Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
—General Douglas MacArthur (1952)
By early 2009, a troubling complacency had emerged among climate scientists. Perhaps it was the
result of a confluence of seemingly game-changing events over the preceding few years: the rather
conclusive and well-publicized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth
Assessment, the increased public awareness resulting from the highly successful movie
An
Inconvenient Truth
featuring Al Gore, the generally improved media coverage, and the images of
devastation thrown up by several natural events—such as the 2005 hurricane season and hurricane
Katrina in particular—that served as wake-up calls to the public of potential looming threats from
climate change. On top of that, Barack Obama's recent election seemed to portend the prospect of a
more science-friendly climate in Washington, D.C. To many of my colleagues, the climate wars had
been won—in favor of the science. From here on out, there was still important climate science to be
done, but in the public arena, it would all be about policy, solutions, and moving forward in
confronting the twin challenges of climate change mitigation (to lessen the extent of further heating of
the planet) and adaptation (to become more resilient in the face of impending climate changes already
in motion).
However, it was increasingly clear to me that the climate change denial campaign was not
simply going to fade away. There was too much at stake for the special interests behind the scenes. I
wrote to colleagues in February 2009
1
about “complacency in the face of what is clearly a mounting,
well organized, and well funded last attack, a Battle of the Bulge if you will, against the science….
Most don't accept the seriousness of the battle we are going to face here.”
2
Later, that September, I
wrote what turned out to be a sadly prophetic and ironic warning to my colleagues at the University of
East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the United Kingdom to “expect lots more attacks …
over the next several weeks as the U.S. senate debates cap & trade legislation.”
3
By early 2009, there were numerous indications that a major climate change denial offensive
was gearing up. Not a day went by when there weren't climate change disinformation pieces in the
right-wing media. The Heartland Institute was heavily promoting its climate change denial
conferences, and it had initiated a massive direct mail campaign directed at scientists and engineers
around the United States. Meanwhile, there was a growing drumbeat of character attacks against
climate scientists.
Natural weather events, too, were playing to the advantage of climate change deniers, even
though these events signaled little if anything about climate change. There had been a series of
relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane seasons in the wake of the devastating 2005 season, and a
