As scientists in the field of climatology and related fields increasingly concluded that human activity was causing the Earth’s temperature to warm and thus change its climate, major sectors of the capitalist class and their representatives organized to resist this. Foremost amongst these were the oil and coal industries and also the far-right “free” market ideologues. While the industries mentioned had a direct stake in opposing the scientific conclusions, the free marketeers opposed it because the conclusion would be that the “free” market doesn’t work.
Thus it was that an entire industry of deniers developed. Included are such alleged “scientists” as: John Christy, Phillip Stott, Ian Clark, Richard Lindzen, and Patrick Michaels – all of whom are linked with the oil industry and/or such right wing think tanks as the Cato Institute.
Then there are the out-and-out propagandists who do not even have a scientific credential to place behind their names. These include individuals like Paul Driessen, a former environmentalist who is linked with such right wing think tanks as the “Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow”, Patrick Moore, former Director of Greenpeace, who has worked as a propagandist for the Canadian timber industry as well as for plastic companies, and Richard Courtney, technical editor of CoalTrans International, the journal of the international coal trading industry. (Note: An excellent source for background to such individuals is www.sourcewatch.org.)
Summary of the Evidence
It is not my purpose here to provide much of the evidence for the fact of human-caused global climate change; that evidence is overwhelming and easily available on the internet. This evidence includes the shrinkage as well as the break-up of both polar ice-caps (www.nrdc.org/globalwarming), the shrinkage of almost all mountain-top glaciers http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=157), the warming of the oceans’ waters http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=6582&Method=Full), the duration and strength of hurricanes and typhoons has increased ((http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0804_050804_hurricanewarming.html),
and the increased pests in higher altitude forests (threatening forests such as the pine forests of Yosemite and the aspen forests of Colorado from personal observation plus recent news reports such as here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/15/aspen-trees-dying-off-sci_n_322402.html). In addition to these changes in climate is the increased acidification of the oceans, which is due to their absorption of massive amounts of carbon dioxide (http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/acidification/science.asp). This acidification threatens the life of many species, most prominently tiny shellfish and crustaceans whose shells are threatened with being dissolved. (Note: I have listed just one source for most of these undeniable facts. However, entire books have been written documenting them and any google search will reveal tens of thousands of other sources.)
Deniers’ Dishonest, Anti-Scientific Method
The right-wing, corporate-controlled global warming deniers have shifted grounds over the years. First they claimed that nothing significant is changing in the climate. Then they claimed that while there may be some changes, these are not caused by human activity but rather by Sun spots or some other factor outside of human control. Then they shifted once again and claimed that while human activity is causing this change, there is nothing that can be done, and even if there is it will be too expensive.
Their tactics are incompatible with any serious scientific approach. For instance, they focus on a few years in recent decades when global temperatures have decreased, but neglect to mention that this is due to a series of huge volcanoes which sent enormous amounts of ash into the atmosphere and that prior to and subsequent to this effect temperatures were increasing. They point out that in the past, periods of global warming were followed, not preceded, by increased CO2 levels. This supposedly proves that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are a result not a cause of global warming. What they fail deal with is the argument that other factors may have slightly warmed the climate, but these were not sufficient for the subsequent warming; that what happened was that a slight warming caused an increased CO2 level in the atmosphere, which then caused a much greater warming.
These deniers simply pick and choose which facts and arguments to deal with while they ignore the answers to their arguments as if such answers don’t exist. This is the method of propagandists, not scientists.
Left Skeptics
There is, however, another wing of those who doubt or deny the reality of human-caused global warming. Those are on the left, the most prominent of whom is probably Alexander Cockburn. They advance two political theories for why this view has become so prominent amongst scientists and others: One is that it is simply advanced in order to justify increased attacks on the working class (as well as on the third world in general). The other is that this is all a plot cooked up by the nuclear industry.
This view is contradicted by how the study of human-caused global warming/climate change developed.
Brief History of Global Warming Theory
The first scientist to propose that human created CO2 could change the climate was a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius in 1896, but his idea was generally rejected at the time. Then, in 1938 an engineer named Stewart Callendar made a similar proposal, and claimed that the Earth was warming due to an actual build-up of CO2. Callendar thought this was a positive effect. However, this view was again generally ignored or rejected.
The rejection of this view stemmed from several sources. First and foremost was simple general ignorance of the changes in the planet’s climate since its inception as well as the general disbelief that human activity could affect it. As one writer put it: “Hardly anyone imagined that human actions, so puny among the vast natural powers, could upset the balance that governed the planet as a whole. This view of Nature – suprahuman, benevolent, and inherently stable – lay deep in most human cultures. It was traditionally tied up with a religious faith in the God-given order of the universe, a flawless and imperturbable harmony. Such was the public belief, and scientists are members of the public, sharing most of the assumptions of their culture. Once scientists found plausible arguments explaining that the atmosphere and climate would remain unchanged within a human timescale – just as everyone expected – they stopped looking for possible counter arguments (Spencer Weart, “The Discovery of Global Warming”, pp. 7-8)
By the 1920s and ‘30s, however, this view was decisively smashed by the development of paleontology – the study of fossils, and in those decades a new theory developed – that increased Sun spot activity had caused the climate changes. However, this was largely discarded in the ‘30s which all predictions based on this theory failed to be borne out. Then another view, that small changes in the Earth’s rotation and axis caused the climate changes, was put forward, also to be discarded.
Following WW II, two developments helped shape the present view of global climate change. First was the cold war, which led to a huge increase in funding for military-related research. A part of this research was studying of global weather patterns, which had a military function as the increased knowledge would help in battle planning, aircraft flight plans, etc.
