IPA uses Australian tax breaks to help fund U.S. climate skeptic’s libel defence.
Category: Climate Change
Bjorn Lomborg’s “consensus” approach involves ranking global development policies by their ratio of benefit to cost. But this hard-headed economic rationale can actually end up entrenching inequality.
Bjorn Lomborg is, undoubtedly, seriously concerned with poverty and inequality. Both in the work of the Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) and in his popular writings, this is a common theme. He has championed some very progressive ideas, including eradicating barriers to international migration. Unfortunately, he has also used rather distorted arguments and evidence about inequality to attack some of his favourite bugbears, such as subsidies for renewable energy.
The problem is that the central methodology of Lomborg and the CCC is at best blind to inequality and, in its application, could actually increase it. Moreover, there are good arguments to suggest that if we take a broader view of inequality to include intergenerational equality, the CCC methodology is not even equality-blind; it is equality-averse.
Simple analysis, simplistic outcomes
The basic idea, that of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), is straightforward and, indeed, literally high school-level economics. You work out the economic cost of a particular investment (or policy) and estimate its economic benefits (including estimates of indirect costs and benefits such as health). The idea of the CCC is that, with expert advice, policy interventions in climate change, international development, or other global challenges can be prioritised in terms of their benefit-cost ratio.
The methodology is, in itself, blind to inequality. This is because it is based on a Benthamite assumption that the objective is utility maximization irrespective of the distribution of that utility. Put simply, an investment of $100 that returns $1,000 accruing to an already rich person is, in these terms, better than an investment with the same cost that generates $800 return that accrues to a poor person.
As Duke University’s Matthew Adler has consistently argued, the CBA methodology can be adjusted relatively easily to incorporate “aversion” to inequality by simply weighting the calculation according to who pays, and whom it benefits. In a simplistic scenario in which the world is divided into “poor” and “rich”, we might for instance weight benefits accruing to “poor” people twice as highly as benefits accruing to “rich” people. Applying this weighting to our previous example would reverse the ranking of the investments.
I should stress that this is technically easy in the sense that it is quite a simple calculation, even in more realistic situations where you have gradations of wealth and poverty. But it is ethically more difficult. How much inequality aversion should we build in? This will necessarily be a somewhat arbitrary decision and subject to contested views, and indeed societies will expect to be free to make different value judgements about tolerable levels of inequality for different issues.
Cost-benefit and international development
Lomborg might assert that this doesn’t really matter because his centre is set up to look primarily at problems affecting the poor, so policies that benefit the rich are automatically ruled out. But this is insufficient defence because the world is not just divided into “rich” and “poor”. There are gradations of poverty, and while many individuals and families move in and out of poverty throughout their lives (in a process termed churning), there are many others who live in situations of “chronic poverty”, and it is these who are often missed or under-serviced by international development assistance.
It is my contention that a CBA approach to international development would simply exacerbate this problem, contributing to a widening divide between middle- and low-income countries and groups on the one hand, and those countries and groups trapped in chronic poverty on the other hand.
Let’s take the example of immunization against infectious diseases. CCC analyses of public health often return very sizeable benefit-cost ratios for such policies, and not surprisingly so: few international development experts would dispute that immunization is, in principle, a very cheap and effective way of improving livelihoods.
Such analyses, including the CCC papers on infectious diseases, are based on an estimated economic benefit expressed in terms of “disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs) – basically the monetary value on one year of healthy living for one individual. The CCC papers typically take a value of between US$1,000 and US$5,000 for a DALY.
Now suppose we agree with the 2012 CCC outcome that of a hypothetical budget of US$75 billion over four years, we would invest US$1 billion per year in child immunization. Where, geographically, would we invest it? Inevitably cost-benefit analysis would lead us to invest in relatively wealthy countries, because DALYs are necessarily worth more money in a place with higher economic standing.
Likewise, the costs for administering immunizations would probably be higher in poor countries, which typically have worse infrastructure, a comparative lack of trained health professionals, and are often bedeviled by insecurity and conflict.
Click to enlarge
Lomborg and his advocates might argue that their approach was never intended to be applied at this level of implementation (and, indeed, the CCC paper on infectious diseases argues for a single DALY for precisely this reason). But my example nevertheless shows how a cost-benefit approach without inequality aversion will almost inevitably prioritise marginal poverty rather than entrenched disadvantage. The consequences are clear: the poorest of the poor would still be left out and we would end up exacerbating inequality in the developing world.
Intergenerational inequality?
The picture is complicated even more when considering issues where the benefits are deferred – such as taking action on climate change.
Cost-benefit calculations typically deal with this by using “discount rates”. Typically, humans are not good at deferred gratification; we would much rather have $100 today than next year, so discount rates place a lower value on returns the further they are in the future.
This approach is contentious, particularly in environmental economics, where the benefits of our investments accrue to future generations rather than ourselves. Do we have the ethical right to discount the value of the lives and livelihoods of future generations against our own shorter-term financial benefit?
In climate economics, the time horizons are so long that even a relatively low discount rate can generate apparently absurd conclusions. More generally, any discount rate can be interpreted as a preference for intergenerational inequality: it systematically values the welfare of future generations at a lower level than our own.
Cost-benefit analysis on the world stage
As we have seen, where cost-benefit analysis is applied to decisions that affect a diverse, disparate population (such as the global population), it is liable to entrench inequality unless we ask who benefits, rather than just how much.
Remember that cost-benefit analysis was originally developed to evaluate decisions that affect the same group that makes the decision. This might be a firm deciding how much to invest in R&D; a government choosing what infrastructure to build on behalf of the society it represents; or, at the extreme end, a person’s individual financial decisions that affect only themself.
But now imagine deciding on a major infrastructure investment in a developing country, and having to choose between road or rail. In this situation it would seem remiss not consider who benefits. Roads might generate a better overall economic return, but might also disadvantage those who are too poor to have a car.
The larger the scale of the decision-making, the more important these distributional considerations become. It is therefore crucial that the people affected by the decisions are represented in the decision-making process. But at the CCC, where the evaluation and ranking of priorities is made by an “expert panel” (however undoubtedly eminent in their fields), this is demonstrably not the case.
Thus the global aspirations of the CCC project are its Achilles’ heel. By calculating benefit-cost ratios at the global level, without the participation of those affected by the proposals, it risks favouring policies that will exacerbate, rather than overcome, global inequality.
