Hiding Global Warming

Oreskes and Conway contend that a small number of scientists have merchandised doubt on many of the most important issues of our time by fighting scientific evidence and spreading confusion (page 9). In the case of climate change, is the evidence for their contention convincing?

Climate change has clearly fallen victim to the same tactics as the other case studies looked at in Merchants of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway. When it has been known since 1995 that global warming is a reality and people are still unsure or confused, clearly there is something out of place(169). One of the main themes through out the book is the industries claim that the media needs to keep a balance of the sides of the argument. But just as with the other case studies, there weren’t actually two sides, the majority of the scientific community agreed upon the fact that global warming was happening. Yet a small group of scientists and deep-pocketed industries continued to fight against that truth.

A clear instance of alteration of facts or at least causing confusion is the assessment by the National Academy titled Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee. In this report Bill Nierenberg, who appeared in other case studies, did not follow the typical procedure of Academy reports and skewed the report by making the summary focused on the economic side of the report.(177) Just as with so many other cases, the report seemed to say that only more research was needed and that the problem was not as serious as it seemed even though majority of the authors of the report thought the problem extremely serious. The report could have been a clear sign that the United States needed to focus more attention to the problem but once again the truth was hidden.

Not only were reports altered but once again prestigious scientists and organizations were attacked in order to make their claims seem illegitimate. The most extreme case of this is when Fred Singer attacks the IPCC for using “alarmist terms” and describing global warming as the “greatest global challenge facing mankind”(206). Yet Oreskes and Conway explain that the truth of the matter was that the IPCC had never said that and had actually worked hard to not use extreme language. Singer blatantly made up quotes in order to fight scientific reports. All of the different efforts have sadly seemed to work on a large portion of the population but hopefully the truth will eventually win out.