In addition, by the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, it became inescapable that human activity was affecting the planet’s environment. A signal event in forming this conclusion was the publication of “Silent Spring” (1962) by Rachel Carson. Carson’s book helped shatter the belief that the environment was immutable, and this then led to a further openness to the issue of human-caused climate change. Thus it was that by the 1980s advances in paleontology coupled with other scientific advances led scientists to (reluctantly) conclude that human activity could, indeed, affect global climate.
Corporate Cover-up
This conclusion was not welcomed by the capitalist class; quite the contrary. In 1981, for instance, James Hansen, a scientist employed by the US Department of Energy, sent the NY Times a report he was about to have published that reported that the world’s climate was warming. The result was that the Department of Energy reneged on promised funding for Hansen, who then had to lay off a number of employees.
Both Bush administrations further repressed the study of human-caused climate change. Shortly after G.W. Bush came into office, a representative of ExxonMobil, Randy Randol, sent a memo to Bush seeking the removal of the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr. Robert Watson. They cited Watson’s comment that “The United States is way off meeting its targets (for CO2 emissions).” They sought Watson’s replacement by either Dr. Richard Lindzen or Dr. Richard Christy, two global warming deniers. Christy’s and Lindzen’s claim to fame was some research they’d done which purported to show that global warming had not really occurred. Their arguments collapsed when it was shown that they were based on incorrect calculations of satellite orbits. Perhaps the fact that Lindzen was also receiving $2,500 per day as a “consultant” for the coal industry had something to do with his views also.
In any case, they succeeded in getting Watson removed, although getting Lindzen or Christy appointed in his place would have caused too great of a scandal and this was not accomplished.
Following this, scientific reports by administration scientists were edited and changed for political reasons by Bush aide Philip Cooney, a political appointee. When this came out in the open, Cooney was forced to resign. He then went to work lobbying for ExxonMobil. (http://realclimate.org/index.php?p=442#comment-52583)
It should be emphasized that neither Bush administration was exactly an opponent of the nuclear industry. It should also be emphasized that the Democrats were also complicit in this cover-up that lasted for decades.
Mass Media
The corporate-controlled mass media has also been reluctant to explain about human-caused global warming. To this day, reports about unusual weather occurrences (unusual rain and storm patterns, droughts and heat waves, extreme forest fires, etc.) are reported as inexplicable phenomena. The suspected link between these and global climate change is almost never raised. As one author writes: “A few years ago, a top editor at a major TV network was asked why, given the increasing proportion of news budgets dedicated to weather disasters, the network news broadcasts did not make this connection (with global warming). The editor said, ‘We did that – Once. But it triggered a barrage of complaints from the Global Climate Coalition (a fossil fuel funded denier group) to our top executives at the network.’…. In the end, he confided, the industry basically intimidated the network into dropping this connection from its coverage.” (Ross Gelbspan, “Boiling Point,” p. 80)
Until recently, whenever the media did cover the issue, they tended to give equal coverage to the deniers, using the excuse that they had to be “balanced”. This is like giving the flat-Earthers equal time, and in any case, when has the mass media ever seriously concerned itself with “balanced” reporting?
Pentagon-Commissioned Study
In the early part of this century, a study was commissioned by the Pentagon and conducted by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. This study was meant to analyze the possible “security threats” posed by global climate change. Entitled “Imagining the Unthinkable”, an executive summary of this report is available on the internet, including here: http://www.climate.org/PDF/clim_change_scenario.pdf. The original report was not for public consumption, but rather for the strategists of the capitalist class to help understand the potential dangers. The report depicts a possible scenario in which global climate disruption destabilizes huge portions of the world. It concludes that the US may “find itself in a world where Europe will be struggling internally, large numbers of refugees washing up on its shores, and Asia in a serious crisis over food. Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.”
It has only been with the greatest of reluctance that the reality of human-caused global climate change/disruption has been accepted by the majority of the capitalist class. This reluctance has been generated by several factors: First is the particular interests of particular sectors of the capitalist class, most especially the fossil fuel extractive industries and related industries (such as the auto industry). Secondly, this reality leads to a challenge to the worship of the “free” market, which threatens the capitalist class’s most basic propaganda. In suppressing this scientific reality and in avoiding it, they have played to some of the most basic prejudices. Most particularly is the view that the experience of our species over the last few hundred years more or less sums up the experience of the planet throughout its history. This includes the human experience with the planet’s climate. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.
Limitations of Mainstream Environmentalists
A special mention must be made of the left environmentalists and others who have explained many of the dangers of human-caused global climate change. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the British author and columnist George Monbiot, who has written a book that on the subject (“Heat”) that is generally excellent in many respects. His book decisively proves the reality of this human-caused threat, but then it continues to offer a solution in terms of restructuring much of society in order to massively reduce carbon emissions. In one field of consumption after another, Monbiot shows how such emissions could be reduced by some 80%.
However, there are two key aspects that he ignores: The first is the emissions from the military; the second is emissions from production (vs. consumption). Alongside of this, Monbiot ignores a central question: Are the huge changes he advocates possible without a central plan for the economy, and if not, then which class will exercise power over the drawing up and execution of this plan? Monbiot ignores these questions despite the fact that he is a very thoughtful writer who carefully researches his subject.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Monbiot ignores these issues because he does not see an alternative outside of the capitalist system. This goes for almost the entire global warming industry – the non-profits, the scientists and other writes on the subject, and of course the corporate-controlled politicians. There could hardly be a greater condemnation of capitalism and its “free” market than the plunder of the planet’s environment caused by this system. Any serious study, including that of human-caused global warming/global climate disruption, must conclude that the only solution possible is through a democratically controlled and managed plan for the world economy – in other words socialism on a global scale.