What’s the best way to show a climate change denier the error of their ways? A new online course answers this question for the masses.
Hint: it’s not lobbing an endless stream of scientific evidence that proves human-driven climate change. While this approach may be cathartic, telling those who refuse to accept climate science for political, cultural, or ideological reasons over and over that they’re wrong is ineffective at best, and oftentimes counterproductive.
How to make progress in this Sisyphean pursuit then? Cue the new, first-of-its kind climate change denial massive open online course, or MOOC. So far the course, called “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial” has more than 10,000 people from 150 countries signed up to find out not only how to confront climate science deniers more effectively, but the psychological and social drivers behind this denial. The 7-week curriculum, which commenced on April 28, also includes responses to the most pervasive climate change denial myths and the insights into the underlying techniques these anti-science perpetrators most frequently employ.
In the scientific community there is little controversy over the root of climate change, with 97 percent of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming. However in the public the issue is far more muddled with misinformation and fraught with disingenuous objectives. The course attempts to bridge that gap and in doing so, move the discussion around climate change one giant step forward.
The course, also referred to as “Denial101x,” includes interviews with 75 researchers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K., including some big names such as Sir David Attenborough. It is being coordinated by John Cook, a fellow at the University of Queensland Global Change Institute Climate Communication and creator of the popular website Skeptical Science.
In describing the course, Cook writes that in his own research, when he’s “informed strong political conservatives that there’s a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming, they become less accepting that humans are causing climate change.”
He says you can’t adequately address the issue of climate change denial “without considering the root cause: personal beliefs and ideology driving the rejection of scientific evidence. Attempts at science communication that ignore the potent influence effect of worldview can be futile or even counterproductive.”
So what is the best response?
According to Cook, the answer can be found in “inoculation theory,” a branch of psychology in which misinformation is neutralized by “explaining the fallacy employed by the myth.”
“Once people understand the techniques used to distort the science, they can reconcile the myth with the fact,” writes Cook. Instead of more science, what will help stem the spread of climate denial is debunking misconceptions about the science, an approach that “results in significantly higher learning gains than customary lectures that simply teach the science,” according to Cook.
Inoculation theory works in a similar way to how flu vaccines work: by providing a weak form of the virus. In the course, students will be exposed to “a weak form of science denial” that will inoculate their minds against misinformation.
By taking advantage of the online education opportunities available through MOOCs, Cook and his associates in the course hope that instead of just reaching a few classrooms, they can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of students.
Dan Bedford, a geography professor at Weber State University in Utah, told ThinkProgress that the concept of the MOOC is to equip people with the tools necessary to identify what’s wrong “with all the arguments presented in climate science misinformation” and “move past the manufactured ‘debate’ about climate change.”
Bedford contributes to one lecture in the course, but wrote a 2010 paper called Agnotology as a teaching tool: Learning climate science by studying misinformation that heavily influenced the curriculum. He said that the bottom line is that the MOOC “is important because we’re providing an understanding of how misinformation works, why it’s wrong, and thereby, we hope, helping people to spot it and ward it off.”
Sarah Green, a chemist at Michigan Technological University, told ThinkProgress that “educating people about facts is not sufficient.” Green, who contributed four lectures to the course, said this is especially the case when political or industry groups can “bamboozle them” with easily digestible “pseudo-facts.”
Some of the most common myths that will be dispelled by the course include the “long pause” argument that there hasn’t been any warming since 1998; that global warming is caused by the sun; and that climate impacts will be no big deal, and possibly even beneficial. It will also investigate climate science to some degree in an effort to better understand past climate changes as well as how models predict future climate impacts.
The course also helps differentiate denial, which is a process, from skepticism, which is an intricate part of the scientific method. A real skeptic comes to a conclusion after considering all the evidence, while someone who denies the science discounts any evidence that competes with their beliefs or worldview. In a way, deniers and skeptics are polar opposites.
Keah Schuenemann, an assistant professor of meteorology at Metropolitan State University of Denver and an instructor in the course, told ThinkProgress that she meets numerous people frustrated at the lack of understanding and action on climate change.
“It is these passionate people who I would like to arm with some of the knowledge, critical thinking, and communication skills that I have picked up through years of teaching this topic,” she said. “My true passion stems from wanting to improve science literacy.”
In the introductory video about the course, Cook says the course is necessary “at the most fundamental level” because “a well functioning democracy depends on a well informed public.”
“People have a right to be accurately informed,” he says. “And if the public is being misinformed by people who deny climate science, that has social and environmental consequences.”
Dan Litchfield talks about his frustrations selling Ohio on wind energy, or even talking calmly about wind energy with people against it. He isn’t giving up, but explains that he’s going to spend more time doing something a bit more satisfying – starting up a tiny brewery of his own.
Dan also responds to an interview we did with psychologist Per Espen Stoknes on climate change psychology.
Dan Litchfield is a senior project developer for a major international renewable energy company, and the views represented on the show are Dan’s alone obviously.
Two unprecedentedly high temperatures were recorded in Antarctica, providing an ominous sign of accelerating climate change as one of the readings came in at just more than 63 degrees Fahrenheit. (Photo: Iceberg via Shutterstock)
This month’s anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) dispatch begins with the fact that recently released National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show that this March was, by far, the hottest planetary March ever recorded, and the hottest January to March period on record as well.
We are watching unprecedented melting of glaciers across the planet, increasingly high temperature records and epic-level droughts that are now becoming the new normal: Planetary distress signals are increasing in volume.
To see more stories like this, visit “Planet or Profit?”
One of these took place recently in Antarctica, of all places, where two unprecedentedly high temperatures were recorded, providing an ominous sign of accelerating ACD as one of the readings came in at just over 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We’re going to be out of water.”
A fascinating recent report shows that approximately 12 million people living in coastal areas will be displaced during the next 85 years, with areas along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States seeing some of the most dramatic impacts.
In the US, another report shows that the Navajo Nation is literally dying of thirst, with one of the nation’s leaders flatly sounding the alarm by stating, “We’re going to be out of water.”
A study just published in Geophysical Research Letters bolsters the case that a period of much faster ACD is imminent, if it hasn’t already begun.
