Obama Disses Climate Change Deniers

Huffington Post - Paige Lavender

"You’ll be pretty lonely."

President Barack Obama dissed those who deny the science around climate change during his last State of the Union address.
"Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it," Obama said. "You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it."

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

Obama touched on the topic while speaking on innovation, saying we need to tap into the "spirit of discovery" in order to solve some of "our biggest challenges."
"Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there," Obama said. "We didn’t argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight, and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon."
Obama also name-checked some famous leaders in American innovation, touting his administration's push to continue making new discoveries.
"That spirit of discovery is in our DNA. We’re Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. We’re Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson and Sally Ride," Obama said. "We’re every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley racing to shape a better world. And over the past seven years, we’ve nurtured that spirit."

Link

• Full Text State of the Union Address

Next Stop For Paris Climate Deal: The Courts

Politico - Sara Stefanini

First came the agreement. Now comes the litigation.

A picture taken on December 11, 2015 shows banners with messages related to global warming attached to an Eiffel Tower made of bistro chairs at the venue of the United Nations conference on climate change COP21 in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris, on December 11, 2015. | Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty

Countries backsliding on their pledges made at the Paris climate summit could soon get dragged into court by their own citizens.
The sweeping agreement reached last month does not place any legally binding requirements on nations to meet their emissions reduction targets. But environmentalists see litigation as their enforcement mechanism of choice if governments fall short of the agreement’s goals to curb global warming.
Other than public shaming, it’s the only way to hold nations accountable, legal experts say.
“One is the moral way, where countries tell each other ‘You should do what you promised,’ and the other is through courts,” said Marjan Minnesma, director of the Dutch environmental foundation Urgenda. “I expect, particularly because most governments say a lot but don’t do a lot, there will be more chances for groups to say the government is not doing enough to protect its citizens.”
Urgenda paved the way for the legal strategy when, in June 2015, it became the first in the world to win a civil suit arguing that a government’s — in this case, the Netherlands — climate policy falls short of protecting its citizens.
Similar cases have already cropped up in Belgium and New Zealand, and more could come as countries begin to devise and implement policies aimed at meeting the goals set out in the Paris framework. The legal threat mounts once the deal takes effect in 2020.

Marjan Minnesma, director of environmental group Urgenda. EPA

The Paris agreement, reached after two weeks of marathon negotiations, is the first to set rules for the whole world — 195 countries, plus the European Union. It sets a goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, and eventually 1.5 degrees, by the end of the century, and to create a balance between the carbon dioxide that humans emit and what is naturally absorbed by the second half of the century.
The binding part of the deal requires countries to set emission reduction targets, develop the policies for meeting them, publicly report their progress every five years starting in 2023, and update and enhance their targets after each review. But what the agreement doesn’t dictate is the size of those emissions reductions, or the tactics that countries should take to reach them.
This is where individuals, NGOs and other advocacy groups come in. If they feel that a government policy falls short of the agreement’s goals, they could take it to court.
Urgenda, joined by 900 co-plaintiffs, seized on an agreement governments reached at the United Nations’ 2010 climate change summit in Cancun, which recognized that wealthy developed countries would have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, in order avoid the worst effects of climate change.
The EU’s goal of cutting the bloc’s emissions by 20 percent by 2020, however, meant the Netherlands would only need to make a 17 percent reduction. A district court in The Hague sided with Urgenda and ordered the government to raise its target to 25 percent by 2020. The Dutch government announced it would appeal two months later.
“Our court case is based on civil law saying there is a very high danger, and therefore the government should protect its citizens,” said Minnesma. “It’s not using the climate change treaty directly, only indirectly.”
The Paris agreement further raises the benchmark against which groups and citizens can measure whether a government is doing enough to protect its citizens, by hiking the global goal to a temperature limit of 1.5 degrees, according to legal experts.

