[Vision2020] 5-23-19 "Climate Change, Global Extinction Crisis: Industry-Paid Hacks Deny Science to Congress"

[Ted Moffett]

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
-----------------------------------

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/23/climate-science-deniers-marc-morano-patrick-moore-biodiversity-report


First, Climate Change, Now the Global Extinction Crisis: Industry-Paid
Hacks Deny Science to Congress

By Justin Mikulka <https://www.desmogblog.com/user/justin-mikulka> •
Thursday, May 23, 2019

 In this week’s Congressional hearing on the recent (and dire) UN Global
Assessment of Biodiversity
<https://www.ipbes.net/news/ipbes-global-assessment-summary-policymakers-pdf>,
conservation scientist Dr. Jacob Malcom did not mince words as he explained
the report's startling findings that one million species are at risk
of extinction.

“We are, as you have heard, losing species faster than ever in human
history, tens to hundreds of times faster than the background rate of
extinction,” the Defenders of Wildlife scientist told the Congressional
House Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee.
<https://naturalresources.house.gov/hearings/wow-oversight-hearing> “We are
in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, where the last time this
happened it was because an asteroid hit the planet. Today we are
that asteroid.”

Such a massive loss of plants, animals, and other species would also, quite
naturally, affect human life on earth. But just as they have with hearings
on the climate crisis, Congressional Republicans and their witnesses used
this opportunity to attack the well-documented scientific evidence of a
far-reaching global threat to life. And they even used some of the same
climate science deniers and tired arguments to do it.

The comprehensive report they attacked gathers even more evidence that
human activities are having a significant effect on global biodiversity,
just as the scientific consensus shows humans are driving rapid changes in
the climate.

“The evidence is crystal clear: Nature is in trouble. Therefore we are in
trouble,” Sandra Díaz, one of the co-chairs of the UNGlobal Assessment
Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, told National Geographic
<https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/ipbes-un-biodiversity-report-warns-one-million-species-at-risk/>
.

Business as Usual With Republican Science Denial

Marc Morano <https://www.desmogblog.com/marc-morano> isn’t a scientist but
does make his money attacking scientists. From 2006 to 2009, Morano was the
communications director for Senator James Inhofe
<https://www.desmogblog.com/james-inhofe>(R-Okla.), who will be remembered
for his stunt of throwing a snowball
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0a_60PMR8> in Congress as he tried to
discredit climate science.

Morano moved on from politics to working for organizations funded by oil
companies, and he currently runs the website ClimateDepot.com, a project
funded by the climate science-denying Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
(CFACT) <https://www.desmogblog.com/committee-constructive-tomorrow>, a
conservative think tank which has received funding from ExxonMobil,
Chevron, and the Koch brothers.

This week, Morano wasted no time in attacking some of the actual scientists
on the hearing's panel, specifically Sir Robert T. Watson
<https://tyndall.ac.uk/people/robert-watson>, who heads the UN agency that
produced the biodiversity report. These attacks on fellow witnesses
resulted in hearing Chairman Jared Huffman (D-CA) twice reprimanding Morano.

Rep. Huffman had to ask that Morano “show respect for your
fellow panelists.”

However, oil industry-funded attacks on climate science, and even Robert
Watson, are nothing new. In 2001 a memo
<http://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/2001-exxonmobil-randol-white-house-ipcc/>to
the Bush administration from Exxon lobbyist Randy Randol specifically
requests that Watson be removed as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), a position he held at the time.

And Morano, a notorious climate science denier, is continuing this long
tradition of groups funded by Exxon attacking Watson. Exxon has donated
heavily to CFACT
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1019878-2004-exxon-giving-report.html%23document/p3/a260598>
and was
also involved in the infamous “Victory Will Be Achieved” memo
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22102015/Exxon-Sowed-Doubt-about-Climate-Science-for-Decades-by-Stressing-Uncertainty>.
This
memo, assembled by Randol and the American Petroleum Institute
<https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute>, declared in 1998
that “Victory will be achieved when average citizens 'understand'
(recognize) uncertainties in climate science.”

The other climate science denier on the witness panel this week was Dr. Patrick
Moore <https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-moore>, current head of the CO2
Coalition <https://www.desmogblog.com/co2-coalition>, an organization that
grew out of a now-defunct group heavily funded by Exxon.

What did the leader of an organization called “the CO2 Coalition” have to
say about carbon dioxide?

“There is no hard evidence that CO2 has anything to do with the change in
temperature of the earth’s climate,” Moore told the committee.

In fact, Exxon’s own research accurately predicted the rise in CO2 and
temperature which the world has been experiencing.

However, Moore not only made the claim that CO2 doesn’t contribute to
atmospheric warming – a concept first demonstrated by Eunice Foote in 1856
<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lady-scientist-helped-revolutionize-climate-science-didnt-get-credit-180961291/>–
but also said that because humans have been increasing the levels of CO2 in
the atmosphere, they were actually the “salvation of life on earth.” And
while plants do use carbon dioxide, more CO2 is not necessarily good for
plants <https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm>.

Not everyone in the hearing seemed interested in the blatantly false
statements coming from these industry-backed science deniers. Chairman
Huffman noted that the efforts came from the “shadowy corners of these
junior varsity think tanks.”
Solutions Amid the Attacks and Noise

Due to the format of Congressional hearings and the general GOP policy of
climate science denial, these hearings typically offer very little in the
way of solutions or actual debate. However, two of the panelists did speak
about the threats to biodiversity and comment on solutions.

Malcom, the scientist from Defenders of Wildlife, called out the success of
the U.S. Endangered Species Act. “We have forty some odd years showing that
the Endangered Species Act has worked incredibly well and as we all know
the American economy has continued to grow throughout that entire time,”
he said.

Notably, the Trump administration currently is attempting to weaken the
scope and effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act
<https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-we-must-save-the-endangered-species-act-from-the-trump-administration-babbitt>
.

Perhaps the most concrete recommendation of the day came from Watson, who
recommended that governments stop subsidizing industries that are causing
harm to the climate and global species.

“One should get rid of many of these environmentally harmful subsidies in
agriculture, energy, and transportation,” Watson told the committee.

With suggestions like these, Watson was an obvious target for
industry-funded science deniers like Morano and Moore.

*Main image: Screen shot of witnesses Patrick Moore, Marc Morano, and
Robert Watson in the May 22, 2019 hearing of the Congressional House Water,
Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee on the recent IPBES Global Assessment of
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report.*
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