On that note, leading climate researchers recently said there is a possibility that the world will see a 6-degree Celsius temperature increase by 2100, which would lead to “cataclysmic changes” and “unimaginable consequences for human civilization.”
With these developments in mind, let us take a look at recent developments across the planet since the last dispatch.
Earth
Signs of ACD’s impact across this sector of the planet are once again plentiful, and the fact that the Amazon is suffering is always a very loud alarm buzzer, given that every year the world’s largest rainforest cycles through 18 billion tons of carbon when its 6 million square kilometers of trees breathe in carbon dioxide and then release it back into the atmosphere when they die. This is twice the amount of carbon that fossil fuel burning emits in an entire year. A recent report shows that while the Amazon is continuing to absorb more carbon than it is releasing, a tipping point is coming, and likely soon, as deforestation, drought and fires there continue to remove precious trees at a frightful rate. With 1.5 acres of rainforest lost every single second, somewhere around the world, the situation in the Amazon does not bode well for our future.
In the United States, in Harvard Forest, located 70 miles west of the university’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hemlock trees are dying at an alarming rate. Harvard Forest is a case study, as it is part of a network of 60 forests around the world called the Center for Tropical Forest Science-Forest Global Earth Observatories, where they are being studied for their response to ACD and other anthropogenic issues. Kristina Anderson-Teixeira, an ecologist with the network, said its forests are “being impacted by a number of different global change factors. We do expect more of this, be it pests or pathogens or droughts or heat waves or thawing permafrost.”
Another report from April revealed that Russia has been losing an amount of forest the size of Switzerland (16,600 square miles of tree cover) every year, for three years running.
Without ice in the summer, polar bears will starve and die off.
Terrestrial animals continue to struggle to survive in many areas. It should come as no surprise that in the Arctic, a recent study shows that the theory that polar bears will be able to adapt to ice-free seas in the summer by eating on land has been debunked. Without ice in the summer, polar bears will starve and die off.
Another study shows that ACD is threatening mountain goats, due to the warming that is occurring even at the higher elevations where the goats live, as the rate of warming there is two to three times faster than the rest of the planet. According to the study, due to the warming, the goats’ future is now uncertain.
In California, sea lion strandings have already reached more than 2,250 for this year alone, which is a record. The worsening phenomenon is being blamed on warming seas that are disrupting the food supply of marine mammals.
Across the United States, hunters are seeing their traditions being changed by ACD. “I could point you to a million different forums online where hunters are complaining about the season and how hunting is terrible,” said one hunter in a recent report. “At the end of the day, it’s changing weather patterns. Winters around here are not as cold as they used to be.”
A March report from a researcher in Rhode Island showed that the growth and molting rates of juvenile lobsters are decreasing “significantly” due to oceans becoming increasingly acidic from ACD. This makes the animals more vulnerable to predations, thus leading to fewer adult lobsters and an overall rapidly declining population.
Air
There have been a few major developments recently in this sector of our analysis.
Interestingly, some of the more commonly used anesthetics are apparently accumulating in the planet’s atmosphere, thus contributing to warming of the climate, according to a report in April. It is a small amount, mind you, but the volume is increasing.
US greenhouse gas pollution increased 2 percent over the previous year in 2013.
Bad news on the mitigation front comes in the form of a study that revealed that ongoing urban sprawl and auto exhaust is hampering cities’ best efforts toward lowering carbon dioxide emissions. If people continue to drive as much as they are, and development continues apace, the push to build more dense housing, better transit systems and more bike lanes in urban centers will be for naught.
Speaking of lack of mitigation, the US Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that US greenhouse gas pollution increased 2 percent over the previous year in 2013.
Drought plagued California gets more bad news in this sector, as recently released data shows that the state continues to have its warmest year ever recorded, with statewide temperatures coming in nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the previous record, which was set in 2014. The state is quite literally baking.
Another study showed that the frozen soil (permafrost) of the planets’ northern polar regions that holds billions of tons of organic carbon is melting and that melting is being sped up by ACD, hence releasing even more carbon into our already carbon dioxide-supersaturated atmosphere.
Lastly in this section, those who believe in technological fixes for our predicament received some bad news in April, which came in the form of a report that shows that any attempts to geoengineer the climate are likely to result in “different” climate disruption, rather than an elimination of the problem. The most popular proposed idea of solar radiation management that would utilize stratospheric sulfate aerosols to dim the sun has been proven to be, well, destructive. Using a variety of climate models, Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, has investigated the likely consequences of such geoengineering on agriculture across the globe.
According to a report on the matter:
His research showed that while dimming could rapidly decrease global temperatures, high carbon dioxide levels would be expected to persist, and it is the balance between temperature, carbon dioxide, and sunlight that affects plant growth and agriculture. Exploring the regional effects, he finds that a stratospherically dimmed world would show increased plant productivity in the tropics, but lessened plant growth across the northerly latitudes of America, Europe and Asia. It is easy to see how there might be geopolitical shifts associated with changes in regional food production across the globe. “It’s probably the poor tropics that stand to benefit and the rich north that stands to lose,” said Prof Caldeira.
Hence, given that the results would be detrimental to the “rich north,” which by far and away has pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the “poor tropics,” the results of geoengineering would indeed be karmic.
Water
In the United States, California’s epic drought continues to lead in the water sector of analysis.
For the first time in California’s history, mandatory water use reductions have been imposed on residents after a winter of record-low snowfalls, and hence a record-low snowpack. “People should realize we are in a new era,” Gov. Jerry Brown said at a news conference there in April, standing on a patch of brown and green grass that would normally be thick with snow that time of year. “The idea of your nice little green lawn getting watered every day, those days are past.”
Climate scientists also recently announced, disconcertingly, that California’s record-breaking drought is merely a preview of future ACD-generated megadroughts.
Shortly after Brown announced the mandatory water restrictions for his state, another study was released showing that California will also be facing more extreme heat waves, along with rising seas, caused by increasingly intense impacts from ACD. According to the study, the average number of days with temperatures reaching 95 degrees will double or even triple by the end of this century. Simultaneously, at least $19 billion worth of coastal property will literally disappear as sea levels continue to rise.
Experts also announced in April that in “drought-era” California, “every day” should now be considered “fire season.” NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert said of California, “We are in an incendiary situation.”