‘Highly controversial’
The issue of how climate change policies fit under a government’s duty to protect its people is a new one for courts, said Lucas Bergkamp, a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams focused on environmental law.
“To the extent that courts perceive climate change as an existential threat, and to the extent they believe the body politic fails to address it, courts may be inclined to rule in the favor of climate activists because otherwise the world will go down the drain — that’s how they might look at it,” he said.
Bergkamp said the Urgenda ruling is “highly controversial” and “legally doubtful” because it oversteps laws on the separation of powers. Still, he added, “it is certainly a risk that has become much greater with the Paris agreement.”
A lawsuit echoing Urgenda’s claims emerged in Belgium last year, when the Klimaazaak (Climate Action) organization demanded that the federal government, as well as Flemish, Walloon and Brussels regional governments, reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Belgium is on track to miss its EU-mandated goal of a 15 percent reduction by 2020.
Similarly, a law student in New Zealand filed a suit in November claiming that the government had failed to make sure that its goal of reducing emissions by 11 percent by 2030, from 1990, fell in line with research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In the Philippines, meanwhile, groups filed a petition with the country’s Commission on Human Rights in September claiming that 50 “carbon majors,” including ExxonMobil, Chevron and Lukoil, had violated human rights by knowingly contributing to climate change.
Still, some countries have legal systems that make such lawsuits less likely, experts said. In the U.K., cases filed in national courts have to be based on national laws. The U.S. has a political question doctrine that encourages federal courts to show respect for other branches of government.
Views vary on how effectively the Paris agreement can be enforced.
Bergkamp claims it will be difficult because countries do not face the risk of sanctions or penalties for breaching the agreement, as they would under international trade deals. Others argue that by forcing countries to review and report their progress every five years, and raise their targets, the agreement encourages them to act out of fear of being named and shamed.
“If countries breach those hard obligations, then they will pay the price in reputation and political terms,” said Jonathan Church, an environmental lawyer at the activist law firm ClientEarth.
And if calling out laggards fails to incite action against climate change, the international reporting requirements could help to fuel lawsuits by providing data to back up claims.
“The idea that every government will be presenting a lot more information about how their economies operate and the scale of their emissions is quite an important development,” said Kurt Winter, another ClientEarth lawyer.
“It can help with actually coordinating evidence of whether or not governments are complying with targets, and whether a case can be launched.”

Firefighters Calls For Restructuring, Doubling Of Personnel To Combat Climate Change

Huffington Post - Josh Butler

Bushfire at Waroona, WA, on January 9 | Fairfax Media

The Fire Brigade Employees’ Union has called for a radical overhaul of Australian firefighting, including merging rural and metropolitan services and doubling the total number of firefighters, as they fear climate change is making bushfires more dangerous and more frequent.
Only halfway through the summer, Australia has already experienced a horror fire season with several catastrophic blazes, most notably in Western Australia and South Australia. The Australian Climate and Firefighters Alliance claimed that, since October, bushfires have burnt more than 500,000 hectares of land, destroyed 222 homes and 345 other structures, and killed tens of thousands of livestock.
A November report claimed fire seasons had increased in length by 20 per cent between 1978 and 2013, giving less opportunities for firefighters to conduct hazard reduction exercises as well as placing strain on powerful firefighting equipment -- such as firefighting aircraft -- which are shared between countries. Northern and southern hemisphere fire seasons are also beginning to overlap, placing strain on firefighting equipment shared between countries.
Darin Sullivan, president of the FBEU, said fires were becoming more frequent, more dangerous and less predictable due to erratic weather conditions spurred by climate change and called for an urgent overhaul of how Australia fights fire.
"The first thing is restructuring the fire services. We've got duplication of services across country, with rural and urban fire services, and we all basically do the same thing. It’s dual funded, it's a waste of money," Sullivan told The Huffington Post Australia.
"We need to look at single fire services, we've been calling for it for 20 years in NSW and now we’re calling for it nationally. We’ve essentially got competing fire services now competing for the dollar and they need to be restructured. We believe they could be run more efficiently."
Sullivan also called for the number of firefighters in Australia to double -- a recommendation earlier made by The Climate Council's report -- and for more to be done to address climate change.
"We’ll need a doubling of firefighters by the year 2030. I’m calling on governments to have a proper look at funding of fire services, not just voluntary but professional and trained personnel," he said.
"My union and the majority of firefighters are calling for Australia to take some action on climate change, as our workplace is becoming more dangerous."
Lesley Hughes of The Climate Council said climate change was making fighting fires far more difficult and dangerous. She said hotter days saw vegetation dry out and become potent fire fuel, while unpredictable wind changes could whip a fire out of control quickly.
"What we're seeing is longer bushfire seasons declared earlier in the year than usual. It's all pointing the same direction, an ongoing trend of fire danger occurring more often and when it occurs, that it is more catastrophic," Hughes told HuffPost Australia.
"This is not just a one-off. Every year, the probability increases of earlier, longer, more catastrophic fires."
Sullivan, too, said firefighters on the ground had noticed the effects of changing weather patterns.
"Fires are becoming harder to fight. The weather is becoming more erratic. The anecdotal view is they are becoming harder to fight and more intense. We’re also seeing some response from government and fire services, and it's coming from our experiences on the ground," he said.
"Fires are becoming more frequent and less predictable."
He cited the Yarloop, WA, fire as an example of how quickly fires can blaze out of control.
"I wasn't there but I was looking at some of the reporting of that fire, and it appears to me if a community can only get half an hour notice for evacuation, it's more proof of how unpredictable these fires are," Sullivan said.
"You’ve got professional firefighters and services monitoring the fires with state of the art facilities. This evidences how bad things are getting."

