Late last year, the
name Jonathan Gruber became part of the public consciousness for his newly
public declarations that Obamacare passed due to the “stupidity of the American
voter.” While there are many cases one can cite affirming that most Americans
don’t closely follow politics and/or the political process and, therefore, may
be called “stupid,” the campaign to sell the manmade climate change crisis
narrative proves otherwise.
We are smarter than
they think. We are not buying what they are selling.
Global warming has
been the most expensive and extensive “public relations campaign in history”—as
David Harsanyi calls it in his post at TheFederalist.com. He identifies the
“25 years of political and cultural pressure,” as including “most governmental
agencies, a long list of welfare-sucking corporations, the public school
system, the universities, an infinite parade of celebrities, think tanks,
well-funded environmental groups and an entire major political party.” Yet,
despite all the “gentle nudging,” “stern warnings,” and “fear mongering,”
Harsanyi states: “Since 1989, there’s been no significant change in the public’s
concern level over global warming.”
Based on new polling data from Gallup, Harsanyi points out that with the
past 25 years of messaging, even among Democrats those who “worry greatly”
about global warming has only increased “by a mere four percentage points”—with
no change in the general public in the past two years.
A pew research poll on the Keystone pipeline—also the target of years of
intense messaging and fear mongering—offers similar insights: “support for the
Keystone XL pipeline is almost universal,” reads the Washington Post headline. The poll results report
that only those who self-identify as “solid liberals” oppose the pipeline.
Clearly, Americans
aren’t that stupid after all. We can smell a rat.
It isn’t that we
don’t believe the climate changes—it does, has, and always will—but, as
Harsanyi states: “there is a difference in believing climate change is real and
believing that climate change is calamitous.” He continues: “as the shrieking
gets louder, Americans become more positive about the quality of their
environment and less concerned about the threats.” And: “as the fear-mongering
becomes more far-fetched, the accusations become more hysterical, and the
deadlines for action keep being pushed right over the horizon, fewer people
seem to really care.”
Harsanyi concludes:
“if you haven’t been able to win over the public in 25 years of intense
political and cultural pressure, you are probably down to two options: You can
revisit your strategy, open debate to a wide range of ideas, accept that your
excited rhetoric works on a narrow band of the Americans (in any useful
political sense), and live with the reality that most people have no interest in
surrendering prosperity. Or, you can try to force people to do what you want.”
With the huge
investment of time and money, it appears the fear mongers have chosen the
latter option. The regulatory scheme coming out of Washington reflects an
acknowledgement that the PR campaign has failed, but that the effort is
continually being forced on people who don’t want it—though they may not be
following it closely; they may not be politically engaged.
The climate
campaigners are continuing to do that which hasn’t worked for the past 25
years—somehow believing they’ll get different results (Isn’t that the
definition of insanity?).
On March 6, “A
documentary that looks at pundits-for-hire,” Merchants of Doubt was released.
It aimed to smear the reputations of some of the most noted voices on the
realist side of the climate change debate—specifically Fred Singer who has been
one of the original climate skeptics. But nobody much wanted to see it. In its
opening weekend, BoxOfficeMoJo.com reports Merchants of Doubt took in $20,300.
A week later,
former Vice President Al Gore, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, called on attendees at the
SXSW festival in Austin, TX, to “punish climate change deniers”—which is the
tactic being used now.
We’ve seen it in
the widely publicized case of Dr. Willie Soon, a scientist at the
Harvard-Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, who “claims that the variations in
the sun’s energy can largely explain recent Global warming.” The New York Times
accused him of being tied to funding from “corporate
interests.”
Similar, though
less well known, attacks have been made on Henrik Moller—Denmark’s leading
academic expert on noise research, who was fired by his university after
exposing a wide reaching cover-up by the Danish government of the health risks
caused by wind turbine noise pollution. And, on eminent meteorologist Lennart
Bengtsson, who received world-wide pressure after he stated: “I believe it is important to express different views
in an area that is potentially so important and complex and still
insufficiently known as climate change.”
Even Senator Edward
Markey and Congressman Raul Grijalva recently joined the crusade. Paul Driessen
draws attention to a letter they sent to “institutions that employ or support
climate change researchers whose work questions claims that Earth and humanity
face unprecedented manmade climate change catastrophes.” The lawmakers warn of
potential “conflicts of interest” in cases where evidence or computer modeling
emphasizing human causes of climate change are questioned—but no such warning
is offered for its supporters. Driessen states: “Conflicts of interest can indeed pose problems.
However, it is clearly not only fossil fuel companies that have major financial
or other interests in climate and air quality standards—nor only manmade
climate change skeptics who can have conflicts and personal, financial or
institutional interests in these issues.” He quotes Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT
atmospheric sciences professor emeritus and one of Grijalva’s targets:
“Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm,
and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy
economy.”
But somehow, only
those who may receive funding from “fossil fuel companies” are suspect. The
anti-fossil fuel movement has been vocal in its funding for candidates who
support its agenda.
I’ve experienced
this on a small scale. I wrote on op-ed for the Albuquerque Journal warning New Mexico residents
about concerns over SolarCity’s arrival in the state—which included offering
30-year financing for rooftop solar panels. A week later the paper published an
op-ed that didn’t discount my data, but accused my
organization of receiving funding from the fossil-fuel industry. The op-ed was
written by an employee of SolarCity—but this didn’t seem incongruous.
The little attack
on me allowed me to ask for people to counteract the claim that the Citizens’
Alliance for Responsible Energy is not an “alliance of citizens.” The
outpouring of support astounded me—though the newspaper didn’t post every
comment.
Others, with whom I
have been in contact, while researching for this writing, provided similar
stories of support following the attacks.
In a Desmog post
titled: Climate deniers double down on doubt in the defense of Willie Soon, the
author states that Soon’s supporters “circled the wagons.”
In a Scientific
American story about the Merchants of Doubt, Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the
University of Michigan, who studies the behavior of climate skeptics, says: “tit-for-tats between mainstream and contrarian
researchers tend to raise the profile of skeptical scientists.” He concludes:
“Frankly, this degradation benefits the skeptics.”
Because of the
failure of the manmade climate-crisis campaign to capture the hearts and minds
of the average American—who, after all, isn’t that stupid—we can expect the
Gore-ordered attacks to continue. Expect the fear mongering to become more
far-fetched, the accusations to become more hysterical, and the deadlines for
action to keep being pushed right over the horizon. When this happens, “fewer
people seem to really care.”
Like the mythical
Hydra, when one “skeptic” is cut down, supporters “double down”—two more grow
to take its place. While designed to silence, the attacks draw attention to the
fact that there is another side to the “debate.”
The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves
as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and
the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for
Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a
weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content
of her weekly column.
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