April 30, 2007

A Global Warming Skeptic’s Primer on Propaganda

Can a science ignoramus make a compelling case against the supposed scientific super-consensus on global warming?

Watch me.

This supposed super-consensus of scientists tells us that global warming, and man’s complicity therein, are undeniable. And we must act now to stop it.

I don’t really understand science, so I won’t try to take on the scientists on their turf. But they’re coming on mine. I do understand propaganda. And no matter how compelling some of the science may be, it’s the nature of the propaganda – aimed at influencing public policy through politics – that causes me to smell a rat.

I used to own a public relations firm. During a 10-year career in the PR field, I became familiar with the techniques that are used to influence public opinion on an issue. You repeat your message often. You “partner” with celebrities if you can. And you work through the news media by giving them new angles as often as possible.

The message of the global warming movement could not be clearer: It’s a crisis. We need to act now, or the consequences will be catastrophic. Action means international agreements to regulate the way people and industries do things. If we wait until we’re sufficiently “sure,” it will be too late. We’re sure. Stop debating it and take action.

You use certain tactics to get the public to buy in to your message. One is to use celebrities and entertainers. Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts will do nicely. Millions will tune in (myself included; I want to see Genesis) and hear the message that we need to act now to save the planet. The artists they respect and admire will either be delivering the message or standing there applauding.

Another tactic is the trickle of news on the subject. In recent weeks, we have been treated to a veritable scare-a-day feast of global-warming-related headlines. One day global warming is going deplete the water in the Great Lakes. Another day it is going to change the sex of lizards. Then it’s going to make tropical fish bigger. Each headline results from the release of a new “study.” You think it’s a coincidence that a new one comes out every day?

In PR, if you think you’re winning the debate, you proceed to the next step of marginalizing the skeptics. This step is fully in motion with the labeling of skeptics as “deniers,” a loaded word designed to evoke comparisons to neo-Nazis who deny the Holocaust. Mr. Gore was advocating as early as 1992 that major media should not cover “both sides” of the issue because to do so would give a false impression that there are two sides. Early in my career as a journalist, a particularly arrogant PR person tried the same tactic on me when I was writing a story about a local development issue. The proponents were respected community leaders, he explained, and the opponents were gadflies and cranks. Their point of view did not deserve mention in my story. The media are loathe to compromise their access to “respected community leaders,” so this tactic often works.

Finally, PR likes to achieve its goals by attaching them to a popular cause. Global socialism is not a popular cause, but saving the planet is. Check the roster of save-the-planet, we-must-act-now activists. You don’t find many fans of market capitalism. Global warming is merely a means to an end for many in the movement. Whether the UN controls and regulates the world’s economy for the purpose of stopping global warming or curing cancer, it makes no difference. Any reason will do.

Science has demonstrated convincingly that global temperatures have been rising for the past generation. I am not skeptical of that. But temperatures have risen many times in the Earth’s storied history – when there were no smokestacks, internal combustion engines or Bush administrations. Every single period of warming was followed by a period of cooling, even though the UN wasn’t there to regulate anything.

Should you take it from a science ignoramus that the situation will moderate itself once again? Up to you. But if you buy into some of the most sophisticated propaganda ever perpetrated on modern society – and let yourself be intimidated into believing it for fear of being labeled a “denier” – don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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