The following letter appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist on April 9, 2010. I wrote it in response to a letter the previous day by retired newspaper columnist Paul MacRae, who now influences young minds at the University of Victoria. MacRae has jumped on the global warming denial bandwagon, launched a website, and is purportedly writing a book designed to silence the “false alarm” about global warming. MacRae’s beef was with public relations maven Jim Hoggan who ran a public forum exposing the denial industry at UVIC on the 8th, which was announced in a TC column on the 7th.
I agree that it would be clearer to refer to the climate reality we’re facing by the specific term global warming ― the man-made phenomenon that is indeed changing our climate.
But semantics aside, even a schoolchild armed with Google can debunk the kind of lies spread by global warming deniers.
“Skepticism” is indeed a good thing in an age awash in corporate and political advertising and we should not allow the meaning of the word to be debased by those who will believe any old hogwash.
Without critical thinking we are, as Aldous Huxley warned in his 1958 essay Brave New World Revisited, at the mercy of those who would control society through propaganda.
Climate scientist Phil Jones did not say that the climate was not warming. In fact, Jones stated “I’m 100 per cent confident that the climate has warmed.” But that doesn’t quite deliver the deniers’ PR message.
Routine revisions in climate science do not point to a conspiracy of scientists “manipulating data to get the ‘warming’ they wanted” despite e-mails stolen, cherry-picked and misrepresented by denial industry propagandists.
Yet none of these facts deter deniers from repeating the same untruths and distortions over and over. They believe that a lie told often enough will overpower truth.
Hopefully, they have underestimated the intelligence of their audience.
BBC interview with Phil Jones | Guardian: Scientists cleared of malpractice in UEA’s hacked emails inquiry | Jim Hoggan’s DeSmogBlog | Paul MacRae’s blog | Real Climate by real scientists
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