- Edward L. Bernays – Propaganda – Horace LiveRight, New York, 1926
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons … who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
- Tobacco Documents Online – http://tobaccodocuments.org/
- Damian Thompson – Counterknowledge. How we surrender to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history – Chap. 5: The Counterknowledge Industry – Atlantic Books, 2008 – p. 94
“These counterknowledge entrepreneurs may or may not believe their own claims, but the successful ones all have an instinctive understanding of how social epidemics work. They are not just salesman: they are what Malcom Gladwell calls ‘connectors’, people with special gift for bringing the world together … Counterknowledge becomes an industry in the broadest sense of the word; it affects not only people’s finances but also their personal lives.” - Andrew A. Lacis et al (2010) – Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature – Science 330:356-359 doi:10.1126/science.1190653 – 14/10/2010 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – 4 authors- Peer-reviewed
“The difference between the nominal global mean surface temperature (TS = 288 K) and the global mean effective temperature (TE = 255 K) is a common measure of the terrestrial greenhouse effect (GT = TS – TE = 33 K). Assuming global energy balance, TE is also the Planck radiation equivalent of the 240 W/m2 of global mean solar radiation absorbed by Earth.” - Andrew A. Lacis et al (2010) – Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature – Science 330:356-359 doi:10.1126/science.1190653 – 14/10/2010 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – 4 authors- Peer-reviewed
“Besides CO2,methane is another potent greenhouse control knob, being implicated in the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximummass extinction 55 million years ago, when global warming by up to 5°C (12) occurred because of a massive release of methane from the disintegration of seafloor clathrates (13, 14). Methane is the second most important noncondensing GHG after CO2. Of the 2.9 W/m2 of GHG radiative forcing from 1750 to 2000, CO2 contributed 1.5 W/m2, methane 0.55 W/m2, and CFCs 0.3 W/m2, with the rest coming from N2O and ozone (15). All of these increases in noncondensingGHG forcing are attributable to human activity (ref).” - James Hansen et al (2010) – Global Surface Temperature Change – – 40330 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf – 4 authors – Peer-reviewed
“Of course it is possible to find almost any trend for a limited period via judicious choice of start and end dates of a data set that has high temporal resolution, but that is not a meaningful exercise. Even a more moderate assessment, «the trend in global surface temperature has been nearly flat since the late 1990s despite continuing increases in the forcing due to the sum of the well-mixed greenhouse gases» [Solomon et al., 2009], is not supported by our data. On the contrary, we conclude that there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20°C/decade that began in the late 1970s.” - Jean-Marie Robine et al (2007) – Report on excess mortality in Europe during summer 2003 – EU Community Action Programme for Public Health – 39141 – Inserm, Health and Demography, CRLC, University of Montpellier – http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_projects/2005/action1/docs/action1_2005_a2_15_en.pdf – 5 authors
“In total, more than 80,000 additional deaths were recorded in 2003 in the twelve countries concerned by excess mortality compared to the 1998‐2002 period. Whereas 70,000 of these additional deaths occurred during the summer, still over 7,000 occurred afterwards. Nearly 45,000 additional deaths were recorded in August alone, as well as more than 11,000 in June, more than 10,000 in July and nearly 5,000 in September. The mortality crisis of early August extended over the two weeks between August 3rd and 16th. 15,000 additional deaths were recorded in the first week and nearly 24,000 in the second. The excess mortality in this second week reached the exceptional value of 96.5% in France and over 40% in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg. Excess mortality exceeded 20% in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium and 10% in all the other countries.” - William R. Freudenburg, Robert Gramling, Debra J. Davidson (2008) – Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs): Science and the Politics of Doubt – Sociological Inquiry 78:2-38 – February 2008 – University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Louisiana-Lafayette; University of Alberta – Peer-reviewed
“Until the most dogged of industry proponents finally abandoned their positions, many of the key “scientific” representatives in the ongoing debates were still offering spirited arguments that the findings were not definitive, and that anyone who might seek to impose regulations in the absence of Scientific Certainty was being unscientific and irresponsible.” - Wiki – Post-normal science – Wikipedia – 23/04/2010 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
«Given the greater importance of climate systems and the fact that less is known about them, conventional methods of inquiry, based on determining all relevant information before proceeding, are too slow and uncertain to deal with an issue too complex to be fully understood and too important to wait for confirmatory results. Because of this, advocates of post-normal science suggest that there must be an «extended peer community» consisting of all those affected by an issue who are prepared to enter into dialogue on it. They bring their «extended facts», that will include local knowledge and materials not originally intended for publication such as leaked official information. There is a political case for this extension of the franchise of science; but Funtowicz and Ravetz also argue that this extension is necessary for assuring the quality of the process and of the product.» - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (WMO, UNEP) – Guidance Notes for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Addressing Uncertainties – July 2005 – http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-uncertaintyguidancenote.pdf– Peer-reviewed
