Federal legislation to combat climate change is quashed for the foreseeable future, scuttled by congressional climate cranks who allege the climate-science jury is still out. What's become clear is that, for some, the jury will always be out. We can't stack scientific facts high enough to hop over the fortified ideological walls they've erected around themselves. Fortunately, though, a four-star trump card waits in the wings: the US national security apparatus.
In 2006, I participated on a panel at the United Nations climate change conference in Nairobi called "Communicating Climate Change". With Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chair Rajendra Pachauri and respected Arctic scientist Pål Prestud on board, we aimed to figure out ways to convey climate change and its effects with greater precision and weight.
An hour before the panel commenced, we learned the communications director for climate curmudgeons, Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) had elbowed his way onto the rostrum. Bleating bias – the panel skewed toward the widely held scientific consensus that climate change is real and humans are causing it – the infiltrator proceeded to hijack the panel. Rather than engaging the topic at hand, he questioned the scientific existence of climate change, levelled ad hominem attacks against various panellists, while brandishing "A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism" (a document produced by his office).
During the discussion period, the largely international audience responded in good faith, attempting to convince Inhofe's righthand man that the most up-to-date science undercut his worldview, that scientists weren't a grant-hungry cabal fiending for the next funding fix. Unfazed, he didn't budge – not a single part per million.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/20/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
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