Photo by Francois Dequidt

There is no “debate” among climate experts that global warming is indeed a fact. But that hasn’t stopped Exxon-Mobil from using its billions of dollars to create doubt in the public arena about whether the scientifically verified warm-up is real.

As The NY Times’ Paul Krugman explains it:

A leaked memo from a 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, in which Exxon (which hadn’t yet merged with Mobil) was a participant, describes a strategy of providing “logistical and moral support” to climate change dissenters, “thereby raising questions about and undercutting the ‘prevailing scientific wisdom.’ ” And that’s just what Exxon Mobil has done: lavish grants have supported a sort of alternative intellectual universe of global warming skeptics.”

The people and institutions Exxon Mobil supports aren’t actually engaged in climate research. They’re the real-world equivalents of the Academy of Tobacco Studies in the movie “Thank You for Smoking,” whose purpose is to fail to find evidence of harmful effects.

But the fake research works for its sponsors, partly because it gets picked up by right-wing pundits, but mainly because it plays perfectly into the he-said-she-said conventions of “balanced” journalism. A 2003 study, by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff, of reporting on global warming in major newspapers found that a majority of reports gave the skeptics — a few dozen people, many if not most receiving direct or indirect financial support from Exxon Mobil — roughly the same amount of attention as the scientific consensus, supported by thousands of independent researchers.

Columnist and conservative hack George Will also disputed, as recently as March 20th, that global warming exists. Best selling author Michael Crichton wrote a novel, published in 2005, called, “State of Fear” whose theme is that liberal, environmental politics, not facts, have created a hysteria around the planet’s warm-up. His villains are the environmentalists.

How can any sane person think that an environmetalist (whatever that word means), wants global warming for selfish reasons, when an entire profit-driven, international military-industrial system runs on oil and auto manufacturing which might collapse as the facts on our planet’s demise become clearer? Sorry Mr. Crichton; scientific explorations and observations continue to confirm the melting of our polar ice.

On March 24, 2006, the NY Times reported:

Within the next 100 years, the growing human influence on Earth’s climate could lead to a long and irreversible rise in sea levels by eroding the planet’s vast polar ice sheets, according to new observations and analysis by several teams of scientists.
One team, using computer models of climate and ice, found that by about 2100, average temperatures could be four degrees higher than today and that over the coming centuries, the oceans could rise 13 to 20 feet — conditions last seen 129,000 years ago, between the last two ice ages.

The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are consistent with other recent studies of melting and erosion at the poles. Many experts say there are still uncertainties about timing, extent and causes.

But Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, a lead author of one of the studies, said the new findings made a strong case for the danger of failing to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in a greenhouselike effect.

”If we don’t like the idea of flooding out New Orleans, major portions of South Florida, and many other valued parts of the coastal U.S.,” Dr. Overpeck said, ”we will have to commit soon to a major effort to stop most emissions of carbon to the atmosphere.”

What the hell are we waiting for? Why are we driving around in SUV’s and importing oil? Are we going to kill humankind through nuclear holocaust or global warming or both?