I’ve read some stuff recently from the deniers- the folks who deny that climate change is happening, or that human activity has something to do with it.

One theme that you hear from them a lot is that there’s this huge industry that’s got a lot invested in ensuring that we all believe that climate change (aka “global warming”) is a real phenomenon. They act like there’s this great big conspiracy, led by… Al Gore, I guess, to make us all believe in climate change so they can radically change our economy and enslave us all for the next thousand years.

It’s ridiculous, of course, but it plays to people’s fears. (Whenever you can scare people, you can motivate them; fear is an intensely powerful motivator. Why else do you think that the radical nutjob right wing keeps pushing the negative images of Obama at us?

As a post on Daily Kos said the other day…

Heading into 2009, it seemed that Democrats had all the advantages: a President-Elect riding sky-high approval ratings; an overwhelming advantage in the House of Representatives; and a supposedly filibuster-proof majority as soon as the challenges to Senator-Elect Franken’s victory had made their way through the courts. Republicans were overwhelmingly unpopular because of their disastrous stewardship of our nation’s economy and military. Democrats were discussing implementing popular policies that would make a huge difference in the lives of regular people. Conservative ideologues had only one option: the hail mary.

There’s only one thing that can make a Representative from an unpopular Party stand up to a popular President pushing for popular policy: the Party base. The best way to unite the base? Scare base voters about Obama so much that resisting Obama became easier than resisting the base. And the best way to scare base voters about Obama? Well, when your target is the first ever non-white President, is named Barack Hussein Obama, is the son of a Kenyan, and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the easiest way to scare the white Christian base is self-explanatory.

Republicans have been playing dog-whistle politics ever since Lee Atwater theorized on how to use taxes as a subliminal code for racism, but getting people to believe that a highly popular and historic President is a Bolshevik racist Muslim who is ineligible to hold his office and wants the terrorists to win? That requires a totally different frequency and amplitude.

In other words, they push this story because it’s all they’ve got.

Same thing with the climate change denialists. They latch onto the stories about some of the studies around climate change, like the one that has been exposed for the scientists deliberately choosing to ignore some data that didn’t agree with their conclusion, and later trying to delete emails that showed what they’d done.

Never mind that there’s dozens of OTHER studies that show the same thing (the problem in question had to do with whether or not growing cities, specifically in China, were the reason that temperature readings were showing a steady and fast increase). The deniers point to the single discredited study and scream that it proves the whole thing is a farce.

Well, no, it doesn’t; it proves that particular study is flawed and we should ignore it, but when there’s one flawed study showing “X” and a dozen other studies that nobody can find any scientific flaws with that ALSO proves “X”, the reality is that “X” is probably true.

Okay, I’m rambling a bit… but getting back to the theme- money and power. What the deniers claim is that there’s this huge group of people, motivated by money and power, who want to push climate change upon us.

I was reading a blog entry (by ex-Red Sox pitcher, and noted conservative, Curt Schilling, of all people) about climate change and there was a commenter who said something about how the scientists who were covering up their data in the flawed study and that the “left” would say they were just cleaning out their hard drives.

Actually, amongst the scientists, the guys who did this kind of thing- covering up contrary evidence that invalidates their study- are now outcasts. They’re discredited and shunned.

You know why? Because those few bad apples are giving all the rest of the scientists a bad name.

The “industry” around climate change is tiny compared with the industry that’s directly threatened by the implications of the scientific evidence. The evidence points to activities that crank carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and says “these are warming up the planet.”

The oil, natural gas, and coal industries are huge. They’re gigantic. They’re far, far bigger than any “industry” that’s currently existing or even proposed. Just look at the Forbes listing of the biggest corporations in the world… here’s the top ten:

1. Royal Dutch Shell (oil company)
2. Exxon Mobil (oil company)
3. Wal-Mart (retailer)
4. BP (oil company)
5. Chevron (oil company)
6. Total (oil company)
7. Conoco Phillips (oil company)
8. ING group (banking)
9. Sinopec (oil company)
10. Toyota Motor (automobiles)

7 of the top 10 corporations in the world are oil/gas companies.

To suggest that the climate change “side” of the argument is somehow this big, powerful cartel that’s dedicated to enslave the rest of us is utterly ridiculous. Climate change has nothing to do with politics, left or right.

In fact, it’s awfully ironic that “conservatives” are the ones defending these mammoth, multinational oil corporations and their TRILLIONS of dollars of revenue. Conservatives should, by their name, believe in conserving the earth. Instead, they’re on the side of the guys who want zero restrictions on pumping oil and gas from the ground and into the atmosphere.

Money and power? Believe me, it’s ALL on the side of those who’re denying climate change. You know what the revenues of those oil companies mentioned above is?

$2,204,676,000,000.

That’s over TWO TRILLION dollars- just among 7 companies.

If you take the top 20 petroleum companies, their total revenues are $3,608,244,000,000.

[b]Three and a half trillion dollars.[/b]

Don’t EVEN pretend that the oil and gas industry doesn’t have far, far, far more to lose, and far more money, than the scientists who are, by and large, working in non-profit colleges and universities around the world.

Doubt the science if you want- that’s up to you. But don’t be fooled into which side has all the money and power- that’s the side that’s likely spending way, way more to manipulate you into believing their propaganda.