“Virtually certain > 99% probability of occurrence; Very likely > 90% probability; Likely > 66% probability; About as likely as not 33 to 66% probability; Unlikely < 33% probability; Very unlikely < 10% probability; Exceptionally unlikely < 1% probability” - William R. Freudenburg, Robert Gramling, Debra J. Davidson (2008) – Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs): Science and the Politics of Doubt – Sociological Inquiry 78:2-38 – February 2008 – University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Louisiana-Lafayette; University of Alberta- Peer-reviewed
“Proponents of so-called “sound science”—those who argue for a singleminded focus on Type I errors while ignoring Type II errors—might well claim, with at least a germ of legitimacy, that even though 80 percent of the workers at the Bayway facility suffered severe symptoms of lead poisoning, that fact alone could not be taken as “proving,” with a 95 percent level of confidence, that the substances being handled at that facility were hazardous … To the extent to which a SCAM is successful, however, the question of proving the safety of the chemical or technology is one that simply never comes up.” - Ted Trainer (2010) – Can renewables etc. solve the greenhouse problem? The negative case – Energy Policy 38:4107-4114 doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.03.037 – 07/05/2010 – Social Work, University of NSW, Australia – Peer-reviewed
«Virtually all current discussion of climate change and energy problems proceeds on the assumption that technical solutions are possible within basically affluent-consumer societies. There is however a substantial case that this assumption is mistaken. This case derives from a consideration of the scale of the tasks and of the limits of non-carbon energy sources, focusing especially on the need for redundant capacity in winter. The first line of argument is to do with the extremely high capital cost of the supply system that would be required, and the second is to do with the problems set by the intermittency of renewable sources. It is concluded that the general climate change and energy problem cannot be solved without large scale reductions in rates of economic production and consumption, and therefore without transition to fundamentally different social structures and systems.» - Joseph Romm – Rajendra Pachauri endorses 350 ppm, not as IPCC chair but “as a human being” – Climate Progress 25/08/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/08/25/ipcc-chair-rajendra-pachauri-350-ppm-bill-mckibben
“The difference between the two targets is that for 450 ppm, you need to do the 12-14 wedges in four decades. For 350 ppm, you (roughly) need 8 wedges in about two decades plus another 10 wedges over the next three decades (and then have the world go carbon negative as soon as possible after that), which requires a global WWII-style and WWII-scale strategy” - Fiona Harvey – The heat is on – Financial Times 01/12/2008 – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/429574ba-b9c4-11dd-99dc-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
“Today’s financial crisis has been heralded as the worst since the 1930s … But even a severe recession would be small compared with what is likely to result from climate change if greenhouse gas emissions are left unchecked. Global warming has the power to plunge the world into a crisis deeper and more permanent than the Great Depression and two world wars of the last century.” - Ronald Inglehart and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (2000) – Genes, Culture, Democracy and Happiness – En: A: Diener, Ed; Suh, Eunkook. Culture and Subjective Well-being; Cambridge: The MIT Press – University of Michigan; Institutions and Social Change, WZB – http://www.wzb.eu/alt/iw/pdf/genecult.pdf
«Previous studies have found that differences in income, education, occupation, gender, marital status and other demographic characteristics explain surprisingly little of the fvariation in people’s levels of subjective well-being.» - James Lovelock (2006) – The Revenge of Gaia – Edició en català sota el títol: La venjança de Gaia – Columna Edicions, 2007 – 260 pp. – ISBN: 978-84-6640792-2
“Si un sol bacteri es dividís i repetís aquesta divisió cada vint minuts, sempre que no hi haguessin limitacions per al creixement i que el proveïment de menjar fos il·limitat, en només dos dies la progènie total pesaria tant com la Terra … Ara sabem que algunes propietats globals i el clima fixen els límits que aporten estabilitat … Si el sistema de la Terra, Gaia, pogués expressar alguna preferència, seria per la fredor d’una era glacial, no pas per la relativa calor actual.” - Aradhna K. Tripati, Christopher D. Roberts and Robert A. Eagle (2009) – Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years – Science doi: 10.1126/science.1178296 – Published online 08/10/2009 – Departments of Earth and Space Sciences and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge; Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology – Peer-reviewed
“We use boron/calcium ratios in foraminifera to estimate pCO2 during major climate transitions of the last 20 million years. During the Middle Miocene, when temperatures were ~3 to 6°C warmer and sea level 25 to 40 meters higher than present, pCO2 was similar to modern levels. Decreases in pCO2 were synchronous with major episodes of glacial expansion during the Middle Miocene (~14 to 10 million years ago; Ma) and Late Pliocene (~3.3 to -2.4 Ma).” - Kate Ravilious – Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months – New Scientist 2734 11/11/2009 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-age-took-hold-of-europe-in-months.html
“Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or «Big Freeze». It was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, led to the decline of the Clovis culture in North America, and lasted around 1300 years. Until now, it was thought that the mini ice age took a decade or so to take hold, on the evidence provided by Greenland ice cores. Not so, say William Patterson of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and his colleagues.” - The Younger Dryas – Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory – – Columbia University at New York – http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml
“An event that occurred about 12,800 years before present (BP), termed the Younger Dryas (YD), is the canonical example of abrupt climate change … Around 15,000 years ago, the Earth started warming abruptly after ~ 100,000 years of an «ice age»; this is known as a glacial termination … A climatic optimum known as the «Bölling-Allerød» was reached shortly thereafter, around 14,700 before present. However, starting at about 12,800 BP, the Earth returned very quickly into near glacial conditions (i.e. cold, dry and windy), and stayed there for about 1,200 years. The most spectacular aspect of the YD is that it ended extremely abruptly (around 11,600 years ago), and although the date cannot be known exactly, it is estimated from the annually-banded Greenland ice-core that the annual-mean temperature increased by as much as 10°C in 10 years.” - Stephen Schneider (2009) – The Climate Crunch: The worst-case scenario – Nature 458:1104-1105 doi:10.1038/4581104a – 30/04/2009 – Professor of interdisciplinary environmental studies and biology, and a senior fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University- Peer-reviewed
“Sensitivity is a measure of how much the surface will warm up if CO2 levels double from pre-industrial levels, and the IPCC has estimated it to have a «likely» range (implying a 66–90% probability) of 2 °C to 4.5 °C, with a «best guess» median of 3 °C. That implies that there is a 5–17% chance of warming above or below those endpoints. The IPCC estimates about 2.5 °C to 6.4 °C as the «likely» range for warming by 2100 under A1FI, so there is a 5–17% chance that temperatures will go up by more than 6.4 °C by 2100.” - Gavin Schmidt and David Archer – Too much of a bad thing – Nature, Vol 458 – 30/04/2009 – Peer-reviewed
“Given that humans have already emitted roughly 520 GtC to the end of 2008, Allen and colleagues’ best-estimate CWC – 2 °C per 1,000 GtC emitted from 1750 to 2500 (compared with 2000–2050 in Meinshausen et al.) – implies that another 480 GtC would put us over 2 °C with more than 50% likelihood.” - David Archer et al (2009) – Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 37:117-134 doi: – 26/01/2009 – Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago – 11 authors – Peer-reviewed
«Here, we review the past literature on the atmospheric lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 and its impact on climate, and we present initial results from a model intercomparison project on this topic. The models agree that 20– 35% of theCO2 remains in the atmosphere after equilibration with the ocean (2–20 centuries). Neutralization byCaCO3 draws the airborne fraction down further on timescales of 3 to 7 kyr.» - James E. Hansen et al (2004) – The Role of Climate Perceptions, Expectations, and Forecasts in Farmer Decision Making: The Argentine Pampas and South Florida – International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), Palisades, NY: Technical Report 04–01 – ISBN 0-9729252-2-8 – 142 pp.
“This study provided multiple insights into determinants of use of climate information related to perception and communication, and some evidence that improved presentation may overcome some of the barriers and enhance utility.” - Elke U. Weber (2006) – Experience-Based and Description-Based Perceptions Of Long-Term Risk: Why Global Warming Does Not Scare Us (Yet) – Climatic Change (2006) 77: 103–120 – Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University – Peer-reviewed
«There was some indication that concern and worry was a finite resource even within each scenario … Judgments of worry or perceived risk were not inconsequential, in that differences in farmers’ perceptions of the degree of risk posed by political, climate, input costs and crop price variables were associated with differences in their production and pricing decisions. A real world illustration of the finite pool of worry effect is provided by the observation that increases in the concern of the U.S. public about terrorism post 9/11 seem to have resulted in decreased concern about other issues such as environmental degradation or restrictions of civil liberties.” - Gabriel Calzada – El Watergate climático: la farsa del calentamiento global, al descubierto – Libertad Digital 23/11/2009 – http://www.libertaddigital.com/ciencia/el-watergate-climatico-la-farsa-del-calentamiento-global-al-descubierto-1276376962/
“Lo principal que se extrae de la lectura de estos correos electrónicos es, en palabras del blogger norteamericano John Hinderaker, una mentalidad de bunker asediado por los enemigos, esto es, los escépticos. Estos científicos creen sinceramente en la teoría del calentamiento global, de un modo tan fanático que les lleva a alegrarse de la muerte en 2004 del escéptico John Daly o desear «darle una paliza» al también escéptico Patrick Michaels.” - Philip Mirovski (2008) – The Rise of the Dedicated Natural Science Think Tank – The Social Science Research Council, New York – July 2008 – University of Nôtre Dame – Peer-reviewed