California’s state climatologist, Michael Anderson, issued a very stark warning in April when he said the state faces dust bowl-like conditions, as he compared the water crisis in California to the legendary US dustbowl. “You’re looking on numbers that are right on par with what was the Dust Bowl,” he said.
Forty out of the 50 US states will face a water shortage within the next 10 years.
As aforementioned, this year’s dry, warm winter has left the entire western United States snowpack at record-low levels. Given that this is a critical source of fresh surface water for the entire region, this will only exacerbate the already critical water shortages that are plaguing the region.
One ramification of this is exampled by how the once-powerful Rio Grande River has been reduced to a mere trickle still hundreds of miles from its destination at the end of its 1,900-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico, thanks to the increasing impacts of ACD. Farmers and residents who rely on it for water are in deep trouble.
And it’s not just California and the US Southwest that are dealing with major water shortages. The Government Accountability Office recently released a report showing that 40 out of the 50 US states will face a water shortage within the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, up in Alaska, that state’s iconic Iditarod sled dog race has been reduced to having mushers have their dogs drag their sleds across large swaths of mud that spanned over 100 miles in some areas, due to warmer temperatures there melting snow and ice that used to cover the course. “I love the challenge, being able to overcome anything on the trail,” said four-time winner Martin Buser of the new conditions. “But if this is a new normal, I’m not sure I can sustain it.”
In this writer’s backyard, glaciers are melting away at dramatic rates in Olympic National Park. Pictures tell the story, which was also addressed in detail recently at a talk given at the park by University of Washington research professor Michelle Koutnik, who was part of a team monitoring the park’s Blue Glacier. By way of example, an entire section of the lower Blue Glacier that existed in 1989 was completely gone by 2008, and melt rates are increasing. A sobering “before and after” look at the photographic evidence should not be missed.
A recent study gave another grim report on glaciers, this one focusing on Canada where glaciers in British Columbia and Alberta are projected to shrink by at least 70 percent by the end of this century, and of course ACD was noted as the main driving force behind the change. “Most of that is going to go,” one of the researchers said of Canada’s glaciers. “And most seems to be on its way out.”
A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that as the Arctic Ocean warms and loses its sea ice cover, phytoplankton populations will explode. This creates another positive feedback loop for ACD, as it further amplifies warming in a region that is already heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe.
On the other end of the water spectrum, rising seas continue to afflict Venice, where the city is seeing dramatic changes. According to a recent report: “In the 1920s, there were about 400 incidents of acqua alta, or high water, when the right mix of tides and winds drives the liquid streets up into homes and shops in the lowers parts of the city. By the 1990s, there were 2,400 incidents – and new records are set every year.”
Fire
An April report shows that ACD is predicted to bring more fires and less snow to the iconic Yellowstone National Park. These changes will likely fuel catastrophic wildfires, cause declines in mountain snows and threaten the survival of animals and plants, according to the scientists who authored the report. It shows that expected warming over the US West over the next three decades will transform the land in and around Yellowstone from a wetter, mostly forested Rocky Mountain ecosystem into a more open landscape, more akin to the arid US Southwest.
“Ecological Implications of Climate Change on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” compiled by more than 20 university and government scientists, said that such dry conditions in that area have not been seen for the last 10,000 years, and extremely destructive wildfires like the one in 1988 that burned thousands of acres of the park are going to become more common, while years without major fires will become rare.
Denial and Reality
The climate disruption deniers have been barking loudly over the last month, which should be expected as irrefutable evidence of ACD continues in an avalanche.
Following Florida’s lead, Wisconsin officially became the next state to censor its employees’ work regarding climate disruption. Wisconsin has banned its employees from working on ACD, after Florida banned the use of the terms “climate change” and “global warming.”
Perhaps this is what played a role in inspiring acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to proclaim that politicians denying science is “the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.”
Facing a loss of high-profile corporate sponsors, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), now tired of being accused of ACD denial, has threatened action against activist groups that accuse it of denying ACD. This “action” could come in the form of lawsuits.
The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication released very interesting county-by-county maps of the United States, which show the various levels of ACD denial across the country and are worth examining.
Over the last four years, extreme weather events in the US caused 1,286 fatalities and $227 billion in economic losses.
Not to be outdone by fellow Republican ACD-denying presidential candidates, Marco Rubio voluntarily donned the dunce cap by stating that scientists have not determined what percentage of ACD is due to human activities compared to natural climate variability, and added brilliantly, “climate is always changing.”
This year has seen us cross yet another milestone in the Arctic – this one being that sea ice covering the top of the world reached the lowest maximum extent yet observed during the winter. This means, ominously, that in just the last four years Arctic sea ice has seen a new low both for its seasonal winter peak (2015) and for its summer minimum (2012). While most sane people would see this as a gut-wrenching fact to have to process emotionally, Robert Molnar, the CEO of the Sailing the Arctic Race, is busily planning an “extreme yacht race” for the summer and fall of 2017 there. “The more ice that’s being melted, the more free water is there for us to be sailing,” he said.
In stark contrast, US Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the Arctic amid concerns over the melting ice, and some of the mainstream media, in this case The Washington Post, are running op-eds claiming that ACD deniers are actually now in retreat due to their own outlandish comments.
In a historic move, even oil giant BP’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly to support a resolution that would force the company to disclose some of its ACD-related risks.
Also on the reality front, recently released analysis shows that densely populated Asian islands and countries like Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines are likely to face even more intense climatic events in the future.
Another report, this one titled “An Era of Extreme Weather” by the Center for American Progress, shows that major weather events across the United States in 2014 cost an estimated $19 billion and caused at least 65 human fatalities. The report also shows that over the last four years, extreme weather events in the US caused 1,286 fatalities and $227 billion in economic losses spanning 44 states.
US President Barack Obama formally submitted to the UN a commitment to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by up to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Critics believe this is far too little, too late, but at least it is a move in the right direction.
In an interesting twist of fate, while many Florida Republican lawmakers are busily denying ACD, other Florida Republicans are busy working to protect their state’s coastal areas from rising seas resulting from advancing ACD.
Lastly in this month’s dispatch, a recently published study shows that acidic oceans helped fuel the largest mass extinction event in the history of the planet, which wiped out approximately 90 percent of all life on earth.
