Of course, there are bad analogies. You simply have failed to provide any reason to believe that Ravenman’s was one. Your claim that they have different motivations, (although they do not) and your attempt to drag in other tactics that each have used fails to actually demonstrate that his analogy on one specific tactic was wrong. But then, you have to see it that way to maintain your position.
I never said that no one believed they were denialists. I simply pointed out that you did not initially provide evidence of that claim along with pointing out the bait-and-switch argument you used in the OP.
Your swallowing of the Big Oil lie that they are not working to undermine public recognition of AGW.
The analogy never claimed that all the tactics that each industry used was identical. The analogy pointed to one specific tactic in which both have engaged. Your desperate attempt to defend Big Oil relies on dragging in a lot of extraneous crap to deny that the analogy was valid. I doubt that you are open to actually see the point. As noted, you do not seem to have a grasp of how analogies work.
I never said that they were identical and your insistence that I “changed” my position when I have just pointed out the distinct context in which I made two separate statements simply shows that you are fixated on trying to disprove a wholly accurate analogy by pretending that I have said the two industries are identical when I have never said that.
I am done wasting my time trying to explain anything to you on this issue.
Once again this is by taking into account what they are doing in the background, if you think by only hand waiving one group will work for you when there are dozens you really have not thought this well.
And just like the oil companies they are learning how to fool many.
This really shows that for all your claims of paying attention to what was discussed before in reality you ignored a lot, the research of Naomy Oreskes was linked many times in the past, and it shows how groups involved in the defense of the tobacco industry just changed their “research” focus and switched from denying the links to tobacco and cancer to denying the links to CO2 and other global warming gases without missing a beat.
This very long video was also posted before, but as it is clear that you are ignoring the mountains of evidence, the whole thing is then required viewing.
[QUOTE]
Uploaded on Dec 20, 2007
Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is “no solid” evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science.
[/QUOTE]
And again, look at the before linked Frontline report, and find then the politicians that are being funded by the oil companies that are in favor of the oil tax. And to show that their CEOs and members are being discouraged in the open from financing denial groups and politicians that are against cap-n trade and an emission’s tax.
You will find that for all your declarations the denier groups funded politicians that are now preventing any changes or fighting to undermine the fall back of the EPA imposing regulations as the current congress has failed to do anything, the fossil fuel companies are not unhappy with the current situation that they also helped made a reality with their tacit support of their “rogue” members.
Perhaps I didn’t say it well, but I think if you re-read my post you’ll see this is the gist of it.
As with any organization, large and small, one of Big Oil’s primary objectives is self-preservation. (Ditto my school board; ditto the IPCC; ditto the Federal Government).
Oppositional forces will be probed for weakness, and any putative weaknesses presented as aggressively as possible. Marketing PR (lip service) to obfuscate and deflect will be used.
Given our insatiable demand for energy, it’s my personal opinion that Big Oil is not particularly affected by the ACC alarmist positioning of it as the Evil Obfuscator. I personally think it’s a very naive view that Joe Public will limit his determination to live richly in support of a less ACC-affected world 50 years hence. And the 7 billion or so Joes hoping to join the other couple billion living richly (by 2050) ensure an insatiable demand for energy from all sources.
The tragedy of the commons ensures that no one will sacrifice personally for so tentative a common good.
If I am Big Oil, I pat Wolfpup and GIGObuster on the head, join them in their deep deep concern for a Great Cause, and I don’t worry too much about getting scapegoated. The addiction to energy is much stronger than is the will to stop sinning. Part of the fun of proselytizing for a Great Cause is calling out the Devil; the Devil himself can see that no prophesy of Doom is enough to incline Joe to reject his energy addiction.
If I and the rest of the world consumed the total amount of energy that Mr Gore consumes, which alternate energy do you propose could meet that demand?
Remember that the total energy budget of a given individual should reflect all the energy used to support a lifestyle. If I stay at the Ritz instead of camping, it’s the energy used to manufacture every item at the Ritz, and to replace it the moment it looks worn. If I travel first class, or by private plane, it’s the energy used over the efficiency of flying coach or taking a bus. If I get new golf clubs and play at a select country club, it’s the energy used over the public course. And so on…
This idea you have that “alternate energy” means actually replacing existing sources is completely unsupported at a world level. What alternate energy does is add to the total energy grid, and the demand for total energy is quite literally insatiable until every Joe on this planet is living at the level of Mr Gore.
