Betrayal and Deception

Why don't people know about global warming, think that it is a myth or that it is a natural event? Plain and simple - deceit by the oil, coal and auto industries, betrayal by the Bush administration, and duplicity between them all.

Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract (trust, or confidence). Deception is to intentionally distort the truth in order to mislead others. Duplicity is acting in bad faith; deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another. Without a doubt, all of these apply when we're talking about the oil, coal and auto industries and their dealings with the Bush whitehouse.

The President's presumptive social contract is with the American people - to look out for their best interests. Just a wild guess, but catastrophic climate change is probably not in the country's best interest.

"With the election of George W. Bush, the fossil fuel lobby became even more powerful, and it has been able to corrupt processes within the federal bureaucracy and the soliciting of scientific advice."1

The main tactic used by fossil fuel industries to continue their record profits is public confusion. In a July 27, 2006 article titled 'Making Money By Feeding Confusion Over Global Warming', Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ross Gelbspan said "continued efforts to confuse the public in the face of the evidence are "particularly sinister" given that they follow "by almost 10 years the conclusion of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries in what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history."

According to a July 23, 2006 article in the Washington Post, The U.S. government provides about $25 billion in annual subsidies to fossil-fuel industries. Environmentalists hope to eliminate them, or shift them into wind and solar power, energy-efficient appliances and other clean technologies. The United States also has lax fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which produce nearly one-third of our emissions; Japan's requirements are twice as stringent, and even China's are tougher. And the United States has yet to regulate carbon, or even make a commitment to cut emissions; by contrast, Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have pledged reductions of 50 percent, 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

Some industries that oppose action on climate change use tactics reminiscent of those of asbestos and tobacco companies, who by constantly challenging and clouding the outcomes of research into the link between their products and cancer, succeeded in buying themselves a few more decades of fat profits.1

A secret memo by the coal industry details a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about global warming. The memo expresses fear that if the government addresses climate change — through a carbon tax or regulating greenhouse gasses — it will cut into their profits.

Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists.” (The memo also refers to people who believe in global warming science as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”)

But the coal-based utility leading the campaign ran up against a problem: there is no scientific community who agrees with them. The memo acknowledges almost everyone who disputes global warming science have no “involvement in climatology.” So they’ve decided to lavish funding on one climatologist who will do their bidding: Pat Michaels.

The memo describes how the coal-based utility contributed “$100,000 to Dr. Michaels this year.” It also “contacted all the [utilities] in the United States” asking for contributions to Michaels’ research and “obtained additional contributions.” Here are a few highlights from Michaels’ career:

– In 2003, Michaels famously “proved” that global warming was mostly hype by mixing up degrees and radians.

– In 2004, Michaels told Business Week, “We know how much the planet is going to warm. It is a small amount, and we can’t do anything about it.”

– This year, Michaels completely misrepresented a study by Curt Davis to falsely claim that Antartica has been gaining ice in recent years.

In 2003, A Harvard scientist told the Senate Republican Policy Committee that Michaels has “published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”

Funding Michaels is part of a larger propaganda campaign, involving several industries, described in the memo. Other activities include bankrolling a movie that attacks An Inconvenient Truth, deceptive advertisements by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and aggressive lobbying. Corporations meet regularly with Michaels and CEI to discuss strategy.

The Washington Post and other media have documented the ongoing campaign to cover up global warming data. Under the directorship of Bush’s friend and political appointee, Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., NOAA climate scientists are being intimidated from talking to the press and their papers are being withheld from publication.

The following is from a June 8, 2005 New York Times article titled "Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming"8:

The American Petroleum Institute, starting with the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in 1997, has promoted the idea that lingering uncertainties in climate science justify delaying restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases. "They've got three more years, and the only way to control this issue and do nothing about it is to muddy the science," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a private group that has enlisted businesses in programs cutting emissions.

Philip A. Cooney, a Bush aide and an oil industry lobbyist fighting against the regulation of greenhouse gases, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. Their overall effect was to minimize concern about climate change.

Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research, said the whitehouse editing and other actions threatened to taint the government's $1.8 billion-a-year effort to clarify the causes and consequences of climate change.. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.

Each administration has a policy position on climate change," Mr. Piltz wrote. "But I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the whitehouse has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program.

