The Puppetshow Glittery Lie Machine
I just finished reading this in-depth article from Newsweek called "The Truth About Denial." You should read it too because it chronicles the history of the Big Industry efforts to undercut serious science in the climate change debate. Here's a sample paragraph:
Killing bills in Congress was only one prong of the denial machine's campaign. It also had to keep public opinion from demanding action on greenhouse emissions, and that meant careful management of what federal scientists and officials wrote and said. "If they presented the science honestly, it would have brought public pressure for action," says Rick Piltz, who joined the federal Climate Science Program in 1995. By appointing former coal and oil lobbyists to key jobs overseeing climate policy, he found, the administration made sure that didn't happen. Following the playbook laid out at the 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, officials made sure that every report and speech cast climate science as dodgy, uncertain, controversial—and therefore no basis for making policy. Ex-oil lobbyist Philip Cooney, working for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, edited a 2002 report on climate science by sprinkling it with phrases such as "lack of understanding" and "considerable uncertainty." A short section on climate in another report was cut entirely. The White House "directed us to remove all mentions of it," says Piltz, who resigned in protest. An oil lobbyist faxed Cooney, "You are doing a great job."
As a frequent reader of the John Locke Puppetshow Journal, all of this seemed vaguely familiar to me. Over the past few years, the Puppetshow has produced a deluge of bullshit stories challenging everything from the reality of climate change, the causes, the likely impacts and the appropriateness of taking remedial action.
So putting on my hip-waders, I decided to venture into the JLF sewer to find another recent example of John Hood's complicity in fueling the denial machine. I didn't have to go very far. Because right there on the front page was another "interview" by Mitch Kokai, the go-to Puppet for climate change lies. It's enough to turn your stomach:
Kokai: One of the things you point out is that you’re not saying that there is no warming. You’re also not saying that there is no impact from man. But if there is some sort of warming, if there is some sort of danger, we could and should do different things than having increased taxes or regulations that will limit our options in the future.
Schwartz: Yeah, I think that the danger is overblown. And I think also that the attribution of the warming to greenhouse gases, almost solely to greenhouse gases, is probably incorrect. But also, the kinds of things that environmentalists and Al Gore are trying to get us to do are among the most costly policies that you could possibly implement. And so if you want to solve the problem, you want to solve it in the cheapest way possible.
And what might that be? Why it's the old "spray glitter on the North Pole" solution!
. . . one thing you could do would be to spray, essentially, glitter above the poles. This is something that volcanoes already do every once in awhile, and it does cool the earth. It’s something that would probably be a lot less expensive than the vast reductions in energy that would be required to reduce carbon dioxide. emphasis added
I'm not going to say spraying glitter all over the poles is a bad idea. Hell, it might just do the trick. Plus it would make the North Pole all sparkly and pretty, just in time for Christmas. But judging from the Newsweek article, you'd have to conclude that ExxonMobil has diversified into the glitter manufacturing business, and stands to make billions from this latest denier scheme.
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Unlike the folks who post at BlueNC or at blogs like the Progressive Pulse, Puppets at the John Locke Foundation march in violent lock-step with the neocon party line. With no accountability to anyone other than Art Pope, the multi-million dollar right-wing opinion-manufacturing organization has increasingly lost touch with reality. Newspaper editors who carry Hood's columns would do well to look in the mirror and ask themselves why they're allowing themselves to be used as part of the the Puppetshow Glittery Lie Machine.
It's amazing that anyone with half a brain in North Carolina takes anything coming out of the Art Pope Puppetshow seriously.
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The ever boiling lake of fire....
Ripped from today's headlines Shrinking Lake Superior Also Heating Up, National Geographic News Service,
Drought? Couldn't happen here, right?
NC Drought Spreads, Aug. 2nd, 2007
So will I be called a fuzzy headed liberal by the Lockers because my family has already started to conserve water?
CitizenWill
there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. MLK,Jr. to SCLC Leadership Class
How about lip gloss on the equator?
I have to say, this is the first I've seen of the glitter thing, and I would be very leery of any attempts to merely reflect radiation from the poles.
