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How the oil industry made us doubt climate change
- focusgroup0 6y agoPerhaps there are multiple factors involved. For example the IPCC email scandal, or the fact that complex mathematical forecasting models involve a lot of hand-wavey guesswork (Neal Ferguson's COVID model the latest example), or that the earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling over millennia.
- jlmorton 6y ago> Perhaps there are multiple factors involved. For example the IPCC email scandal There was no scandal. What happened is that the University of East Anglia was hacked, and the emails of the Climate Research Unit were stolen. Climate skeptics then trolled through the archives and selected short quotes out of context, completely distorting the meaning behind the emails, which were perfectly fine and entirely unobjectionable. How can a pseduoscandal invented by climate skeptics possibly be a reason for why climate skeptics exist? Maybe the distortions and fake outrage did convince some people, but it still seems wrong to point to this as a valid cause.
- yters 6y agoI personally read through a zip archive of the emails, and my non selective reading they looked pretty damning. search for "FOIA2011.zip" to read them yourself For those interested in the actual email zip, here's one working link I found. http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/2/FOIA2011.zip http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/2/FOIA2011.zip The top level README.md contains what the compilers thought were some of the most damning texts, and give reference so you can see the context for yourself. Here are some from the README.md: <1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...] <3066> Thorne: I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run. <1611> Carter: It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group. <2884> Wigley: Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...] <4755> Overpeck: The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what's included and what is left out.
- jlmorton 6y agoDo you have an example of an objectionable email to share?
- yters 6y agoonly off the top of my head i read them many years ago on one of my previoys computers what i remember: - exchanges about how to quiet skeptics - the engineer's negative opinion of the codebase he was hired to clean up maybe sometime this week i can dredge up the files to take another look, if there is interest the zip archive may still be floating around on the web somewhere UPDATE: found it For those interested in the actual email zip, here's one working link I found. http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/2/FOIA2011.zip http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/2/FOIA2011.zip The top level README.md contains what the compilers thought were some of the most damning texts, and give reference so you can see the context for yourself. Here are some from the README.md: <1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...] <3066> Thorne: I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run. <1611> Carter: It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group. <2884> Wigley: Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...] <4755> Overpeck: The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what's included and what is left out.
- MengerSponge 6y agoYes, we would like to quiet celebrity skeptics. They're a bunch of dipshits who are not acting in good faith and we're running out of time. The internet works even though its built on a horrifyingly rickety series of dependencies. People complain about other people's code. The only code that doesn't have someone complaining about it is signed Knuth, and Djikstra would probably complain about something if you asked him.
- baq 6y agoOf all FUD about human caused climate catastrophe I especially don’t get why “over millennia” is an argument when we’re basically talking about a fifty year window.
- thepangolino 6y agoWhat worries me is the current trend of thinking we are all powerless against the mighty climate and that the only way we can survive is to aim for less and lower or collective standard of living.
- makerofspoons 6y agoIf there were reasonable technologies on the immediate horizon for carbon capture then there might be an argument that our present consumption could be sustained while mitigating climate change. Unfortunately we have no such technology and we are not appropriately funding efforts that could get us there.
- rtx 6y agoPresent consumption can be sustained by switching to nuclear.
- triceratops 6y agoI object to the idea that a lower-carbon lifestyle is necessarily a lower standard of living. A lot of of our carbon emissions come from doing things that aren't even good for us or actively make us unhappy: long car commutes, excessive meat consumption, buying too much cheap stuff.
- triceratops 6y ago> the IPCC email scandal What was this scandal?
- yters 6y agoone of the engineers hired to clean up the climate model code leaked a bunch of internal emails and files he also left personal messages expressing his dislike of the codebase :D
- triceratops 6y agoLol. The state of the codebase was the scandal?
- yters 6y agono i just thought that was an amusing part of the leak search for "FOIA2011.zip" to read them yourself scandal was contents of the email, which demonstrated attempts to shut down critics
- triceratops 6y agoDid they?[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Content_of_the_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_c...
- rtx 6y agoEveryone interested in the topic should give State of Fear by Michael Crichton a read. Its one of my favorite books, it helped me realize that there are other sides. I grew up watching shows like Captain Planet, never understood the propaganda in shows like these. One question I regularly keep asking here, who made us doubt nuclear. Are all green parties funded by Big oil.
- triceratops 6y ago> Everyone interested in the topic should give State of Fear by Michael Crichton a read I did and it only made me lose a lot of respect for an author who wrote such classics as The Andromeda Strain, Timeline, and Jurassic Park.
- rtx 6y agoYup agreed this book has that effect on some people. You can see it happening on Goodreads. I personally think its due to cognitive dissonance. He is a whistle blower like Assange.
- neaden 6y agoYou get that it's a novel right? Pointing to it as an example like this is like pointing to Jurassic Park as an example of why GMO food is bad.
