Dosh for denial

The Caniadian CBC Fifth estate team have released a documentary on paid-up shillism entitled “The Denial Machine”. The promo accurately states:

They believe the case for global warming has not been proven. They are a group of scientist with rich and powerful allies.

Fairly innocuous. But wait, there’s more:

The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those willing to question the science behind climate change, providing funding for some of them, their organizations and their studies.

The Denial Machine also explores how the arguments supported by oil companies were adopted by policy makers in both Canada and the U.S. and helped form government policy.

Right-wing ideologues were, of course, not going to take having the truth so nakedly exposed, and fought back. The National Post launches ad hom after ad hom attacks on one of the talking heads in the doco, James Hoggan.

Yep, that’ll prove your case, National Post.

There’s a nice bit of comedy to finish the piece off too.

Through the whole episode, The Fifth Estate did not do one bit of science verification. No mention, for example, of Mr. Singer's role as one the first to notice that the United Nations' claim that we are living through the hottest period in 1,000 years had to be statistically wrong. Without spending one second looking at the science, the CBC crew smeared and discredited the skeptical scientists with corporate associations.

Pot. Kettle. Black. We ARE currently living through the hottest period in 1,000 years. Statistically-correct study after statistically-correct study has shown that, but the National Post editor didn't bother to check.

(Via Deltoid)