured Doubt campaign, Hill and Knowlton found a respected scientist to lead the effort--noted British scientist Richard Scorer, a former editor of the International Journal of Air Pollution and author of several books on pollution. In 1975, Scorer went on a month-long PR tour, blasting Molina and Rowland, calling them "doomsayers", and remarking, "The only thing that has been accumulated so far is a number of theories." To complement Scorer's efforts, Hill and Knowlton unleashed their standard package of tricks learned from decades of serving the tobacco industry:

- Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.

- Predict dire economic consequences, and ignore the cost benefits.

- Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don't publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.

- Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.

- Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.

- Use data from a local area to support your views, and ignore the global evidence.

- Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

- Disparage environmentalists, claiming they are hyping environmental problems in order to further their ideological goals.

- Complain that it is unfair to require regulatory action in the U.S., as it would put the nation at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

- Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

- Argue that it is less expensive to live with the effects.

The campaign worked, and CFC regulations were delayed many years, as Hill and Knowlton boasted in internal documents. The PR firm also took credit for keeping public opinion against buying CFC aerosols to a minimum, and helping change the editorial positions of many newspapers.

In the end, Hill and Knowlton's PR campaign casting doubt on the science of ozone depletion by CFCs turned out to have no merit. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995. The citation from the Nobel committee credited them with helping to deliver the Earth from a potential environmental disaster.

The battle over global warming
In 1988, the fossil fuel industry realized it had a serious problem. The summer of 1988 had shattered century-old records for heat and drought in the U.S., and NASA's Dr. James Hansen, one of the foremost climate scientists in the world, testified before Congress that human-caused global warming was partially to blame. A swelling number of scientific studies were warning of the threat posed by human-cause climate change, and that consumption of fossil fuels needed to slow down. Naturally, the fossil fuel industry fought back. They launched a massive PR campaign that continues to this day, led by the same think tanks that worked to discredit the ozone depletion theory. The George C. Marshall Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been key players in both fights, and there are numerous other think tanks involved. Many of the same experts who had worked hard to discredit the science of the well-established link between cigarette smoke and cancer, the danger the CFCs posed to the ozone layer, and the dangers to health posed by a whole host of toxic chemicals, were now hard at work to discredit the peer-reviewed science supporting human-caused climate change.

As is the case with any Manufactured Doubt campaign, a respected scientist was needed to lead the battle. One such scientist was Dr. Frederick Seitz, a physicist who in the 1960s chaired the organization many feel to be the most prestigious science organization in the world--the National Academy of Sciences. Seitz took a position as a paid consultant for R.J. Reynolds tobacco company beginning in 1978, so was well-versed in the art of Manufactured Doubt. According to the excellent new book, Climate Cover-up, written by desmogblog.com co-founder James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, over a 10-year period Seitz was responsible for handing out $45 million in tobacco company money to researchers who overwhelmingly failed to link tobacco to anything the least bit negative. Seitz received over $900,000 in compensation for his efforts. He later became a founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and used his old National Academy of Sciences affiliation to lend credibility to his attacks on global warming science until his death in 2008 at the age of ninety-six. It was Seitz who launched the "Oregon Petition", which contains the signatures of more than 34,000 scientists saying global warming is probably natural and not a crisis. The petition is a regular feature of the Manufactured Doubt campaign against human-caused global warming. The petition lists the "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" as its parent organization. According to Climate Cover-up, the Institute is a farm shed situated a couple of miles outside of Cave Junction, OR (population 17,000). The Institute lists seven faculty members, two of whom are dead, and has no ongoing research and no students. It publishes creationist-friendly homeschooler curriculums books on surviving nuclear war. The petition was sent to scientists and was accompanied by a 12-page review printed in exactly the same style used for the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A letter from Seitz, who is prominently identified as a former National Academy of Sciences president, accompanied the petition and review. Naturally, many recipients took this to be an official National Academy of Sciences communication, and signed the petition as a result. The National Academy issued a statement in April 2008, clarifying that it had not issued the petition, and that its position on global warming was the opposite. The petition contains no contact information for the signers, making it impossible to verify. In its August 2006 issue, Scientific American presented its attempt to verify the petition. They found that the scientists were almost all people with undergraduate degrees, with no record of research and no expertise in climatology. Scientific American contacted a random sample of 26 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to have a Ph.D. in a climate related science. Eleven said they agreed with the petition, six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember the petition, one had died, and five did not respond.