If we came up with a totally green energy tomorrow that was competitive with Big Oil and could scale up immediately, what would happen is that X more people would live more richly because the total grid output was increased. More stuff. More air conditioning. What would NOT happen is that fossils would decrease.
In limited and closed systems (I can think of Germany, e.g.) with large resources and an already comfortable standard, you might be able to make a limited index case (and we could argue how successful that is elsewhere). But Germans are already mostly living like Mr Gore–sort of.
On an international level? Not a chance. China, India, South America–and perhaps even the african countries if they ever manage to join the modern world–are way too far behind Mr Gore and me.
Surely the denial that an insatiable demand for energy from any and all sources prevents “alternative energy” from actually diminishing the demand for oil is Denialism on par with denialism about climate change itself.
PS: I’m hopping on the alternate energy investment bandwagon too, wherever there’s a financial incentive for me to do so. But even if I did it for altruistic reasons, the fact that I pay indulgences does not mean I am not a Chief Sinner (which at my income level, I am, along with Mr Gore).
My apologies for taking so long to respond to this. I was out of pocket all day Tuesday and couldn’t get to this yesterday.
I initially had quite a bit of trouble finding anything. I looked at the following groups: American Enterprise Institute (single largest recipient in study at $86.7 million, 16%), Heritage Foundation (second largest recipient at $76.4 million, 14%), and Americans For Prosperity (eight largest recipient at $22.7 million, 4%). I spent most of my time looking at Heritage and AEI as they are the two largest and they are somewhat known to me. I spent a small amount of time looking at AFP as I knew they were somewhat controversial being largely a Koch backed group.
Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, neither Heritage nor AEI make endorsements of any individual candidates. I tried to look at roundabout endorsements of instances where they did nothing but criticize and opposition candidate, but that doesn’t really seem to be what they do.
What I found about AEI was interesting though. They have several contributing writers that back a carbon tax. This included most prominently Kevin Hassett (former economic advisor to Bush, McCain, and Romney) and Gregory Mankiw (former economic advisor to Bush and Romney). It also includes Kenneth Green, Steven Hayward, Samuel Thuernstrom, Lee Lane, and Nick Schulz. These guys write all the typical stuff you would expect to see coming from a conservative organization such as anti-Obamacare, anti-tax increases, etc. However, they are prominently proponents of carbon taxes.
Kevin Hassett, AEI’s director of economic policy studies, has made numerous calls for a carbon tax, not solely as an alternative to cap and trade, but even after cap and trade talks died he continued to pursue the issue. This pursuit included the help in coordinating what was later termed an “AEI-hosted carbon tax cabal” on 7/11/12 with the goal of building bipartisan support for a carbon tax proposal. Also included was Kevin Curtis, a senior official with Al Gore’s climate campaign. Kevin Hassett has written numerous papers and editorials promoting a carbon tax.
Gregory Mankiw also has supported a carbon tax not solely as an alternative to cap and trade but also after the proposal died. This included the endorsement of the 3/12/13 carbon tax proposal launched by Senators Waxman, Whitehouse, Blumenauer, and Schatz in an editorial he wrote in the New York Times.
These guys clearly promote numerous ideas that would be totally unrelated to climate change, primarily typical conservative economic policies, while also publicly supporting a carbon tax to combat climate change.
An interesting item I found from Americans For Prosperity was their opposition to Senator Mary Landrieu, who is one of the strongest supporters of the oil and gas industry in the country. Landrieu supports the Keystone XL pipeline permitting, opposed the 2010 Gulf of Mexico drilling moratorium following Macando, calls for increased offshore drilling and permitting, opposes Obama’s attempts at repealing typical oil and gas deductions such as for intangible drilling costs and percentage depletion, supports baring the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, opposed cap and trade, opposes carbon taxes, supports additional tax incentives for energy production, and a host of other clearly pro oil and gas proposals that would make an environmentalists head explode. It isn’t current election year stuff, she and her family have decades of history supporting the oil and gas industry. She is also currently the subject of $4 million in attack ads funded by Americans For Prosperity criticizing Landrieu’s support of Obamacare. Clearly AFP is also not the single issue group that Brulle makes them out to be.
Again, what seems logical to me is to proportionately reduce down the dollars donated to the groups to reflect the percentage of their dollars they spend specifically on climate change denialist positions. It does not seem in any way logical to me to consider dollars spent on promoting Obamacare repeal or opposing increases to the minimum wage, for examples, as funding climate change denialism. Please explain to me why you believe otherwise, if you do.
