A climate change conference few talk about, and rightly so..

The Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change that ended this week in New York has been called everything from “denial-a-palooza” (desmoglbog) to “the Skeptic’s Conference” (various media). The conference was organized to bring together some of the world’s leading climate change cynics (retired scientists and reported industry shills) to show the world that the debate over anthropogenic climate change is far from over. Although failing miserably to achieve this, the conference did unwittingly prove that those from the denial industry are not only a fringe group of tin foil hat wearing nutters, politically and ideologically motivated, but that their nonsensical ramblings and accusations of conspiracies and character assassination attempts are in fact heavily funded by wealthy right-wing organizations.

I’ve mentioned before that the issue of climate change only really stuck in the craw of many when Al Gore’s traveling side show on global warming hit the big screen in a documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth”. Those to the right of the political spectrum had puppies that an environmental issue had risen to such prominence; and come hell or high water they were going to retake their libertarian “let’s pollute like we want” moral low ground. So the gloves came off, and they´ve done everything possible to re-label the phenomenon. What was once “Anthropogenic Global Warming” would now be considered “Al Gore’s Global Warming” (that would be the easiest way of amassing an army of right wing ignoramuses over night) and appearantly the conference went on a lengths to reinforce this cheap tawdry tactic.

Here’s a great article by the Wall Street Journal about what I’ve been on about for some time…

Gored: Why Skeptics Need AlPosted by Keith Johnson

I’ve long given up reading anything that starts with or inlcudes “Al Gore’s" global warming. You just KNOW these folks can’t separate their hatred of liberals/democrats from objective reason, and will simply wallow in their political enmity, unconcerned with science and equally unconcerned with the environmental consequences of ignoring science, solely to score points for the conservative mindset. Bloggers eat it up... here´s an example

I am still trying to get over Al Gore “scoring” a Nobel award over a dumb
home-made flick. This goes to show how much “spin” there is in all of these “end
of the world” studies…Comment by Alternate Reality - March 3, 2008 at 1:36
pm

However the use of character assassination/hate by association tactics as well as the blatant dismissal and demonization of science have proven pretty useless for coercing much of the “main stream media” and the public into “seeing the truth about the global warming hoax”. This was one of the reasons climate "cynics" attempted to create the illusion of a scientific conference; to sway media to their camp. When it was not attended by the mainstream media, or at least not covered to their liking, it was decided that the “mainstream media” is part of the great conspiracy, too.

When cynics feel ignored, or isolated in view by the MSM, they argue it’s further proof to liberal media collusion or themainstream media getting in wrong. It's the typical Bill O’Rielly rant. (Although, I´ve never EVER understood how fox news can be one of the highest rated cable networks, yet they don´t consider themselves mainstream news? And remember, those thinking that 9/11 was an inside job ALSO think the mainstream news was part of a cover up).

Having been a reporter (long, long ago and in a galaxy far far away) and currently a fim maker I am well aware of the pressures for balance in reporting (and the denialists USE this journalistic tenet constantly to manipulate people and journalists), however when you have over 30,000 scientifically peer reviewed papers, backed up by literally thousands of the world’s “current leading” scientists on climate change on one hand, and on the other hand you have maybe one or two scientific papers (although heavily debunked) a handful of retired cynical scientists paid for by a who´s who of right wing think tanks then there comes a point when journalism is not just about presenting a nice little “he said she said” package, but is actually about getting to the heart on an issue and simply reporting the truth.