Surprise! More sneaky public relations by Big Fossil.
When you hear “GAO,” don’t you think the Government Accountability Office—the federal watchdog group that is tasked with keeping government officials honest?
I do. Or at least I did, until I read about The Other GAO—the “Government Accountability and Oversight” non-governmental organization. The IRS has given public charity status to this group that is “promising to publish documents about the people and groups behind ongoing court cases against the energy industry and its impact on the global climate.”
Thanks to DeSmog Blog, we hear that part-founder of “GAO,” and Competitive Enterprise Institute lawyer, Chris Horner, announced that the bogus GAO isn’t “going to get into the science debate and other arguments. . . . ” Instead, they are going to lift the veil off those treacherous, subversive environmental groups, lawyers, and climate scientists who are suing the fossil fuel industry.
See: DeSmog Blog exposes the “GAO”
Not “getting into the science debate and other arguments” is precisely where you go when your own science is worthless. Where the sham “Accountability” operation will be going is identifying billionaire funders of climate action groups such as George Soros and Tom Steyer—those people who are, so goes a bizarre right-wing narrative, trying to tear down the foundations of an economy by which they themselves financially profit. Huh.
Anyone who is going to swallow this bilge is also willing to ignore the billions that the fossil fuel industry pours into fighting environmental regulation and paying lobbyists to write pro-industry legislation for Republican lawmakers to rubber-stamp.
Untruth begins to crumble in U.S. Congress
The science-minded may take heart that even as the fossil fuel industry musters its most flagrantly cynical attacks on climate science, a shift toward prioritizing fact is taking place in the House of Representatives, with three more Republicans joining a group “dedicated to addressing the threat posed by climate change.”
This from The Hill: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/388354-three-republicans-join-climate-change-caucus
Just because the move on the part of these congressmen is political—they are running in Democratic districts—doesn’t make it meaningless. A tide is turning.
BUT, Untruth rises among the public—at what cost?
Sadly, the partisan divide in the public is worse. A recent Gallup poll found that the rank-and-file GOP “grows more skeptical of global warming.” Belief in climate change is also dropping among political independents! See poll.
This abdication of rational thought spreads while hurricanes intensify, drought and flooding become more common, sea level inexorably rises, corals are dying from heat stress (plus ocean acidification), the poleward march of heat-loving plants and insects continues. . . .
The Trump presidency, as with other evils of his making, has had an impact on public perception of climate change by undermining reason itself.* The rise of Trump has loosened the reins on bigotry and racism, and likewise loosened the reins on science denial. He has made irrationality respectable among people you’d think should know better. How much longer irrationality will grip such a large segment of the American public is unclear, but one thing is clear: Nature does not care what we believe, and the price we will pay for false beliefs may be devastating.
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* Of course, social media and the distraction-saturated environment of the internet have played their part as well. I discussed this in a couple of past posts such as:
Coping in the Data Ocean
BTW, in that post I confessed to having become a Daily Kos junkie and declared I was incapable of unsubscribing. But I did! Just goes to show I am not completely at the mercy of my own confirmation biases.