The carbon released that was one of the primary drivers of that extinction event was found to have been released at a similar rate to modern emissions. Dr. Matthew Clarkson, one of the authors of the study, commented: “Scientists have long suspected that an ocean acidification event occurred during the greatest mass extinction of all time, but direct evidence has been lacking until now. This is a worrying finding, considering that we can already see an increase in ocean acidity today that is the result of human carbon emissions.”
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DR. DAVID SUZUKI OF ECOWATCH ON BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
(Photo: EcoWatch)Article reprinted with permission from EcoWatch
Brothers Charles and David Koch run Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned company in the U.S., behind Cargill. They’ve given close to US$70 million to climate change denial front groups, some of which they helped start, including Americans for Prosperity, founded by David Koch and a major force behind the Tea Party movement.
Through their companies, the Kochs are the largest U.S. leaseholder in the Alberta oilsands. They’ve provided funding to Canada’s pro-oil Fraser Institute and are known to fuel the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, which claims a 1992 UN non-binding sustainable development proposal is a plot to remove property rights and other freedoms.
Researchers reveal they’re also behind many anti-transit initiatives in the U.S., in cities and states including Nashville, Indianapolis, Boston, Virginia, Florida and Los Angeles. They spend large amounts of money on campaigns to discredit climate science and the need to reduce greenhouse gases, and they fund sympathetic politicians.
In late January, 50 U.S. anti-government and pro-oil groups—including some tied to the Kochs and the pro-oil, pro-tobacco Heartland Institute—sent Congress a letter opposing a gas tax increase that would help fund public transit, in part because “Washington continues to spend federal dollars on projects that have nothing to do with roads like bike paths and transit.”
The letter says “transportation infrastructure has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” an argument similar to one used by opponents of the transportation plan Metro Vancouver residents are currently voting on. Vancouver’s anti-transit campaign is led by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation—a group that doesn’t reveal its funding sources and is on record as denying the existence of human-caused climate change—along with Hamish Marshall, a conservative strategist with ties to Ethical Oil.
American and Canadian transit opponents paint themselves as populist supporters of the common people, a tactic also used against carbon pricing. Marshall told Business in Vancouver, “I love the idea of working on a campaign where we can stand up for the little guy.” The U.S. letter claims the gas tax increase “would disproportionately hurt lower income Americans already hurt by trying times in our economy.” Both fail to note that poor and middle class families will benefit most from public transit and other sustainable transportation options.
Although many organizations that promote the fossil fuel industry and reject the need to address climate change—including the Heartland Institute, International Climate Science Coalition, Ethical Oil and Friends of Science—are secretive about their funding sources, a bit of digging often turns up oil, gas and coal money, often from the Kochs in the U.S. And most of their claims are easily debunked. In the case of the U.S. Heartland Institute, arguments stray into the absurd, like comparing climate researchers and those who accept the science to terrorists and murderers like the Unabomber and Charles Manson!
In some ways, it’s understandable why fossil fuel advocates would reject clean energy, conservation and sustainable transportation. Business people protect their interests—which isn’t necessarily bad. But anything that encourages people to drive less and conserve energy cuts into the fossil fuel industry’s massive profits. It’s unfortunate that greed trumps the ethical need to reduce pollution, limit climate change and conserve non-renewable resources.
It’s also poor economic strategy on a societal level. Besides contributing to pollution and global warming, fossil fuels are becoming increasingly difficult, dangerous and expensive to exploit as easily accessible sources are depleted—and markets are volatile, as we’ve recently seen. It’s crazy to go on wastefully burning these precious resources when they can be used more wisely, and when we have better options. Clean energy technology, transit improvements and conservation also create more jobs and economic activity and contribute to greater well-being and a more stable economy than fossil fuel industries.
To reduce pollution and address global warming, we must do everything we can, from conserving energy to shifting to cleaner energy sources. Improving transportation and transit infrastructure is one of the easiest ways to do so while providing more options for people to get around.
Those who profit from our continued reliance on fossil fuels will do what they can to convince us to stay on their expensive, destructive road. It’s up to all of us to help change course.
There was a somewhat surprising announcement this week from a country with one of the world’s worst climate reputations: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office declared that his government is committed to signing on to the next major international climate accord, set to be hammered out in Paris later this year.
In a statement, the PM’s office said that “a strong and effective global agreement, that addresses carbon leakage and delivers environmental benefit, is in Australia’s national interest.”
I have no idea what “carbon leakage” is. Presumably it’s something similar to carbon dioxide emissions, which are the leading cause of global warming. (Update: Carbon leakage is “the term often used to describe the situation that may occur if, for reasons of costs related to climate policies, businesses were to transfer production to other countries which have laxer constraints on greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the European Commission.) Regardless, the announcement is a welcome sign from an administration that was recently ranked as the “worst industrial country in the world” on climate action.
The Paris summit is meant to elicit strong commitments to reduce carbon pollution from all of the world’s leading economies, so it’s a good thing Australia is willing to play ball. The country gets 74 percent of its power from coal (that’s nearly twice coal’s share of US energy generation). Australia has the second-largest carbon footprint per capita of the G20 nations (following Saudi Arabia), according to US government statistics.
Whether or not Australians liked their carbon tax, new data show it absolutely worked to slash carbon emissions.
But let’s not get too excited. Although Abbott hasn’t yet specified exactly what kind of climate promises he’ll bring to the table in Paris, there’s good reason to be skeptical. Here’s why: In the run-up to the talks, developed countries are keeping a close eye on each others’ domestic climate policies as a guage of how serious they each are about confronting the problem. It’s a process of collectively raising the bar: If major polluters like the United States show they mean business in the fight against climate change, other countries will be more inclined to follow suit. Of course, the reverse is also true—for example, the revelation that Japan is using climate-designated dollars to finance coal-fired power plants weakens the whole negotiating process. That’s one reason why President Barack Obama has been so proactive about initiating major climate policies from within the White House rather than waiting for the GOP-controlled Congress to step up.
So, on that metric, how are Australia’s climate policies shaping up? It looks like they’re going straight down the gurgler.