Links

• In The Australian Summer, Extreme Weather Is Becoming Normal
• Record Heat To Extend Into 2016, Says Bureau Of Meteorology
• What Scientists Discovered In Greenland Could Be Making Rising Sea Levels Worse
• This Year's El Niño Is On Track To Rival The Worst On Record
• Emergency Services Have To Canoe Through NSW Towns After Crazy Rain And Flooding

UBS Warns Australian Middle Class Will Not Escape Unscathed From Climate Change

Fairfax - Anthony Macdonald

The UBS report found people who lived in cities most exposed to climate change risk already spent more of their household budget on housing compared to the national average in their countries. Irish Environment

Australians are facing depressed crop yields, mental health pressure and property damage from an increase in extreme weather brought about by climate change.
In considering climate change's impact on the world's middle class – which includes about two-thirds of Australians – investment bank UBS has warned that Australia's urbanised society would not go unaffected.
The investment bank said increased incidence of drought and severe storms affected Australia's significant agricultural sector, which might be struggling to keep up with the acceleration of extreme weather.
It also said extreme weather could adversely affect nutrition and infectious diseases, while rising temperatures would be felt by ageing rural populations.
"Ageing populations are very vulnerable to rising temperatures," UBS' Zurich-based head of UBS and Society Caroline Anstey said.
"Once temperatures get above 30 [degrees], it starts to put real pressure on people, especially people who are older and sick."
The UBS report, which includes the study of middle-class populations in 215 cities and 15 countries, found people who lived in cities most exposed to climate change risk already spent more of their household budget on housing compared to the national average in their countries.
The bank termed it "more fear, less fun", with more money on upkeep and other housing-related costs at the expense of luxury goods and entertainment.
Dr Anstey said the world's middle class had the political power and means to get governments to do more about climate change – and businesses were also taking notice.
"My belief is there is an under-appreciation of the impact of climate change on segments beyond the poor. The middle class have tended to be ignored because there was a feeling they would just internalise the cost, pay it," she said.
"The middle class have political weight and mobilising power. And governments tend to listen when the middle class do not want to carry the costs themselves of climate change adaptation."
The report has particular significance for Australia, given the large middle class and urban populations. UBS said more than 75 per cent of Australians lived in urban settings, which was the highest percentage in the world, while two-thirds of Australia's population could be classified as middle class.
Dr Anstey expects emerging middle classes, particularly from south-east Asian countries, to lead the way in tackling climate change, given the under-development of insurance markets.
"Loss aversion is a very strong determinant of behaviour," she said.
"You have things to lose and the middle class does. The middle class will, we believe, begin to exert more political power."
The UBS report found that people in developed markets tended to be under-insured, ignoring risks until after a rare catastrophe occurs. The analysts found that people tended to underestimate a disaster's occurrence or impact or faced budgetary constraints around insurance.
The report comes as natural catastrophes caused 16,200 fatalities and $US32 billion of damage in the first six months of 2015, based on UBS numbers.