“The key tenets were to promote otherwise isolated scientific spokespersons (from gold plated universities, if possible) who would take the industry side in the debate, manufacture uncertainty about the existing scientific literature, launder information through seemingly neutral third party fronts, and wherever possible recast the debate by moving it away from aspects of the science which it would seem otherwise impossible to challenge. As one famous tobacco company memo put it: Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’.” - Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap and Mark Freeman (2008) – The organization of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism – Environmental Politics 17:349-385 – June 2008 – Peer-reviewed
“Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed ‘sceptics’ claim to be unbiased analysts combating ‘junk science’. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books … 92 % are linked to conservative think tanks … 90 % of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection.” - David Michaels and Celeste Monforton (2005) – Manufacturing Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public’s Health and Environment – American Journal of Public Health Supplement 1:S39-S48 doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.043059 – Peer-reviewed
“Though most identified with the tobacco industry, this strategy has also been used by producers of other hazardous products. Its proponents use the label “junk science” to ridicule research that threatens powerful interests … Following a strategic plan developed in the mid-1950s by Hill and Knowlton (H&K), the tobacco industry hired scientists and commissioned research to challenge the growing scientific consensus linking cigarette smoking and severe health effects.” - The Great Global Warming Swindle – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle – 21/11/2009
“06/02/2008: is a controversial documentary film that argues 01/09/2009: is a documentary film that argues … – Its original working title was «Apocalypse my arse», but the title The Great Global Warming Swindle was later adopted as a reference to The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, a mockumentary about British punk band The Sex Pistols.” - Ji Hu et al (2007) – Detection of Near-Atmospheric Concentrations of CO2 by an Olfactory Subsystem in the Mouse – Science 317:953-957 – 17/08/2007 – Peer-reviewed
“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important environmental cue for many organisms but is odorless to humans … Behavioral tests revealed CO2 detection thresholds of ~0.066%… We conclude that mice detect CO2 at near-atmospheric concentrations through the olfactory subsystem of GC-D+ neurons. - James Hansen et al (2005) – Efficacy of climate forcings – Journal of Geophysical Research 110, D18104, doi: 10.1029/2005JD005776 – 28/09/2005 – 45 authors – http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_2.html – Peer-reviewed
“We find a substantial range in the ‘‘efficacy’’ of different forcings, where the efficacy is the global temperature response per unit forcing relative to the response to CO2 forcing … We conclude from our present study that the efficacy of the direct CH4 forcing is Ea ~110 ± 2% - Stanislas Dehaene et al (2008) – Log or Linear? Distinct Intuitions of the Number Scale in Western and Amazonian Indigene Cultures – Science 320:1217-1221 DOI: 10.1126/science.1156540 – 30/05/2008 – INSERM, Cognitive Neuro-imaging Unit, Institut Fédératif de Recherche (IFR) + Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, NeuroSpin center, IFR + Collège de France+ Université Paris-Sud – Peer-reviewed
“This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education.” - Carlos Elías – La razón estrangulada – Random House Mondadori, Colección Debate – Barcelona, 2008
- The Younger Dryas – Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University at New York – http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml
“An event that occurred about 12,800 years before present (BP), termed the Younger Dryas (YD), is the canonical example of abrupt climate change … Around 15,000 years ago, the Earth started warming abruptly after ~ 100,000 years of an «ice age»; this is known as a glacial termination … it is estimated from the annually-banded Greenland ice-core that the annual-mean temperature increased by as much as 10°C in 10 years.” - Janet Swim, Chair – Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges – American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change – August 2009 – Peer-reviewed
“General sequence of psychological barriers: Ignorance, Uncertainty, Mistrust and reactance, Denial, Judgmental discounting, Place attachment, Habit, Perceived behavioral control, Perceived risks from behavioral change, Tokenism and the rebound effect, Social comparison, norms, conformity and perceived equity, Conflicting goals and aspirations, Belief in solutions outside of human control.” - 450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of «Man-Made» Global Warming – Popular Technology 05/11/2009 – http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
- IPCC/TEAP (2005) – Bert Metz et al (Eds) – Special Report on Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System – Cambridge University Press – 478 pp. – Peer-reviewed
“Despite an equivalent fall in production of CFCs, the bank of material that remains in equipment and has not yet been emitted remains significant. For example, in the year 2002, the CFC bank amounted to over 2.4 million tonnes, consisting mainly of CFC-11 in foams (UNEP-TEAP, 2002ab). In addition to the emissions of CFCs and HCFCs from future consumption in developing countries, it is expected that a substantial proportion of these banks will eventually be released into the atmosphere.”
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