I could say much more about the Manufactured Doubt campaign being waged against the science of climate change and global warming, but it would fill an entire book. In fact, it has, and I recommend reading Climate Cover-up to learn more. The main author, James Hoggan, owns a Canadian public relations firm, and is intimately familiar with how public relations campaigns work. Suffice to say, the Manufactured Doubt campaign against global warming--funded by the richest corporations in world history--is probably the most extensive and expensive such effort ever. We don't really know how much money the fossil fuel industry has pumped into its Manufactured Doubt campaign, since they don't have to tell us. The website exxonsecrets.org estimates that ExxonMobil alone spent $20 million between 1998 - 2007 on the effort. An analysis done by Desmogblog's Kevin Grandia done in January 2009 found that skeptical global warming content on the web had doubled over the past year. Someone is paying for all that content.

Lobbyists, not skeptical scientists
The history of the Manufactured Doubt industry provides clear lessons in evaluating the validity of their attacks on the published peer-reviewed climate change science. One should trust that the think tanks and allied "skeptic" bloggers such as Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit and Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That will give information designed to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, there are respected scientists with impressive credentials that these think tanks use to voice their views, but these scientists have given up their objectivity and are now working as lobbyists. I don't like to call them skeptics, because all good scientists should be skeptics. Rather, the think tanks scientists are contrarians, bent on discrediting an accepted body of published scientific research for the benefit of the richest and most powerful corporations in history. Virtually none of the "sound science" they are pushing would ever get published in a serious peer-reviewed scientific journal, and indeed the contrarians are not scientific researchers. They are lobbyists. Many of them seem to believe their tactics are justified, since they are fighting a righteous war against eco-freaks determined to trash the economy.

I will give a small amount of credit to some of their work, however. I have at times picked up some useful information from the contrarians, and have used it to temper my blogs to make them more balanced. For example, I no longer rely just on the National Climatic Data Center for my monthly climate summaries, but instead look at data from NASA and the UK HADCRU source as well. When the Hurricane Season of 2005 brought unfounded claims that global warming was to blame for Hurricane Katrina, and a rather flawed paper by researchers at Georgia Tech showing a large increase in global Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, I found myself agreeing with the contrarians' analysis of the matter, and my blogs at the time reflected this.

The contrarians and the hacked CRU emails
A hacker broke into an email server at the Climate Research Unit of the UK's University of East Anglia last week and posted ten years worth of private email exchanges between leading scientists who've published research linking humans to climate change. Naturally, the contrarians have seized upon this golden opportunity, and are working hard to discredit several of these scientists. You'll hear claims by some contrarians that the emails discovered invalidate the whole theory of human-caused global warming. Well, all I can say is, consider the source. We can trust the contrarians to say whatever is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view. Rather, I see dedicated scientists attempting to make the truth known in face of what is probably the world's most pervasive and best-funded disinformation campaign against science in history. Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change--which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines--is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.

Exaggerated claims by environmentalists
Climate change contrarians regularly complain about false and misleading claims made by ideologically-driven environmental groups regarding climate change, and the heavy lobbying these groups do to influence public opinion. Such efforts confuse the real science and make climate change seem more dangerous than it really is, the contrarians argue. To some extent, these concerns are valid. In particular, environmentalists are too quick to blame any perceived increase in hurricane activity on climate change, when such a link has yet to be proven. While Al Gore's movie mostly had good science, I thought he botched the treatment of hurricanes as well, and the movie looked too much like a campaign ad. In general, environmental groups present better science than the think tanks do, but you're still better off getting your climate information directly from the scientists doing the research, via the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Another good source is Bob Henson's Rough Guide to Climate Change, aimed at people with high-school level science backgrounds.

