The Politicization of Global Warming

I often get into intense discussions with a friend of mine over global warming. Him being a typical misinformed capitalist, claims that science studies contradict each other when it comes to global warming, and my defense to his argument has been that some scientists are actually being manipulated by oil lobbyists. Today, I read an article on Newscientist.com that gave further proof of how the government intervenes with genuine scientific studies, in an attempt to delude the public of the serious, and eminent problem of global warming.

According to the article, a recent study by the watchdog group, Union of Concerned Scientists, showed that 150 climate scientists reported to having been pressured by political figures to message their findings. Over the past 5 years, 435 political interferences have been reported. The scientists were encouraged to refrain from using the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’, for fear the public may actually sense the danger of Bush’s environmental policy.

The main culprit from the government’s side is said to be Phil Cooney, who served as chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. After resigning from his position in 2005, Cooney joined the oil giant ExxonMobil, a company which has been recently accused of spending over 16 million dollars to support global warming sceptics.

The article goes on to mention that all documents on global warming required Cooney’s review and approval, thus implicitly encouraging self-censorship, especially for scientists who wanted their work published. Talk about control of the media!

The more I hear of how corrupt the government is, the more I lose faith not only in politics, but in humanity in general. It boggles my mind how the people at the White House think. To me ignoring global warming can only be a result of two factors:

1- Short term thinking, and over simplifying of the catastrophe that awaits us, or

2- Arrogance to the point where these politicians think that they can conquer nature with their military

I just hope their environmental plan works a lot better than their plan for Iraq. Brace with me people we’re in for one hell of a ride.

Read the full article here.

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