Almost a year ago, Australia made a very different kind of climate announcement: It became the world’s first country to repeal a price on carbon. Back in 2012, after several years of heated political debate, Australia’s parliament had voted to impose a fixed tax on carbon pollution for the country’s several hundred worst polluters. The basic idea—as with all carbon-pricing systems, from California to the European Union—is that putting a price on carbon emissions encourages power plants, factories, and other major sources to clean up. Most environmental economists agree that a carbon price would be the fastest way to dramatically slash emissions, and that hypothesis is supported by a number of case studies from around the world—British Columbia is a classic success story. (President Obama backed a national carbon price for the US—in the form of a cap-and-trade system—in 2009, but it was quashed in the Senate.)
In Australia, the carbon tax quickly became unpopular with most voters, who blamed it for high energy prices and the country’s sluggish recovery from the 2008 global recession. Abbott rose to power in part based on his pledge to get rid of the law. In July 2014 he succeeded in repealing it.
Now, new data from the Australian Department of the Environment reveal that whether or not you liked the carbon tax, it absolutely worked to slash carbon emissions. And in the first quarter without the tax, emissions jumped for the first time since prior to the global financial crisis.
The new data quantified greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector (which accounts for about a third of total emissions, the largest single share) in the quarter from July to September 2014. As the chart below shows, emissions in that same quarter dropped by about 7.5 percent after the carbon tax was imposed, and jumped 4.7 percent after it was repealed:
Tim McDonnell
It’s especially important to note that the jump came in the context of an overall decline in electricity consumption, as Australian climate economist Frank Jotzo explained to the Sydney Morning Herald:
Frank Jotzo, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School, said electricity demand was falling in the economy, so any rise in emissions from the sector showed how supply was reverting to dirtier energy sources.
“You had a step down in the emission intensity in power stations from the carbon price—and now you have a step back up,” Professor Jotzo said.
…[Jotzo] estimated fossil fuel power plants with 4.4 gigawatts of capacity were been taken offline during the carbon tax years. About one third of that total, or 1.5 gigawatts, had since been switched back on.
In other words, we have here a unique case study of what happens when a country bails on climate action. The next question will what all this will mean for the negotiations in Paris.
This story originally appeared on Slate and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Ever year around the end of February, after a long winter, Arctic ice reaches its maximum extent. This year that happened around Feb. 25, when it encompassed 14.54 million square kilometers of ice around the North Pole.
Sound like a lot? It’s not. Really, really not. This year’s maximum extent was the lowest on record.
Ice extent (area covered at least 15 percent by ice) for 2015 (solid blue line) compared with 2012 (dashed) and the average from 1981–2010 (black line). Diagram by the NSIDC
The plot above shows the situation. The solid line shows the average ice extent over the year (measured from 1981–2010) and the gray area represents a statistical measure of random fluctuations; anything inside the gray is more or less indistinguishable from the average (in other words, an excursion up or down inside the gray area could just be due to random chance).
The dashed line was the extent in 2012, when unusual conditions created the lowest minimum extent in recorded history. The solid blue line is 2015 so far. As you can see, it’s already reached maximum, and it’s well below average. It’s also outside the gray zone, meaning it’s statistically significant. It’s the earliest the peak has been reached as well. Both these facts point accusingly at global warming—more warmth, and shorter winters.
We have to be careful here, because individual records can be misleading. The trend is what’s important. However, the trend is very, very clear: Ice extent at the North Pole is decreasing rapidly over time. Note that this record low extent is about 1 percent lower than the previous record…which was last year.
Here’s a NASA video describing this year’s low maximum:
The implications of losing Arctic ice are profound. First, high latitudes are more affected by warming; the temperature trends in the extreme north are twice what they are at lower latitudes.
Melting ice does contribute to sea level rise, though not as much as melting glaciers on land. The bad news: Those glaciers are melting faster than ever. This has a second effect that may prove just as disastrous, too. All that fresh water dumped into the salty ocean changes the way the water circulates around the world. This circulation is one of the key ways warmth gets redistributed around the planet. Disrupting this cannot possibly be good news for us. You can read more about this at RealClimate, and climatologist Michael Mann discussed it in a recent interview.
At the other pole, Antarctic land ice is melting at a fantastic rate, and the slight increase in sea ice is not even coming close to making up for it. Deniers love to point at the sea ice, but that comes and goes every year and is roughly stable; the land ice is melting away at huge rates. Claiming global warming is wrong because Antarctic sea ice is increasing is like pointing toward a healing paper cut on your finger when your femoral artery has been punctured.
Arctic ice is like the fabled canary in a coal mine; it’s showing us very clearly what we’re in for. And what’s headed our way is a warmer planet, an even more disrupted climate, and a world of hurt if we do nothing about it.
Through a relentless investigation to find the answer, Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction. The exploration lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.The film also takes us […]
Last night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a probable candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, shared his thoughts about climate change with late-night host Seth Meyers (video above). Here’s what he said:
CRUZ: I just came back from New Hampshire where there’s snow and ice everywhere. And my view actually is simple. Debates on this should follow science and should follow data. And many of the alarmists on global warming, they’ve got a problem because the science doesn’t back them up. And in particular, satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years there’s been zero warming, none whatsoever. It’s why, you remember how it used to be called global warming, and then magically the theory changed to climate change?
MEYERS: Sure.
CRUZ: The reason is it wasn’t warming. But the computer models still say it is, except the satellites show it’s not.
We totally agree with his point that debates about climate “should follow science and should follow data.” Right on! But according to Kevin Trenberth, a leading climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, everything else in Cruz’s quote is “a load of claptrap…absolute bunk.”
Trenberth wasn’t alone in his criticism. Several prominent climate scientists contacted by Climate Desk dismissed Cruz’s analysis. “It is disturbing that some of our most prominent elected officials have decided to engage in distortions of and cynical attacks against the science,” said Michael Mann of Penn State.
“Lawmakers have a responsibility to understand the science, and not to embrace ignorance with open arms, as Senator Cruz is doing here,” added Ben Santer, a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
So what’s wrong with what Cruz said? For starters, the satellite record does, in fact, show warming. Here’s a view of temperature anomalies (that is, the deviation from the long-term average) reported by Remote Sensing Systems, a NASA-backed private satellite lab. It shows warming of about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1980, the beginning of the satellite record:
Remote Sensing Systems
Even still, there are a couple important caveats with satellite temperature data that Cruz would do well to make note of. One, Santer said, is that it has a “huge” degree of uncertainty (compared to land-based thermometers), so it should be approached with caution. That’s because satellites don’t make direct measurements of temperature but instead pick up microwaves from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere that vary with temperature. Fluctuations in a satellite’s orbit and altitude and calibrations to its microwave-sensing equipment can all drastically affect its temperature readings.