Let's look at the amount of money being spent on lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry compared to environmental groups to see their relative influence. According to Center for Public Integrity, there are currently 2,663 climate change lobbyists working on Capitol Hill. That's five lobbyists for every member of Congress. Climate lobbyists working for major industries outnumber those working for environmental, health, and alternative energy groups by more than seven to one. For the second quarter of 2009, here is a list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity of all the oil, gas, and coal mining groups that spent more than $100,000 on lobbying (this includes all lobbying, not just climate change lobbying):

Chevron $6,485,000
Exxon Mobil $4,657,000
BP America $4,270,000
ConocoPhillips $3,300,000
American Petroleum Institute $2,120,000
Marathon Oil Corporation $2,110,000
Peabody Investments Corp $1,110,000
Bituminous Coal Operators Association $980,000
Shell Oil Company $950,000
Arch Coal, Inc $940,000
Williams Companies $920,000
Flint Hills Resources $820,000
Occidental Petroleum Corporation $794,000
National Mining Association $770,000
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $714,000
Devon Energy $695,000
Sunoco $585,000
Independent Petroleum Association of America $434,000
Murphy Oil USA, Inc $430,000
Peabody Energy $420,000
Rio Tinto Services, Inc $394,000
America's Natural Gas Alliance $300,000
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $290,000
El Paso Corporation $261,000
Spectra Energy $279,000
National Propane Gas Association $242,000
National Petrochemical & Refiners Association $240,000
Nexen, Inc $230,000
Denbury Resources $200,000
Nisource, Inc $180,000
Petroleum Marketers Association of America $170,000
Valero Energy Corporation $160,000
Bituminous Coal Operators Association $131,000
Natural Gas Supply Association $114,000
Tesoro Companies $119,000

Here are the environmental groups that spent more than $100,000:

Environmental Defense Action Fund $937,500
Nature Conservancy $650,000
Natural Resources Defense Council $277,000
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund $243,000
National Parks and Conservation Association $175,000
Sierra Club $120,000
Defenders of Wildlife $120,000
Environmental Defense Fund $100,000

If you add it all up, the fossil fuel industry outspent the environmental groups by $36.8 million to $2.6 million in the second quarter, a factor of 14 to 1. To be fair, not all of that lobbying is climate change lobbying, but that affects both sets of numbers. The numbers don't even include lobbying money from other industries lobbying against climate change, such as the auto industry, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Corporate profits vs. corporate social responsibility
I'm sure I've left the impression that I disapprove of what the Manufactured Doubt industry is doing. On the contrary, I believe that for the most part, the corporations involved have little choice under the law but to protect their profits by pursuing Manufactured Doubt campaigns, as long as they are legal. The law in all 50 U.S. states has a provision similar to Maine's section 716, "The directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interest of the corporation and of the shareholders". There is no clause at the end that adds, "...but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates, or the dignity of employees". The law makes a company's board of directors legally liable for "breach of fiduciary responsibility" if they knowingly manage a company in a way that reduces profits. Shareholders can and have sued companies for being overly socially responsible, and not paying enough attention to the bottom line. We can reward corporations that are managed in a socially responsible way with our business and give them incentives to act thusly, but there are limits to how far Corporate Socially Responsibility (CSR) can go. For example, car manufacturer Henry Ford was successfully sued by stockholders in 1919 for raising the minimum wage of his workers to $5 per day. The courts declared that, while Ford's humanitarian sentiments about his employees were nice, his business existed to make profits for its stockholders.

So, what is needed is a fundamental change to the laws regarding the purpose of a corporation, or new regulations forcing corporations to limit Manufactured Doubt campaigns. Legislation has been introduced in Minnesota to create a new section of law for an alternative kind of corporation, the SR (Socially Responsible) corporation, but it would be a long uphill battle to get such legislation passed in all 50 states. Increased regulation limiting Manufactured Doubt campaigns is possible to do for drugs and hazardous chemicals--Doubt is Their Product has some excellent suggestions on that, with the first principle being, "use the best science available; do not demand certainty where it does not and cannot exist". However, I think such legislation would be difficult to implement for environmental crises such as global warming. In the end, we're stuck with the current system, forced to make critical decisions affecting all of humanity in the face of the Frankenstein monster our corporate system of law has created--the most vigorous and well-funded disinformation campaign against science ever conducted.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone, and I'll be back Monday--the last day of hurricane season--with a review of the hurricane season of 2009.