Just yesterday, prominent Oil and Gas investment banking firm Tudor Pickering Holt made the following statement.
[QUOTE=TPH]
Oil thoughts – Crude oil (Brent $109/bbl and WTI $103/bbl) – Brent and WTI back to early June levels (pre-recent Iraq unrest) after spiking to $115 and $109/bbl respectively. Although currently prices are still salty, retreat from recent highs takes oil out of the demand danger zone for now.
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Guys that make their living analyzing oil and gas company stocks think it’s a good thing that oil prices retreated some as they feared demand destruction. That doesn’t mean in any way that they don’t like high prices, but they don’t like prices to get too high.
Okay, my apoligies as I thought you were also agreeing with others here in the Brulle paper which counts any dollar donated to groups like Heritage, AEI, AFP, and several others as funding climate change denialism. I’m not saying that funding of denialism doesn’t occur. I’m saying I’ve seen no evidence of any large dollar funding from Big Oil. I’m not saying it is impossible that they do fund it; I’ve just not seen the evidence.
And that shows that you only willfully ignore what was pointed before, the ones that want to follow a Ritzi life will have to pay more for it.
The fact that you are not doing now anything close to what Gore is doing shows that what you have been giving us is just more of the same: empty rhetoric.
And there you go again with the inference that taken care of the issue equals the end of progress or our standard of living stop being the real alarmist, it is clear that it does not matter if the costs of dealing with the issue are now calculated as being less than expected (Per the IPCC and other reports), the only progress it is required on this matter is to use those sources of energy in a way that do not release global warming gases into the atmosphere or just very little.
And there you go again with the empty and insulting thing of calling this a religion. As pointed many times before it is like the Godwin that shows that the one claiming it is just a proponent of pseudoscience and it has run out of ideas.
So, we are reduced to **writers **as the best example, not active politicians as it is the key nowadays.
What Frontline showed is that many of those denier groups are usually not involved directly with campaigns, in the example they showed we had the case of Bob Ingus that was as conservative as you would want and then just because he supported cap-ntrade and taxes he was carpet bombed with ads to show how “loopy” he was for supporting that, Ingus lost.
What you miss in the case of Landrieu if that any opponent that unseats her in a primary is bound to also fit in the tea-party continuum, he or she will be **also **a rabid opponent of any carbon tax.
Like I said, as far as I can tell they don’t make endorsements of politicians. If you can show me where they are making endorsements, I would be glad to cross reference that with those politicians’ positions on climate change to see if any don’t .
But AEI has had events on Climate Change directly supported by Ingus and vice versa. I’m not saying that an AFP, or others, does not spend money to support denialism; I’m saying they also spend their money on lots of other, totally unrelated causes.
But not any more of an opponent of carbon tax or general supporter of the energy industry than Landrieu; she’s probably the single biggest “friend” to the industry in the Senate. If AFP was a single issue (Climate Change) focused group, they wouldn’t be seeking to replace her. It shows their focus on all the other issues.
Again, all I’m saying is that dollars spent on totally unrelated causes should not be used to inflate the numbers.
in the Frontline report they interview the Prsident of Americans For Prosperity, they are not shy on accepting and getting credit for defeating Ingus.
You can “tell it as far” because you do not check what was posted before.
Duh, as pointed before there is still even today a lot of efforts from those same politicians to derail new tobacco regulations. In the end you can not deny that denialism is a part of the package.
Ingus was also a dear friend of conservatives in all other issues, the difference in this case was that he accepted the science.
I disagree, it is thanks to all those causes that doors are open to insert one of the biggest irresponsible positions seen in history. And you are describing one key issue, if it so unimportant then it should be very easy in the political arena to remove this issue from their platform and do the right thing.
But I do not expect ponies, money talks and on this issue just words will not do, you need to show me a proactive stance in politics by those companies, CEOs and rich members regarding this carbon tax, otherwise you are the one with empty rhetoric.
Re-read my quote. I was specifically referring to Heritage and AEI. I agree that I was able to clearly find quasi political endorsement type activity (i.e. Landrieu) on AFP.
And as I hope I have made exceptionally clear on my several posts about it, I am not denying it and believe that a portion of the dollars should be considered commensurate with the amount actually expended toward those efforts.