Do to the makeup of the magnetosphere, the poles are exposed to a huge amount of radiation that is deflected elsewhere on the planet. There's no telling what that glitter might do. Hell, it could end up causing the atmosphere to retain more radiation than it currently does, which would be catastrophic.
Aww . . . yer thinkin' too much
Come on dude! Glitter's the new gold!
But what would the other planets say?
I'm not a prude or anything, but it would be just like Venus to call Earth a "flashy whore" behind her back. And Mars? Don't get me started.
Ha!
Venus shrouds herself in mystery . . . I'm better she already has tons of glitter hidden in there somewhere. And who cares what Mars thinks! Mars makes David Almond Joy feel like a nut.
Gaia Hypothesis - Tammy Faye Style?
Sounds like Daisyworld.
Actually, increasing the albedo of the Earth has been batted around for awhile - and is not without some merit.
The Right started blatting about increasing albedos after Ed Teller (yes, Mr. H-Bomb) published this [PDF] government supported Hoover Institute report in 2002.
Locally (the OC), folks have been pushing for high albedo solutions in buildings, roads and other traditionally solar absorbing structures.
I've asked the enviro-tech guys involved with Carolina North if they plan to incorporate albedo solutions in their buildout - they said they hadn't considered it but would take it under advisement. So, there's some small hope for Chapel Hill ( too bad NCDOT insisted on repaving 20 miles of I-40 leading into and out of Town in black).
CitizenWill
there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. MLK,Jr. to SCLC Leadership Class
Like I said, I'm not against glitter
in principle. But how do you get it to line up so it reflect back into space? And how do you keep it from blowing around and falling back to earth?
Every time I try to glitter something, it falls off the table and lands on the floor.
Does glitter defy gravity?
Maybe we should fill 10,000 space shuttles with glitter and explode them in space between the earth and the sun?
What happens if we use too much glitter and the earth starts to freeze? Does someone have a glitter dust-buster?
What color glitter will we use? I'm all for glitter diversity, but wouldn't white be the best?
Maybe we can get all the women with glitter toe nails to line up on the north pole wearing flip flops?
Move over Al
Gary Glitter to the rescue:
Shiny ballooooooooons!
I know you're not against the glitter - heck, we all like glitter....
I read the Locksters also and, for all the BS going into their often toxic brews (and their reasons for mixing those brews in the first place), I can't just dismiss what they say out-of-hand. I usually use their BS to help sharpen my counter-arguments but sometimes - maybe like a shot gun scatter - they score a hit.
For instance, the NC Lottery, which they thought was as much of a scam as I did. For whatever reason, they've been quite good on their follow ups on that mess.
Like any well prepared propaganda, they mix some good in with the bad to add some verisimilitude to the mix.
Shiny balloons are a red-herring. Increasing albedo - maybe through smart regulation - not so bad. Of course, you have to sift through quite a bit to find some reasonable nuggets.
Jim, you and the rest of the BlueNC Locke watchdogs have provided an excellent counter to the propaganda - thanks for keep on keeping on.
CitizenWill
there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. MLK,Jr. to SCLC Leadership Class
Yep
They were right on the lottery for sure - though their alternative ideas around public education are generally abhorent. Even though I support some of their thinking about charter schools, they go to unconscionable extremes. And that's generally the problem . . . they go to such extremes that even their occasionally useful ideas are tainted by so much nonsense that it's easier to throw out the baby and the stinky bathwater.
Glad to have you dropping by, Will.
You might like the denialism blog
Anglico,
In case you're not reading enough, you might like to stick the denialsm blog into your Google Reader. It's a low-traffic site - the kind of blog that's easy to keep up with - and it's exceedingly informative.
-- ge
Besta é tu se você não viver nesse mundo
http://george.entenman.name
Who knew that glitter was the answer.
I think that must be their answer to health care as well.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
i tried it...
...i'm nowhere near the poles, of course, but it turns out we have this stuff called "gravity"?
(i know it was mentioned above, but i'm a "show-me" kind of writer.)
i had to go look it up on the google after my experiment, but there it is...
i found out it is what makes the glitter fall down.
oh, well, another good plan shot to hell.