Springvale Coal Mine Approval Faces Challenge Over Impacts To Sydney's Water

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Chris Jonkers of the Lithgow Environment Group says the East Wolgan swamp is among the upland swamps damaged by the Springvale coal mine. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The Baird government's approval of a Blue Mountains coal mine expansion contravenes its own planning policy, say environment groups who have begun legal action to overturn the decision.
The 13-year extension of the Springvale coal mine, located near Lithgow, was backed by the Planning Ministry and secured final approval from the independent Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) last September.
The underground mine will produce as much as 4.5 million tonnes of coal a year from 20 new longwall panels, and continue to discharge untreated waste water into the upper Coxs River.

Springvale coal mine near Lithgow. Photo: Supplied by Centennial Coal

The river flows through the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and is the second-largest source of water for Sydney's main water reservoir at Warragamba Dam.
Environment groups led by 4nature are challenging the approval in the Land and Environment Court, arguing the move is not compliant with the 2011 State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) covering Sydney's drinking water catchment. The policy permits approvals only for projects that have a neutral or beneficial effect on the area.
Andrew Cox, 4nature's president, said the groups had found no evidence the government had taken the SEPP into account when approving the project.

Mine workers Adam Powell and Darrin Francis, at the Springvale mine near Lithgow. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The mine will release 19 megalitres a day of waste water – containing salts, metals and other materials – with the flows making up as much as two-thirds of the water in the river at the discharge point.
"How can you possibly rationally conclude that the mine isn't lowering water quality?" Mr Cox said.
Gary Whytcross, director south for the NSW Environment Protection Authority, told Fairfax Media in July that "there's no doubt there will be impacts" for the Coxs River from the mine discharges​, with the high salinity the main concern.The first legal challenge of the particular SEPP may affect future mine approvals, Mr Cox said.
"It could set an important precedent for development in the catchment, he said. "Other coal mines in the catchment will have to demonstrate that they have a neutral or beneficial impact."

'Strict limits'
The Environmental Defenders Office of NSW filed the case on December 18, and the court will next consider the matter on February 12, 2016. Operations at Springvale would not be affected until a final court ruling, 4nature said.
"It is important that the community is able to ensure that decisions are legally robust, and we respect the EDO's right to take this action following the decision by the independent [PAC]," Rob Stokes, Planning Minister, said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Planning and Environment said, the approval had followed an extensive consultation process including state agencies, independent experts and a "rigorous assessment of all environmental, economic and social impacts".
Since the approval includes "strict limits" on the salinity of discharges "the department concluded the mine extension would have a beneficial effect on Sydney's drinking water catchment, compared to the mine's previous operations", the spokeswoman said.
Opponents, though, say they will argue the comparison should be made with the absence of discharges, not the previous workings of the mine.
Fairfax Media also sought comment from the mine's owner, Centennial Coal.

Untreated
Keith Muir, director of the Colong Foundation for the Wilderness, said he raised the SEPP issue with the PAC prior to its approval.
The waste water had previously been sent to the Wallerawang power station before it closed down. Mr Muir has proposed the waste water be transported for treatment and use at the mine's main customer, the nearby Mt Piper power plant – a course only noted by the PAC as an option.
"It isn't diluted and there is no reduction in the impact on the environment," Mr Muir said, adding that upland swamps had also been affected along with the river.
NSW Greens mining spokesman Jeremy Buckingham said the protection of Sydney's drinking water catchment was a crucial principle that should not be compromised.
"It's obvious that coal mining will be detrimental to the quality of water in the drinking water catchment, so the PAC should not have approved this mine extension.
"Protection of our drinking water catchments should be enshrined in legislation rather than relying on a planning policy that is routinely ignored or bypassed by planning authorities," Mr Buckingham said.
The local Lithgow Council has supported the mine's continuation, arguing that hundreds of full-time jobs and royalties approaching $200 million were at stake. The mine is Mt Piper's only coal source, with the plant providing 15 per cent of the state's electricity.

Antarctic Scientists Head To Biological Hotspot Studying Climate Change In Southern Ocean

ABC News - Kieran Jones

Dr Andrew Constable and Dr Gwen Fenton from the Australian Antarctic Division prepare to sail on the latest research mission to the Southern Ocean. ABC News: Kieran Jones

For the first time since Sir Douglas Mawson's Antarctic expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s, scientists will be conducting climate studies in the area known as the Kerguelen Plateau, in the Southern Ocean.
The Kerguelen Plateau, hundreds of kilometres north of Mawson Station, is one of only three lines of longitude where the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flows across the Antarctic continental shelf, the deep ocean and subantarctic islands.
That makes it one of the most highly productive regions for polar plants and animals, and valuable toothfish, icefish and krill fisheries.

