Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 09:27:19 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Lemmings


Unlike Russell Pearson, I don't watch television shows to help me
understand issues like global warming. I do read pro-industry publications
like the Wall Street Journal and Living Marxism to help me understand what
the ruling class is up to. There are some excellent left-wing journals,
however, that are worth checking on this subject. I recommend Dollars and
Sense, the American magazine put out by radical economists. I also
recommend Rachel's Weekly, that I have crossposted from occasionally. One
of the best, however, is the Green Left Weekly out of Australia. They have
not only put out good information on the science behind global warming but
stake out a political position from a working-class perspective. Here is
something from a recent issue. Their Web address is:

www3.silas.unsw.edu.au/~greenlft/

**************

Risking the planet for big business profits

By Norm Dixon

As the December climate conference in Kyoto approaches, the rich capitalist
countries are refusing to agree to emission targets that begin to reduce
the levels of greenhouse gases reaching the atmosphere. Unless these gases
are stabilised -- according to the 2500 scientists from 80 countries who
make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the Earth's
average temperature will rise 1.5-4.5=B0C during the next century. The
results of such global warming are potentially catastrophic.

To achieve stabilisation, global greenhouse emissions must be rapidly cut
by at least 60% from current levels. Anything less will not stem global
warming. In response, government and industry spokespeople bleat that
cutting greenhouse gases will "cost" jobs and "reduce" economic growth.

While North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are
responsible for more than 80% of past emissions and 75% currently,
governments are selfishly placing protection of the profits and
"competitiveness" of their powerful corporations -- and the super-rich who
own them -- above the welfare of the world's population.

Not surprisingly, governments and allied corporate interests have sought to
cover their naked, profit-driven irresponsibility with the fig leaf of
scientific respectability.

Robert Eaton, chairperson of the giant US car maker Chrysler, writing in
the July 17 Washington Post, described estimates of the consequences of
global warming as "uncertain science".

He continued: "[Emission reductions] would be an unwise and unnecessary
move even if scientists could agree that the Earth's atmosphere is getting
warmer because of man-made carbon dioxide and other gases. It becomes more
so given the fact that they can't."

Western Mining Corporation's (WMC) chief executive, Hugh Morgan, recently
told a conference in Japan that it was a "leap of faith" to believe
scientific models of global warming because they had not "passed the
experimental test".

Australian PM John Howard -- who argues that Australia needs to increase
greenhouse emissions in the "national interest" -- understandably echoes
these sentiments. During the South Pacific Forum meeting in September,
Howard claimed there was still "quite a bit of debate about the science" of
global warming.

The Business Council of Australia claims that no "proof" has yet been
supplied to link greenhouse gases and climate change.

Remember the tobacco industry's claim that no "proof" existed to link
smoking with cancer? Or the asbestos mining industry's view that no "proof"
existed to link asbestos and mesothelioma? What about the chemical
companies and the US and Australian governments' denial of a link between
cancer and birth defects amongst Vietnam war veterans and dioxin in the
herbicide Agent Orange?

In each case, corporate and government apologists sought to avoid
responsibility -- and the resulting costs and penalties -- by sponsoring
scientific studies to contradict or cast doubt on less favourable or
damning research. Thousands of people died from cancer before the
scientific evidence accumulated to such an overwhelming degree that
governments and courts could no longer ignore the links. Now big business
and their governments want us to "wait" until global warming's "certainty"
is "proved" to their satisfaction.

Pulitzer Prize winner Ross Gelbspan, in his book The Heat is On, outlined
how a relatively small number of US scientists -- the much quoted
"greenhouse sceptics" -- in league with the highly paid public relations
specialists have created the false impression that scientists are sharply
divided over climate change.

The former chair of the IPCC, Bert Bolin, agrees that the resulting high
profile these well-paid "sceptics" have achieved in the media has created
an "increasing polarisation of the public debate" in many countries that
does not reflect discussions among scientific experts.

Contrary to the claims of the sceptics and their backers, there is a broad
consensus among the vast majority of global climate scientists: global
warming is real, it has already begun, and decisive and immediate action
must be taken to prevent possibly terrible consequences, which include
rises in sea levels, devastating droughts and storms, increases in
life-threatening diseases and other effects.