However, you also need to give some sort of thought into the type/degree of climate change denialism. A huge portion of any dollars that AFP is spending on denialism seems pretty blatantly out and out denialism. Can you really say the same about AEI? Individual editors may vary, but they’re basically saying they believe in man made climate change and are actively supporting a carbon tax. Seems crazy to consider those equivalent anti-climate change, but that is exactly what Brulle is doing.
Right, so look at the stark difference with the Landrieu situation. This is key and shows that they are not single issue focused. With Ingus (who I agree is a very ugly black eye for anyone associated with it based on what I know), you presumably had AFP oppose him even though he is 90% in agreement with them and replace with someone that is 100% in agreement. With Landrieu, you have someone that is only 10% in agreement with them and are replacing with someone that is 100% in agreement. This makes perfect sense since they are not single issue focused; why would they not oppose her? If all they cared about was anti-climate change policy, they would have not cared enough to spend dollars opposing her since she would basically be their ideal candidate. I don’t think the NRA is going to spend dollars opposing the strongest gun rights proponent in the senate just because that person disagrees on minimum way policy.
Who said it was so unimportant to them? I’m just saying it is a small part of what they do, a small part of what they spend their money on, and a small part of what they raise their money on. That doesn’t mean I think it is a meaningless and easily replaceable belief. I think it’s perfectly fair to criticize them for it. I think they’re wrong. I just am not going to count money spent lobbying against the minimum wage increase as a dollar spent fighting against climate change activism.
I’m also, questioning the inclusion of certain of their groups such as AEI, which don’t seem like climate change denialists to me at all. They’re the number one ranked recipient of supposed climate change denialist dollars and they, if anything, completely break ranks with other conservatives and support climate change activism.
Well, Exxon is a supporter of the AEI who is attempting to build bipartisan support to enact a carbon tax. However, don’t take that from me to mean I believe they are a shining beacon of climate change activism. I’m just saying they are not the cartoonishly evil denialist boogie men they are sometimes made out to be. You clearly disagree (I think), but I think I’ve made my case. I’m happy to continue the discussion though on this and all sorts of other tangential aspects.
This still ignores that the one they are supporting is 100% in agreement, including the denial of human induced climate change.
I see the companies that are not doing anything to criticize in the open their CEOs or members that continue funding denialism as tacit supporters then, similarly the same goes for the ones that are not willing to dump the denial of climate science, until they do remove that “small” part of their efforts then one has to criticize them in toto, and looking at issues they push like limiting woman’s rights, workers rights and health access, it is not a really hard thing to do.
What do you mean? AEI is the single largest recipient of funds in Brulle’s study. That’s one of your cites. You even quoted the dollar amount in his study. AEI is a known recipient of funds from Exxon. My entire argument is that you can’t consider the dollar amount in that study as accurate.
I don’t at all mean this in a gotcha type of way, but it seems like you might be (at least partially) agreeing with me that there is at least some portion of overstatement in Brulle’s paper, right? That’s really all that I’m trying to get at.
Not my cite, I do agree on most of it. But IIRC I pointed in the past at AEI as one that has changed and it is likely not needed to be used as relevant nowadays.
Nope.
And I never said I did, only that it was one data point to be considered as supporting what others had found regarding Heritage, Heartland, AFP and many others.
If it was, the gotcha backfired on you as you only showed all that you are not paying attention, it is very likely then that that lack of attention goes also when you look at evidence that does not fit your views. The sources I was relying on were mostly Frontline Oreskes and other blogs that investigated the funding of denialism.
Right, but are they supporting them for the single issue reason of climate change or because of the totality of agreement on a host of issues? My contention is that it’s the host of issues. It would be nice to see an election of Landrieu versus Ingus and how they (AFP) would react because I think that would make this clear. My belief is that if the election was between Ingus and Landrieu, they would side with Ingus. What do you think? It’s obviously a hypothetical, and one that is very unlikely to play out in real life considering that there aren’t many Republicans like Ingus nor Democrats like Landrieu.
Well, I think this part has too big a chance to delve off into a massive hijacking of the thread, so I’m going to stay out of it. I’m not interested in talking about women’s rights or anything like that in this thread.
Regarding the first part of your statement, I think considering the high percentage of climate change denialists in this country and the lack of explicit specific call-outs by company’s regarding any denialists in their ranks, I think you may essentially be setting up a test where nearly every company above a minimal size is a tacit supporter of denialism.