A map showing the location of the Kerguelen Plateau, about 2,000 km north of Mawson and Davis Stations. Supplied: AAD

A team of 44 scientists and support staff is preparing to depart Hobart on Monday for a two-month mission on the Antarctic Division's Aurora Australis, to study the impact of climate change in the Southern Ocean.
Researchers are concerned that global warming is reducing the ring of ice cold water around Antarctica, in turn destabilising the region's delicate ecosystem.
Dr Andrew Constable from the Australian Antarctic Division said an increase in global temperatures could see a reduction in the area populated by krill.
"If the habitat reduces in size and contracts towards the Antarctic continent, then that will mean there's probably going to be less food for the animals that feed on krill," he said.
"Things like whales, seals, penguins, sea birds and so on, and we're particularly interested in knowing about whether the production of krill will change as well."

Australian scientists aboard the Aurora Australis conducting climate research in the Southern Ocean. Supplied: Wendy Pyper, ADD

The concern is that the area in the ocean where it is cold enough for krill to exist will shrink significantly, due to changes in water temperature.
"What we're wanting to do is identify what factors contribute to the northern distribution of that habitat, and is that northern distribution going to move to the south," Dr Constable said.
The expedition will be an international effort, involving six ships from Australia, Japan the USA and France.
From an Australian perspective, this could be one of the last dedicated marine science expeditions for the Aurora Australis before it is decommissioned and a new ice breaker arrives.

Links

• Sub-ice algae under the microscope in Antarctic summer research program
• China and Australia to share Antarctic sea ice research
• Gwen Fenton becomes AAD's first female chief scientist
• Map: Antarctica

Era Of Climate Science Denial Is Not Over, Study Finds

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Conservative thinktanks in the US engaging in climate change have increased their attacks on science in recent years, a study of 16,000 documents finds.

Is the era of climate science denial over? A new study suggests not. Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images

Is organised climate science denial finished?
After global heat records were continually broken over the last decade, and as sea levels rose and scientists reported the accelerated melting of polar ice sheets, you might be forgiven for thinking the debate over climate change had shifted.
No more arguing over the science? It’s more about the policy now, right?
Well, wrong. At least according to a new study that has looked at 15 years worth of output from 19 conservative “thinktanks” in the United States.
“We find little support for the claim that ‘the era of science denial is over’ - instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period,” the study concludes.
The conservative thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain.
The study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, analysed more than 16,000 documents published online between 1998 and 2013 by mainly US groups like the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
Contrary to some commentators, the study found attacks on science had increased in later years. At the same time, the thinktanks were focusing less on policy issues.

Chart from a 2016 study in the journal Global Environmental Change showing the output of conservative thinktanks on climate change between 1998 and 2013. Photograph: Global Environmental Change

To come to that conclusion authors Dr Travis Coan, of the University of Exeter, and Dr Constantine Boussalis, of Trinity College Dublin, analysed 8300 articles, 3000 reports, 100 interview transcripts, 680 open letters and press releases and 3400 “scientific” reviews.
So did the result surprise them? Coan told me:

One the one hand, we were aware that many in both the media and academia believed that science denial was on the decline.
However, this didn’t fit with our casual reading of the skeptical literature and thus a major impetus of the paper was to put this idea to the test.
Though, with that said, we were a bit surprised by the ‘rise’: my prior expectation was that the denial of science and policy, at least on average, has remained relatively constant. This does not appear to be the case.

Not only had the attacks on science increased but thinktanks had also ramped up their climate change output in recent years, the study found.
But was it possible the study’s clear declaration that “the era of climate science denial is not over” might no longer stand, given that the study period ended in August 2013?
After all, since then we have seen the record for the hottest year on record broken twice and, for the first time, more than 190 nations agreeing in Paris to keep global warming to “well below 2C”.
Coan agreed this was “certainly possible”, but “there are also reasons to speculate that the trend has continued.” He said:

We are currently working on a study with John Cook that looks at science and policy related themes (amongst other items) in the top 50 climate skeptic blogs through 2015. The topic structure (i.e. discourse) is very similar, and sometimes identical, to the conservative thinktanks and there is reason to think that these two time series move together. For the blogs, we find that the increase in science-related skepticism continues right through 2015. Again, these results are preliminary, but suggest that the ‘end of science denial’ - at least among these actors - might be wishful thinking.

