This was a memo written by political consultant Frank Luntz to George Bush and Republican politicians in 2002.
“The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general – and President Bush in particular – are most vulnerable.”
He goes on, “The scientific debate is closing but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science… Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate..”
So, how many Americans are convinced global warming is actually happening? Answer: 72%
How many Americans think there is still much scientific disagreement about climate change? Answer: 40%
The reason for that 40%? A few men like Luntz who have fought to instill that doubt in your mind. Not for money, (though I found it played a part) - but simply because of their political ideology, their belief in laissez-faire (let the people be free & govern themselves) economics, and their distaste for government intervention.
At least that’s what Professor Naomi Oreskes of UCSD (who is referenced in An Inconvenient Truth) explained in her talk on “The Denial of Global Warming” that I attended earlier this week. (Thus, these opinions are not my own nor have I extensively researched their veracity - I am merely relaying the information because, well, it blew my mind.)
The “truth” is, there IS a scientific consensus that climate change is a reality. It’s been researched and scientifically justified since the 1880s (though many political leaders would have you think it’s a new study). There was Callendar in the 30s, there was Revelle & Suess in the 50s, and there was Keeling at Mauna Loa.
And then there was Luntz, featured above, Fred Seitz, whose op-ed in the WSJ in 1996 and other work referred to global warming as the greatest deception in the history of science, and Fred Singer, who claimed that the atmosphere has not warmed in recent decades and who proposed a $5M campaign “to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty” (per a 2007 Newsweek article).
Interestingly enough, Singer and Seitz have also had a history in the tobacco industry, opposing the science that smoking is linked to cancer.
- Singer (who is an atmospheric physicist at George Mason University) contested that secondhand smoke had bad health effects (the EPA’s 1993 study). He was commissioned in 1994 by Phillip Morris to “maintain the controversy” on secondhand smoke.
- In the 70s and 80s Seitz directed $45M of RJ Reynolds’ medical research funds, but in retrospect says the firm “didn’t want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking.” The company ran countless ads citing the evidence that the health effects of smoking were ambiguous. In an interview he admits he was even asked “to see if I could find a group that would look into this question: How serious is cancer?”
The story is - global warming presents the mother of all environmental problems, the greatest threat that Seitz, Singer, and undoubtedly others see to their political ideology.
- Seitz’s op-ed states that a carbon tax “will have a major and almost certainly destructive impact on the economies of the world.”
- Even during his tobacco days, Seitz said there is “no limit to how much the government can ultimately control our lives.”
Each supports whichever side of the argument maintains laissez-faire - tobacco, climate, the Strategic Defense Initiative during the Cold War (anti-Communism.. makes sense).
So that’s that. I definitely opened up a can of worms while researching all this (hence the super long post)… I believe Oreskes is planning to write a book on this, so stay tuned.