Jeff Masters

 

About Jeff Masters

Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D.

Director of Meteorology

Jeff Masters grew up in suburban Detroit, and attended the University of Michigan, where he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Meteorology in 1982 and 1983, respectively. While working on his Masters degree, he participated in field programs studying acid rain in the Northeast U.S. and air pollution in the Detroit area.

In 1986, he took a position teaching weather forecasting to undergraduates at SUNY Brockport in New York, then later that year moved to Miami to join the Hurricane Hunters as a flight meteorologist for NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center. You can see him on the 1988 PBS documentary NOVA show titled "Hurricane!", flying into Hurricane Gilbert, the strongest hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic at that time. He co-authored several technical papers on wind measurement from aircraft during his four years flying with the Hurricane Hunters.

After nearly getting killed flying into Hurricane Hugo, Jeff left the Hurricane Hunters in 1990 to pursue a Ph.D. degree in air pollution meteorology from the University of Michigan. His 1997 Ph.D. dissertation was titled "Vertical Transport of Carbon Monoxide by Wintertime Mid-latitude Cyclones." The University of Michigan College of Engineering awarded him their 2006 Merit Award as the Alumnus of the year from their Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences Department, and Jeff remains active with the Department, offering guest lectures on hurricanes, and managing a Weather Underground undergraduate scholarship program.

While working on his Ph.D., he co-founded The Weather Underground, Inc. in 1995. He wrote much of the software that ingests and formats the raw NWS data used on the website, and created most of the imagery on the tropical page. Jeff currently serves as Director of Meteorology and on the Board of Directors for the company.

Jeff lives in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area with his wife and daughter. He and his wife are active in managing a 32-acre natural area owned by their neighborhood association. They spend a lot of time killing invasive plants such as garlic mustard, glossy buckthorn, and Asian bittersweet, and planting native species to take their places. Jeff enjoys hiking, windsurfing, ultimate frisbee, and meditation. His favorite places are Havasu Canyon in the Grand Canyon and the Boiling River in Yellowstone National Park. His favorite book is Autobiography of a Yogi, and his favorite movie is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He enjoys listening to Tangerine Dream, Loreena McKennitt, Anugama, and Beethoven. He occasionally picks up his trombone, but hasn't played much since freshman year in college, when he played with the University of Michigan Marching Band. If you're lucky, you can catch him in concert with the Straits Area Concert Band in the Mackinac City bandshell on Tuesday evenings in the summer!

You can email Jeff at [email protected].

lightwins's picture

Select Tim Alexander posts from today’s europebusines.blogspot.com

for more please visit europebusines.blogspot.com

World Health Organization’s “Mr. Swine Flu” is under investigation for Gross Conflict of Interest ~ link ~ WHO is a very ‘dirty’ organization.

Bayer admits GMO Contamination is Out-of-Control ~ link ~ There are grave risks to what various corporations are doing with GMO in the quest for more billions of profit – grave global risks.

Years of Deceit: US Openly accepts that Bin Laden is dead ~ link ~ He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn’t nuts is finally saying what they have known for years. However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on “special ops” looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.

Third World under attack from Genocidal Climate Change Policy ~ link ~ The implementation of policies arising out of fraudulent fearmongering and biased studies on global warming is already devastating the third world, with a doubling in food prices causing mass starvation and death – a primary reason why the climategate crooks and their allies should be criminally investigated and hit with the strongest charges possible.

Controversial EPA Ruling Linked to Climategate Leaked Emails ~ link ~ Proving that the hidden forces pushing Copenhagen truly have no shame, and no morals. See also: EPA – C02 Threatens the ‘Public Health and Welfare of the American People’ ~ link

Greenpeace leader admits Arctic Ice exaggeration – video ~ link ~ He was nailed; the truth will come out.

Climategate: Himalayan Glaciers NOT Melting ~ link ~ More truth.

Rise of sea levels: Greatest lie ever told ~ link ~ Even more truth. The reality is that the false science based “global warming” is being used by the most evil and corrupt forces on Earth in order to sneak in the back door the beginnings of a global government – the forerunner of their New World Order global slave state.