The study explained these thinktanks “provide a multitude of services to the cause of climate change scepticism”. These included:

• offering material support and lending credibility to contrarian scientists
• sponsoring pseudo-scientific climate change conferences
• directly communicating contrarian viewpoints to politicians
• disseminating sceptic viewpoints through a range of media

Many of the 19 thinktanks analysed in the study have in the past accepted funding from fossil fuel interests, such as oil giant Exxon and the billionaire Koch brothers.
In October 2015 a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found thinktanks that had taken corporate funding from the likes of Exxon and the Kochs were more likely to produce material designed to polarise the climate change issue.
Exxon is currently facing an investigation from the New York attorney general into whether it lied to the public and investors about the risks of human-caused climate change.
Dr Justin Farrell, the author of the PNAS study, told me he was pleased to see more research into conservative thinktanks.
“We are still years away from fully understanding the extent of contrarian influence on climate change politics during the last 20 years,” he said.
The latest study seems to show that thinktanks began to concentrate more on attacking the science in around 2003 but it took until about 2010 for science attacks to overtake policy discussions. But why did this happen?
One possible reason, speculates Coan, is the effect of the 2009 illegal hacking of climate scientist’s emails from a server at the University of East Anglia.
While subsequent investigations found no wrongdoing, conservative thinktanks and commentators ran hard with the “scandal” – and some still do – claiming scientists were part of a grand conspiracy to deceive the world.
Dr Aaron McCright, of Michigan State University, who studies climate science denial, said the rising attacks on science appeared to have coincided with the election of Democrat Barack Obama as US president in late 2008. He said:

The Right no longer controlled the Executive Branch or Congress... at least for the first few years of the Obama Administration.. and thus no longer had as much power inside the government to block climate change policy as they did under George W. Bush. So, they - and a considerable part of industry - ramped up denial activism after 2008 to the high levels we have seen since.

McCright said the “denial machine” had since expanded from think tanks to include bloggers and fake grassroots campaigns and was now “more diverse and seemingly ubiquitous.”
He said conservative think tanks had influenced the public’s understanding of climate change and the way policymakers had reacted to it, in two ways.
First, he said in recent decades US Republicans had used thinktank materials in committee meetings and hearings “to justify inaction on climate change”.
Second, thinktank materials had been taken up as the standard talking points for conservatives.
“Indeed, I would argue that anti-environmentalism - and climate change denial more specifically - has become a central tenet of the current conservative and Republican identity.”
Dr Riley Dunlap, of the Oklahoma State University, and who has partnered with McCright on several influential studies, told me:

While conservative thinktanks were involved in denial from the outset - 1989 at least - we have argued they really moved to the forefront in the late 90s when BP and then other companies pulled out of the industry-led Global Climate Coalition that had arguably been the most powerful force in denial. In fact, the conservative thinktanks were upset that oil companies were ‘caving in’ to the IPCC, and decided to take the lead. This also really shifted the basis of denial from economic self-interest to ideological opposition – the commitment to neoliberalism’s distaste for all government regulations.

McCright added that “knowing what is going on is one thing” but knowing what to do about it was more challenging. I’ll leave you with his thoughts.

Opposing policy is one thing. Undermining, denying, obfuscating, etc. science is another. I wish I had a powerful, simple solution to counter the climate change denial movement, but I don’t. Nevertheless, at the very least, we can continue to drag them from the shadows and into the bright light of day, vigilantly document their activities, and regularly call them out over what they are doing.

Links

• Like cheap Christmas giftwrap, environmental laws fail to protect against climate threat
• Paris agreement a victory for climate science and ultimate defeat for fossil fuels
• Veteran climate scientists hopeful a historic Paris deal is only hours away
• Paris climate talks ready to exorcise the ghosts of Copenhagen's failure