More importantly, satellites measure temperatures in the atmosphere, high above the surface. The chart above shows the lower troposphere, about six miles above the surface. This data is an important piece of the climate and weather system, but it’s only one piece. There are plenty of other signs that are far less equivocal, and perhaps even more relevant to those of us who live on the Earth’s surface: Land and ocean surface temperatures are increasing, sea ice is declining, glaciers are shrinking, oceans are rising, the list goes on. In other words, the satellites-vs-computers dichotomy described by Cruz ignores most of the full picture.
For example, here’s the most recent land and ocean-surface temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, showing how temperatures this winter deviated from the long-term average (dating all the way back to 1880). Much of the globe is warmer than average, some parts are the hottest on record, and the overall global temperature was the warmest on record:
NOAA
There’s also a big underlying flaw with Cruz’s cherry-picked timespan of 17 years, which almost any climate scientist would agree is far too short to observe any meaningful trend. 1998, the year Cruz starts with, was itself exceptionally warm thanks to the biggest El Nino event of the 20th century. If that’s your starting place, the warming trend does indeed look weak. But look over a longer time period, and it’s obvious that very warm years are more common now than before.
NOAA
And in any case, even the modest “slow-down” in warming that has occurred since 2000 isn’t inconsistent with what scientists have always expected man-made climate change will look like. Even the earliest climate models predicted the possibility of occasional leveling-off periods in upward-bound global temperature, like a landing on a staircase.
In fact, one reason why many scientists “magically” (as Cruz put it) have begun to prefer the term “climate change” to “global warming” is because they think the latter can misleadingly imply that every year will be incrementally warmer than the last. In reality, climate change is all about odds: Man-made greenhouse gas emissions substantially increase the chances of an exceptionally warm year, but they don’t eliminate the possibility for average or even cold years to happen.
Even accounting for the apparent stability of the last few years, Santer said, “everything tells us that what’s going on isn’t natural.”
As for Cruz’s reference to snowy weather in New Hampshire…give us a break.
New aerial ice studies have given scientists an unprecedented insight into how one of the world’s largest glaciers is melting.
The Totten Glacier drains an area twice the size of Victoria, so there’s an awful lot of ice in there, grounded below sea level, so it’s got a fair potential for sea level rise.
Glaciologist Dr Jason Roberts
The research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, has uncovered a series of tunnels and gateways which are allowing warm water to eat away at the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica, potentially leading to a dramatic rise in global sea levels.
Dr Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division said what they found was worrying.
“We’re realising that the East Antarctic ice sheet’s probably not the sleeping giant that we thought or at least, the giant’s starting to twitch and we’re concerned,” he said.
Scientists used planes armed with hi-tech monitoring equipment to measure the height and thickness of ice and bedrock topography beneath the massive Totten Glacier.
New aerial ice studies have given scientists an unprecedented insight into how one of the world’s largest glaciers is melting.
The Totten Glacier drains an area twice the size of Victoria, so there’s an awful lot of ice in there, grounded below sea level, so it’s got a fair potential for sea level rise.
Glaciologist Dr Jason Roberts
The research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, has uncovered a series of tunnels and gateways which are allowing warm water to eat away at the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica, potentially leading to a dramatic rise in global sea levels.
Dr Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division said what they found was worrying.
“We’re realising that the East Antarctic ice sheet’s probably not the sleeping giant that we thought or at least, the giant’s starting to twitch and we’re concerned,” he said.
Scientists used planes armed with hi-tech monitoring equipment to measure the height and thickness of ice and bedrock topography beneath the massive Totten Glacier.
The aerial surveys covered more than 150,000 kms over five years, and allowed scientists to map and create cross sections of the glacier for the first time.
Dr Tas van Ommen said that there was enough ice in the Totten Glacier alone to raise global sea levels by at least three and a half metres.
“That three and a half metre sea level rise would take many centuries to roll out,” he said.
“But even in this century, the last IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report said that if this kind of thing happens, it’s going to add several tens of centimeters of sea level rise to their estimate of one metre.”
Glaciologist Dr Jason Roberts agreed the melting of East Antarctica’s largest glacier could have major implications globally.
“The Totten Glacier drains an area twice the size of Victoria, so there’s an awful lot of ice in there, grounded below sea level, so it’s got a fair potential for sea level rise,” he said.
Scientists plan to use more aerial surveys and eventually underwater rovers to better understand the sleeping giant, before it wakes up
The aerial surveys covered more than 150,000 kms over five years, and allowed scientists to map and create cross sections of the glacier for the first time.
Dr Tas van Ommen said that there was enough ice in the Totten Glacier alone to raise global sea levels by at least three and a half metres.
“That three and a half metre sea level rise would take many centuries to roll out,” he said.
“But even in this century, the last IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report said that if this kind of thing happens, it’s going to add several tens of centimeters of sea level rise to their estimate of one metre.”
Glaciologist Dr Jason Roberts agreed the melting of East Antarctica’s largest glacier could have major implications globally.
“The Totten Glacier drains an area twice the size of Victoria, so there’s an awful lot of ice in there, grounded below sea level, so it’s got a fair potential for sea level rise,” he said.
Scientists plan to use more aerial surveys and eventually underwater rovers to better understand the sleeping giant, before it wakes up
A new documentary shows how a “professional class of deceivers” has been paid by the fossil fuel industry to cast doubt on the science of climate change, in an effort akin to that from the tobacco industry, which for decades used deceitful tactics to deny the scientific evidence that cigarettes are harmful to human health. The film, Merchants of Doubt, explores how many of the same people that once lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry are now employed in the climate denial game.
An infamous 1969 memo from a tobacco executive read: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” Using similar tactics, a very small set of people have had immense influence in sowing doubt on the scientific consensus of manmade climate change in recent years.
Merchants of Doubt features five prominent climate science deniers who have been particularly influential in deceiving the public and blocking climate action. Their financial connections to the fossil fuel industry are not hard to uncover. Yet major U.S. television networks — CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and PBS — have given most of these deniers prominent exposure over the past several years.
| Merchant of Doubt | Number of TV Appearances, 2009-2014 |
| Marc Morano | 30 |
| James Taylor | 8 |
| Fred Singer | 8 |
| Tim Phillips | 7 |
Now that these Merchants of Doubt have been exposed, the major cable and network news programs need to keep them off the airwaves, a sentiment echoed by Forecast the Facts, which recently launched a petition demanding that news directors do just that.
