Five Before Chaos

Please forgive me for the lack of commentary on last night’s primaries; I’m so weary of it all, and I stand by my windmill analogy. As far as the prevailing media narrative of some huge ‘comeback’ on HRC’s part, well, you can’t polish a turd.

I’ve often observed that whenever some global warming denial event or such happens, inevitably there’s some corporate hack or free-market fundamentalist behind it, never sound science. That apparently hasn’t changed. Some of you might be aware of some ongoing conference in NYC right now called the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by an organization called the Heartland Institute (j’ever notice they always try to pick some folksy name to appeal to dupes in the so-called ‘heartland’. Those of you unlucky to watch CNN Headline news may have heard class-A douchenozzle Glenn Beck talk about it (he’s gonna cover it like it’s the second coming of Christ’).

And of course, the conference is true to form. As the Washington Independent is reporting, the Heartland Institute is a free-market public policy think tank, not a scientific organization (Rezkin at the NYT has more). And, lo and behold, one of the keynote speakers at the conference is industry hack/junk science advocate J. Fred Singer. My regular readers may remember a lengthy piece I wrote last March that gave the dirt on Singer. He was at the forefront of the efforts of the tobacco industry to cast doubt on the science in the harm of second hand smoke. He’s recieved funding from hard-right ideologue Richard Mellon Scaife, has continuously used thoroughly discredited science in his presentations, and basically has made a successful career being a shill for some of the most harmful industries.

The stated purpose of the conference is:

… to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science, and that expensive campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or cost-effective.

…which sounds similar to the arguments used by the Intelligent Design crowd – carry on like there’s a huge rift in the scientific community about an idea, when there really isn’t, all the while portraying skeptics as poor little (often whiny) victims.  So I’ll ask again what I asked last March – Why is it that it seems like every single person that they present either has major ties and funding to the polluting industries, presents faulty/incorrect data, or both? Why is that?