Climate experts and representatives of environmental groups, when shown examples of the revisions, said they illustrated the significant if largely invisible influence of and other whitehouse officials with ties to energy industries that have long fought greenhouse-gas restrictions.

Mr. Cooney, who used to work for the American Petroleum Institute before coming to the Bush whitehouse, now works for ExxonMobil.

The bullying of scientists and distortion of facts to suit policy in an effort to deceive the public is a typical pattern of behavior in the Bush administration.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "Across a broad range of issues—from childhood lead poisoning and mercury emissions to climate change, reproductive health, and nuclear weapons—political appointees have distorted and censored scientific findings that contradict established policies. In some cases, they have manipulated the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions."

This political interference with science by the Bush administration is reprehensible, if not criminal, and is a disservice to all of us because we all depend on science for beneficial advancements. And we are all suffering the consequences of this corrupt behavior.

"The oil industry sells nearly 3 billion gallons of gasoline per week in the U.S. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, commuters alone spent $60 billion on gasoline in 2004. As the world demand for transportation fuel increases, a lack of alternatives keeps prices and profitability going up." 10

Until the collusion between the oil and auto industries and the government is stopped, implementing technological advancements to create alternative energy sources will continue to be obstructed. A perfect example of the power the oil and auto industries has was clearly seen with the sabotaged electric car project in the 1990s.

The following is from the web site "Who Killed the Electric Car?" 10

"GM, Ford, Honda, Chrysler, Nissan, and Toyota all developed electric vehicle programs in response to California's zero emission mandate-and most ended up crushing at least part of their EV fleets. Even as the auto makers launched their EV programs, they undermined their success every step of the way. Why?

Electric cars are a threat to the profitability of the conventional gas-powered auto industry. GM said that it spent more than $1 billion to market and develop the EV1. Not only would a successful electric car program cannibalize sales of conventional cars, but the electric car costs the auto industry in other ways: lacking an engine, it saves the driver the cost of replacement parts, motor oil, filters, and spark plugs. The EV1's regenerative braking system, in which the car's electronic controls handled much of the work of slowing down the car, spared the car's mechanical brake system from wear. Brake parts and repair is a billion-plus dollar industry alone. The EV1's efficiency was a winner for consumers but a loser for the auto industry.

When GM introduced the EV1, it was years ahead of American and Japanese competition in electric car technology. In the coming years it could have capitalized on its lead by developing these cars and advanced hybrids. Instead GM and other US car makers would focus on battling with the State of California to kill electric vehicles. The consequences of these decisions reverberate today."

The electric car “mandate” in California was abandoned in favor of a new zero emission vehicle technology, the hydrogen fuel cell. Proponents, like the California Air Resources Board, argued that it could prove a better technology. Unlike battery electric cars, however, it was far from being a proven technology. And supporters and detractors both agree that a practical H2 car is decades away from reality.

It is interesting and disturbing to note that the country has done battle with the auto and oil industries for decades, and they continue to win the war. In 1977, President Carter said: "The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us." Read President Carter's address to the nation on energy (April 18, 1977)

He was right on target and his 10 energy principles still largely apply, with a few exceptions such as the suggested use of coal. At the time, carbon emissions and global warming was not considered to be a major concern, although the evidence was already starting to mount. But his concepts for energy efficiency and conservation still apply. Almost three decades later we are much worse off than we were back in the late seventies. If we hadn't given in to the oil and auto industries and had the courage to adopt President Carter's principles back then, we wouldn't be in this mess now.

As we consider that oil and coal run our country's energy, keep in mind this vital fact: fossil fuels are terribly inefficient at producing energy. "With gasoline, only an eighth of the energy even reaches the wheels, a sixteenth accelerates the car, and less than one percent ends up moving the driver." ."9 But there is one thing that oil is very efficient at: making tons of money for the oil companies, which is, of course, what drives the corruption.

We have no choice but to confront the behavior of our own government who continues to surrender to the whim of the oil and auto industries at the cost of the people whose government is supposed to be representing them. This leaves us with tremendous challenges in the attempt to break through the tight hold the oil and auto industries have over the government so vital energy policy changes can be made to drastically reduce carbon emissions.