Climate Change: The Global Media presents an Apocalyptic Scenario ~ link ~ Lies based on phony science.

Climategate: Al Gore’s Political Tin Ear ~ link ~ Al Gore is a very corrupt political ‘player’.

Western Leaders Poised to Commit Treason – video ~ link ~ They are knowing establishing the beginnings of a world government without the consent of the people and against their own laws and constitutions.

Alex Jones on: Secret Copenhagen Treaty Documents Leaked – with video ~ link

Climate Change – Has it been canceled? – video ~ link

Wendy's picture

Somewhere I heard

"Every layer of the onion has it's lies".

I think I don't believe that man-made CO2 causes global warming in any appreciable way but there could be another layer of lies as yet unseen. I wonder how or why I came to this conclusion. Both theories have facts as well as motives that support them. I just happen to think that the "globalists are faking it inorder to gain control of the world" theory has more going for it. It's almost impossible to check the facts of these theories. So few of us have actually had access to the raw data (Ever seen a frozen ice core?, tempurature records - how easy would it be to fake them?), we are forced to use other methods to determine who is lying, who isn't.

I think what I find most convincing is that I have yet to see any proponent of the CO2 theory clearly combat the claims made by the doubters - they just dismiss them as doubters, working for the oil companies without getting into the nitty gritty facts. Where are they when the film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" makes the claim that the CO2 increase comes after the tempurature rise, not before? I've heard "the doubters" dispute the facts of "An Inconvient Truth" but I have yet to hear someone from the IPCC say come along and say no your lying and here's the reason it's a lie.

In the meantime, gmo franken beings, estrogen mimicing plastics and depleted uranium bullets pollute the world and perhaps we notice it a bit less, caught up in the great global warming debate.

Hey Wendy,

In Australia it looks as though the great "global warming" is nothing more than a very convenient way of introducing new taxes. For a while now you have been able to pay extra for your electricity. You can choose to buy "green" energy which costs extra, 20% more I think.. The problem i have with this is that you use exactly the same energy and the extra money goes to the government. From what I can find it does not go to any new energy technologies, more tree's or anything else. Why would anyone pay it?...but I am sure people are and are telling themselves they have done something good for the environment.

We are getting price rises on everything with the claim that it is because of global emmision's....apparently the best way to curb them is to charge companies a tax on producing them...this tax is then passed on to us the consumer but again the money collected just goes into normal tax revenue, from what I can see.

Hey Fairy, if you read this I had a thought on Swine Flu. I know you have been following it's path. I heard a story from the Ukraine where it is hitting them hard...., in that part of the world they have poor diets and little health care. Many of their populations are quite old. While we have been able to fend off and almost ignore swine flu I am not sure the same will happen there.

We are all set or have already, declared it a hoax but maybe there is a second wave to it. It could be all the things "they" claimed it was in these poorer countries?

L

Jez

Jez:

In these times, the only thing I am sure of is that which I experience directly... even those previously links could be doctored and/or embellished upon... these are the times of the coyote.... nothing is as it seems.

I am giving all of these far flung conspiracy theories a rest.  I do believe the Earth is warming and CO2 in the atmosphere is not good for the EARTH... the summers here in the Northeast of USA have been hotter these past 25 years than ever before in recorded history... the winters more mild but with higher snowfall... the EARTH is changing. The more CARBON CONTAINMENT UNITS we cut down or dig up the worse our ENVIRONMENT will become.  CCU is what the Emmissaries of the Light I work with call Trees, peat bogs, and Petroleum.

Pollution is a problem as well.  Choosing truly GREEN technologies that are in harmony with self, the EARTH and all its inhabitants is a sound way to walk lightly upon the EARTH.  I have been slowly switching to using stuff that has no or less chemicals in it... my inner guidence indicates to use products with the least amount of ingredients that are naturally derived with the least amount of manufacturing.  I have switched to buying stuff in mostly glass or paper or without a wrapper all together.  This feels right in my HEART to do so.  The HEART will always tell the TRUTH as opposed to the MIND which latches onto negativity.