Marc Morano
Marc Morano rose to prominence working for two of the most vocal climate deniers in the U.S., Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. These days Morano runs the climate science denial blog Climate Depot, for which he is paid by the fossil fuel industry-funded Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). He played a key role in falsely scandalizing “Climategate,” and once said that climate scientists “deserve to be publicly flogged.”
Whenever there is a big climate-related story, Fox News turns to Morano to sow doubt on climate science, featuring him 11 times in 2014 alone. Most recently, Morano appeared on Fox News’ Happening Now to complain that Google’s new policy of ranking websites by their accuracy would prevent climate denial sites like Morano’s from getting enough attention. Morano has also appeared on CNN several times to debate climate science.
Not counting his recent appearance on Fox News, Morano appeared on major cable and network news shows 30 times between 2009 and 2014 to deny climate science or attack environmental policies.
James Taylor
James Taylor is vice president for external relations and senior fellow for environment and energy policy at the Heartland Institute, an organization that has received funding from ExxonMobil and the Charles Koch Foundation and is perhaps best known for running a billboard campaign associating acceptance of climate science with “murderers, tyrants, and madmen” like the Unabomber and Charles Manson. For his part, Taylor dismisses “alarmist propaganda that global warming is a human-caused problem that needs to be addressed,” and suggests that taking action to reduce emissions could cause a return to the “the Little Ice Age and the Black Death.”
In addition to his many TV appearances, Merchants of Doubt highlighted Taylor’s multitude of op-eds that have been published in newspapers across the country. Taylor is also a contributor at Forbes, where he writes columns that attack climate science and environmental policies without disclosing his fossil fuel ties. His latest column falsely asserts that the recent winter cold shows that “global warming predictions are proving no more scientifically credible than snake oil.”
Taylor appeared on major cable and network news shows eight times between 2009 and 2014 to cast doubt on climate science or criticize environmental policies.
Fred Singer
Fred Singer is the president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, which has received funding from Exxon Mobil and casts doubt on global warming. Singer has received funding from the Heartland Institute to “regularly and publicly counter the alarmist [anthropogenic global warming] message” and consulted for Shell, Arco, Unocal, Sun Energy and the American Gas Association.
Singer is the founder of the Heartland Institute’s “Nongovernmental International Panel On Climate Change” (NIPCC), a collection of climate change deniers who have been criticized by many climate scientists for their attempts sow doubt and confusion about the firmly-established scientific findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He’s claimed that there was “little if any global warming during 1978-1997” and that “the climate hasn’t warmed in the 21st century.”
Between 2009 and 2014, Singer appeared on the cable and network news program to deny climate science or attack environmental policies eight times, including appearances on ABC and CNN. When once asked about the many scientific institutions that accept the consensus of human-caused global warming — including IPCC, NASA, NOAA, the National Academy of Sciences, and many more — he responded: “What can I say? They’re wrong.”
Tim Phillips
Tim Phillips is the president of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the conservative advocacy group that was founded by the oil giant Koch brothers. Under Phillips’ leadership, AFP has campaigned against the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon pollution standards and tax incentives for wind energy, while denying the existence of subsidies for the oil and gas industries. The Washington Post has said that Americans for Prosperity “may be America’s third-biggest political party” due to its widespread influence in elections.
Phillips appeared on the cable and network news programs to deny climate science or attack environmental policies seven times between 2009 and 2014.
William O’Keefe
William O’Keefe is CEO for the George C. Marshall Institute, and previously held leadership positions at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the American Petroleum Institute. The George C. Marshall Institute, which has received at least $350,000 in funding from Koch foundations and over $800,000 from ExxonMobil, has published reports attempting to discredit established climate science. Newsweek called the organization a “central cog in the [climate change] denial machine.”
Fortunately, O’Keefe has not appeared on the networks in recent years, although he did publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal casting doubt on whether humans are the primary cause of global warming.
Times Ignores Former Public Editor’s Directive To Provide Better Financial Disclosure Of Contributors
Blog ››› March 12, 2015 5:26 PM EDT ››› DENISE ROBBINS
The New York Times recently published an op-ed attacking renewable fuels from the Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce without disclosing his ties to the oil industry, despite a directive from its former public editor for the paper to fully disclose its op-ed contributors’ financial conflicts of interest.
In a March 10 New York Times op-ed, Robert Bryce falsely characterized the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as an expensive “tax.” The standard, which requires oil refiners, blenders, and gasoline and diesel importers to blend a set amount of renewable fuel into their gasoline supply, was dismissed by Bryce as a “boondoggle” and a “rip-off.”
But the Times failed to disclose Bryce’s financial incentive to attack the RFS, identifying him only as a “senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of a new report from the institute, ‘The Hidden Corn-Ethanol Tax.'” The Manhattan Institute has, in fact, received millions from oil interests over the years, including $635,000 from ExxonMobil and $1.9 million from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, where Charles Koch and his wife sit on the board of directors. Koch made his fortune from oil and currently has significant holdings in oil and gas operations.
Bryce is, in essence, acting as a spokesperson for the oil industry, which has much to gain from weakening or repealing the RFS. The renewable fuel requirement is set to increase over the next several years, potentially replacing up to 13.6 billion gallons of the conventional fuel supply by 2022.
These financial ties might explain why Bryce’s op-ed was peppered with industry myths, including that renewable fuel can damage car engines (this has been proven wrong) and is bad for the environment (ethanol’s lower greenhouse gas emissions are better for the climate).
The New York Times faced backlash after similarly failing to disclose Bryce’s financial interests in a 2011 op-ed attacking renewable energy policies. A letter signed by more than 50 journalists and media professionals expressed concern that such a lack of disclosure is “a growing problem in American journalism” and asked the public editor to “lead the industry and set the nation’s standard by disclosing financial conflicts of interest that their op-ed contributors may have at the time their piece is published.”
In response, then-Public Editor Arthur Brisbane agreed that the Times should do better to provide disclosure and singled out Bryce and the Manhattan Institute as a case in point:
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