- rtx 6y agoYes, it was pretty impactful for me at that age. If someone is worried about GMO, they will stop eating it. I don't see that with climate change activist. I don't see any change in most of these peoples lifestyle. Over that when they oppose nuclear it makes me think what's going on. I am a big believer in polluting less and using as much as you need. Live in small houses, use cooling only above 40 degree centigrade and heating below 0 degree. Walk more have less children.
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- _Microft 6y agoI really wonder what people at Exxon expected to happen in the long run? How did they imagine things would end? Climate change not happening, maybe? Climate change happening but nobody notices for some reason? There seems no decent outcome possible.
- gameswithgo 6y agoWith them making a bunch of money and being able to relocate to where the climate would be ok. Worked out fine for them.
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- dalbasal 6y agoIt's not necessarily a question of long run. They're CEOs, not kings.
- stagehn 6y agoPublic cost private benefit - externality, tragedy of the commons, etc
- spaetzleesser 6y agoFor one they expected to be rich enough to not be impacted by climate change. If you can afford to move easily, climate change will not be a big deal for you. They can also play it both sides. You milk the current situation as much as possible while at the same time keeping an eye on alternatives. I think that's what's happening.
- Loughla 6y ago>You milk the current situation as much as possible while at the same time keeping an eye on alternatives. Whenever I see news releases about huge oil companies investing in alternatives, this is exactly what I see. Deny until you have no choice but to admit. Then get into the game and make even more money trying to fix what you broke. It's just, well, sociopathic behavior, from my perspective.
- fallingfrog 6y agoIt’s always amazing how people will insist that climate scientists, who are specifically trained to be impartial and accurate, are part of some kind of vast conspiracy while simultaneously believing whatever they are told by oil industry mouthpieces, the exact people who have the most obvious motivation to lie.
- cagenut 6y agoIf it helps you triangulate these things, its worth keeping in mind that very little of these tactics (and even many of the actors!) are unique to the oil industry. Merchants of Doubt [1] goes into the pattern in an almost legal/academic way: https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1608193942 https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Ob... Thank You For Smoking tells the same basic message but as a semi-satirical movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/
- Fnoord 6y agoYup, I can recommend these as well, on top of Adam Curtis - The Century of the Self (4 parts) & HyperNormalisation. Freely and legally available on Archive.org [1]. [1] https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Adam%20Curtis%22 https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Adam%20Cur...
- bitxbit 6y agoI know there’s a lot of hate for big oil but the battery industry is not run by saints.
- chinathrow 6y agoThe word battery is not even present in the linked article - why the distraction from the topic here?
- cglace 6y agoWeird take on the issue.
- lubesGordi 6y agoMy doubt comes from not having faith in models of complex systems. There are a lot of people who share that sentiment. If it requires a PhD and a computer model to understand some thing, it should be a given that there be skeptics.
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- baddox 6y agoWhat about, for instance, all the successful engineering that is driven by models of complex systems? We don't understand bridge dynamics at an atomic level, we have complex models that require a lot of specialized education to create, understand, and use. Same goes for microprocessor engineering. No human understands the design of a modern CPU at a transistor level, that design is also handled by computers (again guided by humans with specialized education).
- deathgrips 6y agoWe can build bridges and build microprocessors. No one has bottled up one "Earth's atmosphere" in a lab and run controlled experiments on it. It's not empirical.
- Retric 6y agoPeople actually did do just that. Historically, high altitude balloons where used study the atmosphere and gather temperature, pressure, etc. Then it’s just a question of shining light through various atmospheric mixes to see how they respond to sunlight. Rockets and satellites then refined our understanding over time. The basic question of global warming is a fairly simple physics problem, it’s because people care so much about absolutely tiny differences that such complex models are used. Aka Mercury vs Venus surface temperatures closely line up with simple models, but on earth people care about +/- 0.1 C and even more so in terms of local weather patterns.
- notadog 6y agoPrevious discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532612 (2 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535374 (2 days ago)
- liability 6y agoI think news/media has some of the blame too. Science reporting in general is atrocious, journalists and editors are constantly misrepresenting and exaggerating the actual claims of scientists. I wish I had a nickel for every "Scientists invent new battery 10000x better than lithium" headline I've read. Eventually people become generally skeptical of these claims and skeptical of the scientists themselves even though the scientists never made the sensational claims misleadingly attributed to them by the media. It's a horrible fusion of the 'telephone game' and the boy who cried wolf.
- InitialLastName 6y agoThis exactly. Climate change sits exactly at the intersection of "probabilistic deniability of real-world ramifications" and "science poorly reported" (because the effects are subtle based on our day-to-day experiences, and because people don't understand or trust science) with a hefty dose of "vested interests in the opposition camp".
- lotsofpulp 6y agoI think the very root cause is that the only way to tackle climate change is to reduce fossil fuel usage, which is reducing quality of life, which is against everyone’s vested interest. After that, all the various excuses can come out like denying scientific data and whatnot. You can show all the proof to a drunk person that the next drink is going to harm them in the long run, but all they’re going to see is how to keep the high going for a little while longer.