The GREEN ENERGY movement I subscribe to... I feel energy made from the sun, wind or waves is a better alternative (not the the best, mind you... FREE ENERGY is the BEST METHOD) than petroleum based methods or trash burning power plants, or wood fired power plants or Nuclear Energy Power Plants.  The best way to utilize these new techonolgies is to make one's own electricity.  I intend to do this in the future when we are in the financial position to buy some land and build a house.

I believe in sustainability in harmony with self, the EARTH and all of its inhabitants.  To just keep making stuff to discard for single use and then dumping in our Oceans or burying in the EARTH feels very off in my HEART.  It seems all so very irresponsible and self-centered and viewing of the EARTH through a sort of Manifest Destiny doctrine... I can use you any way that I want and if I hurt you... F-YOU! I Got what I wanted!   Not at all sustainable and a bit psychopathic...

So yes, I believe in being GREEN I believe in being HEART centered... CENTERED on the EARTH and her HEALTH and in doing so I am CENTERED on MY HEART and MY HEALTH and the HEALTH of all those around me.

--fairyfarmgirl

lightwins's picture

If you check out NASA's data, i.e. in the article about changes in the solar system by Richard Hoagland and David Wilcock, you find out that all the planets in our solar system are heating up and that the oceans on Earth are warming from the bottom, not from the top as would be the case if it were caused by green house gasses...I don't know what it means but I am sure that the elite are literally capitalizing on an opportunity to move their global takeover agenda forward...

Wendy's picture

Hi Fariryfarmgirl-

My experience this summer in Massachusetts was very cold. Everything in the garden that needs heat did terrible - peppers, eggplant tomatoes. The entire month of July felt like May. We finally got 3 weeks of heat in August, then back to basically cold weather. We had one warmer winter about 5years ago, since then the winters have been brutal. Perhaps you live closer to the coast than me. Yes, eating organic buying only things that are absolutely necessary (getting used stuff when you can), using less electricity - all these things are important in our efforts to boycott the globalist corporations. We should be using as few resources as possible to save them for future generations. I just don't believe co2 is the reason we should do these things.

Wendy

Wendy

ChrisBowers's picture

but they also have their underground facilities ready for them and theirs, for any contingency.  Also, if I understand the core samples data correctly, the earth cycles through approx. 90,000 years of ice age (no pollen in the core samples from all over the planet) and then 8-12 thousand years of moderate climate like we are in now and has been doing this for eons, so the laughable irony of the cap and trade carbon credit ruse is we are actually moving quicker toward the next ice age with all of this manmade pollution, not a roasting Mars type scenario, and the elite are well aware of this.

I just plain don't put much stock in any of "their" contingency planning, nor do I listen to the manufactured dissent and disinformation piped through the major media channels.  Something much bigger than them and us is going on in the whole universe right now, and I for one am very excited about keeping my eye on that ball while all the useless sensational manipulative white noise goes on around us.  We are not victims and we never were...  We are co-Creators, and were never not!!!!!!  Holding us all in the Love and Light of the One Infinite Creator,

Ohhmmmmmmaahhhhhhhh eye eeeeeeeemmmmmohhhhhhhh

It is fine to jump toward counter conspiracy theories... However, who and what does that serve.  Has greater oneness been created? Has a change in Human behavior resulted?  What does your HEART say.  Global Warming I have always considered to be simply a slogan.  CO2 pollution is the biggest contributer to world wide ecological distruction.  Mining for petroleum based mineral, making of petroleum based products, use of petroleum based products to heat and "create" energy with.  Have any of you ever stopped to think or ponder or even consider what those Petroleum Minerals are for?   What does the EARTH say?  Any one listening... oh yes.... it is the Conspiracy and Counter Conspiracy theories we are concerned with... not real action or mobilization of change.

fairyfarmgirl

JoshERTW's picture

I agree with FFG, regardless of whetehr or not climate change is man made (and I used to be a big proponent of that theory), CO2 is released from petroleum products, as are a host of other more unpleasant things which are part of the mix. Not to mention the use of them in processing and transportation of every bloody thing we consume. A reduction in the use of fossil fuels if only for the sake of keeping my money away from the greedy producers, and "walking (a bit more) lightly on the earth" as FFG said, is a good thing in my mind. The science behind combustion is that Oxygen is used up to burn things, whether trees, oil or whatever, and CO2 is produced as a result. Less Oxygen = bad. Less trees = less CO2 absorbed and consequently less Oxygen produced.

