In an effort to distort the scientific and public discourse on global warming, several utility companies have donated at least $150,000 to support the research of Patrick Michaels, a University of Virginia professor, Cato Institute senior fellow, and “global warming skeptic.” The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, Colo., gave Michaels $100,000 and started a fundraising drive, according to IREA’s general manager, Stanley Lewandowski. “We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists,” Lewandowski wrote in a July 17 letter to 50 other utility companies.
Most scientists believe that global warming is fueling serious problems such as stronger hurricanes and more severe
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The United States is the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases. Michaels’ “research” is an attempt to reanalyze and undermine the conclusions of the world’s major scientists who have studied global warming and climate change.
Environmentalists, scientists criticize funding
“I would say it’s smoking gun evidence that industry is trying to buy science to back its anti-environmental propaganda on global warming,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group Clean Air Watch.
“Something coming from a Patrick Michaels should carry a warning label,” he said. “Caution: this commentary bought with industry money.”
Michaels has been quoted by major newspapers more than 150 times in the past two years. John Holdren, a Harvard environmental science and technology professor, said Michaels and others of his ilk “have had attention all out of proportion to the merits of their arguments.” In other words, the words of one global warming skeptic are used in the capitalist media to “balance” the consensus of the majority of the scientific community.
Why does the research matter?
Under capitalism, preventing and reversing the problems caused by global warming is not the priority—maximizing profits is. Exxon Mobil, the world’s biggest oil company, instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, over the last few years has actually increased emissions.. Many other major polluting companies have done the same, including coal giants.
To halt the pace of global warming, world emissions must be cut by 70 percent. The U.S. government, acting on behalf of the capitalist class, will not agree to cut emissions at all. It has refused to sign the extremely weak protocols of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, designed to reduce emissions by only 5.2 percent by 2012.
The environmental movement has been active in urging the United States to take concrete steps to halt global climate change. This struggle has had minor success in limiting some of the more environmentally destructive practices of capitalism. But the struggle has led only to a few reforms enacted in the halls of Congress, which takes action that benefits people and curtails corporate interests only when forced to do so from below.
Power companies closely monitor the federal government’s positions on global warming because they know how much they contribute to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Any meaningful future plan in the United States to regulate greenhouse gases would force companies to shut coal-fired generation or add expensive carbon-capturing devices to their equipment.
Real action to reduce emissions would be damaging to the bottom line of profits for the power industry. That is why they are trying to buy scientific evidence that purports to show that global warming isn’t such a big problem—to forestall any reforms that might cut into their profits.