- spaetzleesser 6y agothey did a similar thing with recycling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/09/11/plastic-industry-pushed-recycling-on-america-knowing-it-would-fall-short-according-to-report/#626a9101a68b https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/09/11/plasti... There they pushed for recycling while knowing that it won't work.
- unabst 6y agoListen to the money. When an industry spends billions on persuading the public of some "truth" the opposite is true. Same with cigarettes and cancer. Same with lawsuits that end with massive settlements and no admission of guilt. What I don't get is vaping. Wasn't the cause traced down to THC/CBD additives that weren't even sold by the major brands? They seemed to fold too fast for something that arguably was not their product. I must be missing something.
- alexilliamson 6y agoYou're right, the folks that died from vaping were buying weed cartridges. But I feel like the thrust of the policy discussion was that kids were vaping too much. In discussions like that, when politicians keep saying "kids are getting addicted; people are dying", it is nearly impossible for a voice of reason to interject and remind everyone that the people dying weren't dying from flavored juul pods.
- Fnoord 6y ago> What I don't get is vaping. Wasn't the cause traced down to THC/CBD additives that weren't even sold by the major brands? They seemed to fold too fast for something that arguably was not their product. I must be missing something. We don't know the long-term effect of vaping because 1) its a recent hype 2) its difficult to clinically trace vapers and get meaningful statistics. We do know that vaping is more healthy than smoking, regarding carcinogens / cancer. When I went to a store which sells magazines, tobacco, etc the other day (has an embedded post office) they had a lot of commercials for vaping. I know tobacco commercials are illegal here, so I'm not so sure about this. I guess its good business for them.
- mike74921 6y agoThere are also always going to be contrarians who don't need any more motivation than a long shot at being the lone correct voice. They serve a useful purpose, but unfortunately are often too appealing to folk who want to believe a different answer that isn't fully vetted or isn't honestly taking a wholistic approach. I'm contrarian by nature but loathe to preach my crazy ideas because I'm probably wrong.
- pengaru 6y agoPeople living large on convenient, abundant, and cheap energy derived from fossil fuels largely want to doubt climate change. The oil industry doesn't even need to make an effort to convince the public to keep using their products. It doesn't take anything to enable the masses to continue living lives they're already deeply entrenched in and thoroughly enjoying. Frankly I'm surprised they've wasted so much money on the propaganda. The energy density of e.g. gasoline is quite a moat by itself. Perhaps it's more a liability issue?
- lazyjones 6y agoPlease ban this whole subject, as it's no longer possible to have a constructive discussion about it. Few people want to get downvoted for pointing out undisputed, inconvenient facts.
- dalbasal 6y agoWe'll need a retrospective to know if propaganda has really gotten worse, probably. Doubt peddling has been around for a while. The tactic itself is quite basic. Bring your own expert to contradict the majority opinion and create a dichotomy. But, I think it only worked because a partisanship preexisted. There was already a pro-environment and pro-business side. Once it descends into political poop throwing, the content is somewhat irrelevant. It's just content. It needs to have a certain form, maybe credentials... it's a hurdle though. What matters is political backing, not the content of the arguments. These days, we don't even need merchants of doubt anymore. A room full of oil execs crafting weasel words and uncertainty seems quaint at this point. The newer, "flood the zone with shit" variety of propaganda seems more powerful to me. It's more visceral and emotional. There's no need for consistency and you can stack unrelated "arguments" an way you want. Climate change is overstated. Climate change is natural. Climate change is a hoax. Climate change is cover for a pedovore conspiracy. Climate scientists are paid more than doctors. No one has to stand behind any of these claims, and the only reason to moderate them is to appeal to moderates. You can reach weirdos with weird claims and extremist with extremist ones. On the whole, it's proving more capable of having effect without a priori political support. Probably much more dangerous.
- helen___keller 6y agoYour post hurts because it's so true. There was a time when I was hopeful that the internet would make it easier to cut out bullshit and false arguments, leaving us with substantial disagreements over meaningful tradeoffs, improving public discourse in general. Now I just feel horribly naive. The internet is the world's most powerful tool for marketing, not a tool for knowledge.
- dalbasal 6y agoAh... well... I feel it's both at the same time. My optimism about the internet has soured over the years too, but I do still see potential. I have come around to the conclusion that big money, and amoral actors like Zuck have made a monster. One is probably bad enough though. I don't think Jack Dorsey is amoral, for example. Twitter's not that much better than facebook in this regard though. The hope wasn't just naive though. It was in response to what the internet was like. Wikipedia was (is) an incredible tool for knowledge. I believe it's run by moral people, and I now think that they're noncommercial structure is a very effective shield. A Steve Bannon has no use for a wikipedia, and it's existence moderates the effectiveness of propaganda somewhat.(1) (1) Please don't bring deltionism into this.