Maybe the solution is to plant more trees, and burn less 'stuff.' We would have better air (I'm sure a mass balance equation could be created here, per tree this much O2 gets made, and this much CO2 gets eaten per day, minus this much released from oil). Pure O2 gives you a really killer sense of "clarity," perhaps a reduction in Carbon will facilitate this clarity. I think clarity like this would help facilitate a shift in conciousness (I find clearer air tends to help me in this arena, which is why I don't live in the city)

Now I'm rambling... but you get the idea?

Josh

Hi guys,

I don't think anyone in their right mind would argue that we shouldn't do anything but be as effficent as we possibly can and use the "best" materials available. I would not know of many/any people who would consider petroleum products "good" for us to use if we have alternatives. I think we should change our current practices and we should do it because, it is the best for all.

Unfortunately it appears the environmental movement is being used and I see this as a separate issue, one worth exploring. Trying to understand the "conspiracy" involved with this is very beneficial and in my mind undoubtedly serves the greater good. My heart and mind are at one on this issue. It needs to be understood so that we can improve our response-ability. With so much confusion and doubt people don't know what to rally behind. Understanding this will give us the ability to unite as one to counter it.

I have thought many times about what the functions of petroleum products are and what "roles" they may play in the earth....Petroleum seems to be "blood" like to me, oil is big on tranferring heat,.... but understanding it's place is probably not something we could ever totally do. It would make for an interesting disscusion though.

L

Jez

 

ChrisBowers's picture

Plastics alone would be a good chapter in that petroleum discussion... and we do well to get a better understanding of the cyclical nature of natural warming and cooling trends per the available core sample data taken from areas all over the planet that could very well be indicating that we are actually moving ourselves much quicker through the current 8-12 thousand year moderate warming trend which would mean we are moving quicker toward the next 90,000 (on average) year ice age cooling trend...  All of this being the natural cleansing cycle of water on Gaia with or without our ignorant bumbling about...  And raised levels of CO2 have always been part of the equation in all past cyclical behavior, long before mankind's discovery of black gold and SUV's...

I do agree with you Elizabeth in this sense, that all the sensational distractions and political posturing may be robbing us of our NOW experiences during this very amazing time in Gaia, Solar System, Galaxy and Universe history.  There has never been anything quite like it.  So much of the time I feel a bit like Bill Murray's big brother Brian intently watching the golf ball at the edge of the cup (in Caddyshack) while all the bombs were going off...

(love that analogy as you might have guessed by now, LOL)

Jez:

When I asked the fairies and the Mother Earth what Petroleum is for... they all say it is the LIFE BlOOD of Mother... and she is willing to share a little but not all of it... and this herein is what has given rise to the movement of Global Warming... people do not care about pollution... what they do care about is their comfort... Unbelieveably HOT temps and then Unbelievably COLD temps motivate the fence sitter and spitters to action by providing a means to make it "REAL" to them.

So now the "Elite" have in fact won this little war by dividing the environmental movement and spawned infighting concerning the proper term to call that which we are all experiencing.  Wars have been started over less.

Congrats!

fairyfarmgirl

Hey Fairy,

I'm sorry you feel this war is lost. I remain very positive that we will help effect change. I actually believe people care deeply about polution and I hope they do but if they don't thats fine as well...I make no judgment...we are all expressions of perfection....

I'm not here to SAVE the world....or to save people from themselves...thats one of the attitudes that screws everything up.....everything is on schedule...I TRUST.....and I will just focus on NOW and doing the things I feel I need/want to do...I will respect and support others to follow their own calling and hope they will do the same for me...but if they don't, whatever...it's not important, it would just be nice....

Thanks for the sarcastic congrats although as you typed earlier, I'm not sure how such things serve the greater good or help us to connect...just seemed petty to me but obviously something you needed to express, so thats fine....congrats back at ya...Lol

L

Jez

I was having a moment... A moment of letting go of the Earth and all her beauty.  I can only mind my own life... and hope that by striving to live in harmony with the Earth others will choose to walk with me.... so I apologize as well.

 

fairy

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