Global warming conspiracy theory

This article is about global warming conspiracy theories. For a discussion of the anthropogenic global warming controversy in general, see global warming controversy.

Global warming conspiracy theory is a collection of allegations that, through worldwide acts of professional and criminal misconduct, the science behind anthropogenic global warming has been invented and is being perpetuated for financial or ideological reasons. Proponents of such allegations refer to the scientific consensus as a "global warming hoax", or "global warming fraud".

Background

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels. These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries.

Despite the broad international scientific consensus, allegations have been made that these researchers and institutions are part of a global scientific conspiracy. There have been investigations into some alleged malpractice, most notably the Climatic Research Unit email controversy. Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. The Muir Russell report stated, however, "We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA." The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged at the end of the investigations.

Sample claims that global warming is a global conspiracy and hoax

In a speech given to the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works on July 28, 2003, entitled "The Science of Climate Change", Senator James Inhofe (Republican, for Oklahoma) concluded by asking the following question: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?" He has claimed "some parts of the IPCC process resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor." Inhofe has suggested that supporters of the Kyoto Protocol such as Jacques Chirac are aiming at global governance.

A Washington Post article describing the views of global warming skeptics quotes retired hurricane researcher William M. Gray as having "his own conspiracy theory," saying, "He has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to 'organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!'" In this article, Gray also cites the ascendancy of Al Gore to the vice presidency as the start of his problems with federal funding. According to him, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stopped giving him research grants, and so did NASA.

Commenting on criticism of the Lavoisier Group by Clive Hamilton, the Cooler Heads Coalition notes that "Hamilton accuses the Lavoisier Group of painting the UN's global warming negotiations as "an elaborate conspiracy in which hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the 'climate change theory' in order to protect their research funding" and adds, "Sounds plausible to us."

A 2007 Minority Report of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (updated in 2009) originally citing support of 400 "dissenting scientists", and growing to 700 dissenting scientists. The report challenges man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. According to Steven Dutch in the department of Natural and Applied Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay in a paper titled, "650 Climate Skeptics?" over 58% of the names listed had no climate related qualifications whatsoever and so lacked the knowledge to effectively judge the results. Less than 16% were qualified in climate science to even voice an opinion on the matter and many of those had quibbles over minor matters which did not contradict the global warming theory. At least one of these scientists publicly complained that his name was included against his knowledge and wishes and in contradiction to his own opinion.

Motives

Conspiracy theorists have given a number of different, and sometimes contradictory reasons why they think global warming has been promoted:

• A desire on the part of the United Nations and its supporters to promote a system of world government or global governance.
• A desire on the part of climate science researchers to attract financial support
• What Melanie Phillips described as "yet another variation of left-wing, anti-American, anti-west ideology which goes hand in hand with anti-globalisation."
• A desire on the part of conservative political leaders including Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl to promote nuclear power while attracting the political support of Green groups
• A desire on the part of leftwing political leaders to promote socialism:
  • Czech President Václav Klaus said that "This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world"
  • Nick Minchin, Australian former leader of the Opposition in the Senate stated on the ABC program 4 Corners that "For the extreme left it [climate change] provides the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left, and the, and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion."
• Statements made or allegedly made by various supporters of climate change policies have been quoted as giving support to the idea that anthropogenic global warming may be used primarily for political purposes.
  • According to a critical editorial written by Peter Menzies in the Calgary Herald, Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister for the Liberal Party of Canada, said in 1998 that "No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.
  • According to the 1993 book Science under Siege by Michael Fumento, former US Senator Timothy Wirth, (D-Colo) said that "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.."

Criticism of global warming conspiracy theories

Steve Connor links the terms "hoax" and "conspiracy," saying, "Reading through the technical summary of this draft (IPCC) report, it is clear that no one could go away with the impression that climate change is some conspiratorial hoax by the science establishment, as some would have us believe."

In a piece headed Crichton's conspiracy theory, Harold Evans described Crichton's theory as being "in the paranoid political style identified by the renowned historian Richard Hofstadter," and went on to suggest that "if you happen to be in the market for a conspiracy theory today, there's a rather more credible one documented by the pressure group Greenpeace," namely the funding by ExxonMobil of groups opposed to the theory of global warming.

The documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle received much criticism. George Monbiot described it as "the same old conspiracy theory that we’ve been hearing from the denial industry for the past ten years". Similarly, in response to James Delingpole, Monbiot stated that his Spectator article was "the usual conspiracy theories [...] working to suppress the truth, which presumably now includes virtually the entire scientific community and everyone from Shell to Greenpeace and The Sun to Science."

Former UK Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, David Miliband presented a rebuttal of the main points of the film and stated "There will always be people with conspiracy theories trying to do down the scientific consensus, and that is part of scientific and democratic debate, but the science of climate change looks like fact to me." John Houghton, previously co-Chair of the IPCC, said, "The most prominent person in the programme was Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer who is not a scientist and who shows little knowledge of the science but who is party to the creation of a conspiracy theory that questions the motives and integrity of the world scientific community, especially as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Counterclaims of a conspiracy to undercut climate science

Main article: Climate change denial

Some investigators say there is evidence those alleging a conspiracy are themselves part of well-funded misinformation campaigns designed to 'manufacture controversy', undercut the scientific consensus on climate change and downplay global warming's projected effects.

In general, critics say that individuals and organisations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists had reached their conclusions, that these doubts have influenced policymakers in both Canada and the US, and that they have helped to form government policies.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."

— The truth about denial, S Begley, Newsweek

Greenpeace presents evidence of the energy industry funding climate change denial with their Exxon Secrets project. A further Greenpeace study from 2011 claims that 9 out of 10 climate scientist who claim that climate change is not happening, have ties to ExxonMobil and that Koch industries in the past 50 years have invested more than US$50 million dollars in spreading doubts about climate change. ExxonMobil announced in 2008 that it would cut its funding to many of the groups that "divert attention" from the need to find new sources of clean energy, although it continues to fund over "two dozen other organisations who question the science of global warming or attack policies to solve the crisis." A survey carried out by the UK Royal Society found that in 2005 ExxonMobil distributed US$2.9 million to American groups that "misinformed the public about climate change," 39 of which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

Former United States Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt stated on the Diane Rehm Show (WAMU-FM, July 21, 1997):

It's an unhappy fact that the oil companies and the coal companies in the United States have joined in a conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts... the energy companies need to be called to account because what they are doing is un-American in the most basic sense. They are compromising our future by misrepresenting the facts by suborning scientists onto their payrolls and attempting to mislead the American people.

— Diane Rehm Show, Bruce Babbitt, WAMU-FM

See also

• Merchants of Doubt - Analysis of denialist movements in America by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
• State of Fear - Michael Crichton novel based around claims of conspiracy in global warming

Further reading

• Lahsen, M. (1999). The Detection and Attribution of Conspiracies: The Controversy Over Chapter 8. In G. E. Marcus (Ed.), Paranoia Within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation (pp. 111-136). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-50458-1.