There is little consensus over the details, and none pretend accurate
predictions can be made. For every scenario that suggests milder
consequences, there is another that points to something potentially much
worse.

The sceptics' modus operandi is not to question directly the reality of
global warming but to suggest that the scenarios presented by scientists
are "exaggerated" or too "apocalyptic", or argue that not enough evidence
has accumulated for an accurate assessment to be made or that
countervailing phenomena that will delay warming have not been factored
into the models. They quibble about the "uncertainties" and complain that
warming is not happening just "as predicted".

The dissemination of the sceptics' views is made easier by the
self-interested largess of big business. Before US President Bill Clinton's
October announcement of the US government's weak proposed target for the
Kyoto conference, the Business Roundtable -- a grouping of CEOs from more
than 200 large corporations -- funded national advertising campaigns and
lobbying to raise doubts about the dangers of global warming.

Thirty CEOs personally converged on Washington in June to attend an
official briefing on the administration's position on greenhouse.

Australian big business has used these sceptics to influence Australian
government policy. In August, a conference in Canberra was sponsored by the
APEC Study Centre -- whose affiliates include WMC, Rio Tinto, Boral, Alcoa,
BP, Esso, Woodside Petroleum, the National Australia Bank and a host of
others -- and a far-right US think-tank called the Frontiers of Freedom
Institute. The confab was endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce and the
New Zealand Business Roundtable.

Featured speaker was Dr Patrick Michaels from the University of Virginia's
Department of Environmental Services. Michaels is a leading greenhouse
sceptic. The latest issue of the Mineral Policy Institute's Mining Monitor
reveals Michaels' long association with US fossil fuel industries.

In 1991, Michaels was adviser to a US$500,000 PR campaign sponsored by the
Information Council for the Environment to debunk concerns about
greenhouse. The ICE was a front for the National Coal Association, coal
company Western Fuels Association (WFA) and the Edison Electric Institute.

Right-wing talk-back demagogue Rush Limbaugh urged listeners to phone up
for an information package written by Michaels.

In 1995, Michaels testified that fossil fuel industries had paid him
$165,000 in consultancy fees since 1990. He admitted that his newsletter,
World Climate Change, is funded by the WFA and had received $49,000 from
the German Coal Association.

When the Nine Network's Sunday program presented its feature story on
November 16, titled "The Greenhouse Effect: Hothouse Hype?", none other
than the "constant and colourful critic of greenhouse doomsayers", Dr
Michaels, featured prominently.

The central claim in the program was Michaels' that: "Everybody who
forecast gloom and doom is now really taken aback by the fact that there is
no warming at all in the last decade; they don't know how to handle that
one".

Few studies agree with Michaels. Dr Neville Nicholls, leader of the climate
research group for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne, has found clear
evidence of a 0.4=B0 to 0.8=B0C warming in the south-west Pacific Ocean.

According to the Worldwatch Institute's Vital Signs report issued in March,
1996 was the fourth warmest year on record since 1866. The IPCC in 1996
reported that in 1995, average temperatures were 0.4=B0C higher than the
average 30 years ago and 0.8=B0 higher than 100 years ago. Nine of the 10
warmest years on record have occurred since 1980.

The October 11 New Scientist reported that Alaska's permafrost is melting
as a result of average temperatures rising 1=B0C per decade for 30 years,
just as computer modelling of the greenhouse effect had predicted. "If it's
not greenhouse warming, what the hell is it?", asked the University of
Alaska's Gunter Weller.

As Green Left Weekly writer Phil Shannon observed in 1994: "The greenhouse
effect sceptics are asking us to gamble with the planet. But why take the
risk? Changes which would prevent global warming, such as preservation of
forests, development of renewable energy sources, more and better public
transport, are all worth doing with or without the spectre of the
greenhouse effect.

"Those of us who don't own oil wells, coal mines or road freight transport
conglomerates have nothing to lose by taking the greenhouse effect
seriously and being wrong about it, but much to lose by ignoring the risks
and being wrong. To do nothing, to dismiss the greenhouse effect, to
exploit those genuine areas of uncertainty surrounding greenhouse effect
science, as the Business Council of Australia does, is scientifically
unwarranted, socially complacent and politically irresponsible."

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page. For further
details regarding subscriptions and  correspondence please contact
greenleft-AT-peg.apc.org


Louis Proyect



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