CIR: Waking to Warming

Global warnings—from 50 years ago

Carrie Ching — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:14:56 -0700

A 1958 educational film by Frank Capra (director of It's a Wonderful Life) warns of the dangers of global climate change due to burning fossil fuels. The film predicts that excess carbon dioxide emissions will eventually lead to increased temperatures, melting of the polar ice caps, and rising oceans — nearly 50 years before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed the scientific basis for such warnings in its 2007 report.

"Hot Politics" on FRONTLINE tonight

CIR Staff — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:10:47 -0700

This CIR/FRONTLINE co-production goes behind the scenes to explore how bipartisan political and economic forces have prevented the U.S. government from confronting global warming. “Hot Politics,” originally broadcast in April 2007, examines key moments that have shaped the politics of climate change, and how the private sector and local and state governments are now taking bold steps in the absence of federal leadership. >> Stay tuned: The "Hot Politics" production team is working on a new feature-length documentary about the future of energy. >> Watch the episode, extended interviews, and check local broadcast listings. >> Check out CIR web exclusives, including videos and a special report on how energy companies have funded media disinformation campaigns to purposely spread doubt about the science behind climate change.

The big fix

CIR Staff — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:52:55 -0800

Today, listen to the last two radio stories in the Marketplace series "Plan B: Adapting to a Warmer World." Visit marketplace.org for local stations and air times of the Plan B series. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : More ice helps save polar bears Ice melting in the Arctic is forcing polar bears to go farther to hunt for food or forage inland, making many of them starve. In our last installment of the Plan B series, Janet Babin explores how scientists are combating their extinction. Engineering solutions to climate change Scientists have come up with several potentially viable solutions to the climate crisis that could change things without you having to change your lifestyle. These “geo-engineering” initiatives are varied: from enormous mirrors to reflect the suns rays, to tiny particles that bolster a depleted atmosphere, to creating algae fields that will work overtime at consuming CO2. Marketplace reports on why the scientists don’t want you talking about these solutions. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : >> Learn more about the Plan B series produced by Marketplace in collaboration with CIR.

Dutch build "climate-proof" homes

CIR Staff — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:49:15 -0800

Today, listen to two new radio stories in the Marketplace series "Plan B: Adapting to a Warmer World." Visit marketplace.org for local stations and air times of the Plan B series. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Dutch homes float with the climate Marketplace Morning Report visits the Netherlands where a majority of the country is below sea level. Estimates indicate that climate change could raise water levels an additional 25 percent. Dutch engineers are building houses that float as needed to cope with flooding. Innovators plan to export the technology. Rico Gagliano checks out the climate-proof homes and looks into whether it will work. Dutch plan for flooding: Higher ground Marketplace returns to the Netherlands to report on “extreme landscape architecture.” The Dutch are welcoming flood waters into valleys that are now home to Dutch farms and building them a new one ... higher in the sky. Tomorrow: The Big Fix Marketplace Morning Report examines human projects underway to save animals facing extinction due in part to global warming. And “geo-engineering” initiatives to the climate crisis that could change things without you having to change your lifestyle. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : >> Learn more about the Plan B series produced by Marketplace in collaboration with CIR.

Water, water everywhere

CIR Staff — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:42:29 -0800

Listen to the first two radio stories in the Marketplace series: "Plan B: Adapting to a warmer world." Both stories explore ways that humans are making the most of rising oceans. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Under dry sky, Aussies turn to the sea With climate change reducing reliable rainfall in Australia, many cities are tapping the ocean as a water source. Nate Dimeo reports on Australia’s “Plan B” to desalinate seawater to provide clean water for drinking, agriculture, and recreation. Australia is promoting a new desalination technology that is less energy-intensive than the typical desalination plant. Seeing opportunity in rising oceans Conservative projections say rising seas from climate change would displace hundreds of millions of people and cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the next century. Sam Eaton travels to Bahia Kino, Mexico to meet with atmospheric physicist Carl Hodges, who is transforming abandoned agricultural fields into green pastures by diverting the fertile wastewater from the region’s industrial shrimp farms (which is usually pumped back into the Sea of Cortez and is already causing massive dead zones). Tomorrow: Two radio stories from Marketplace on the Netherlands, where a majority of the country is below sea level. Estimates indicate that climate change could raise water levels an additional 25 percent. Marketplace Morning Report focuses on Dutch engineers who are building houses that float as needed to cope with flooding. In the afternoon, Marketplace reports on “extreme landscape architecture” in the Netherlands. The Dutch are welcoming flood waters into valleys that are now home to Dutch farms and building them a new one ... higher in the sky. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : >> Learn more about the Plan B series produced by Marketplace in collaboration with CIR. >> Visit marketplace.org for local stations and air times of the Plan B series.

Plan B: Adapting to a Warmer World

Carrie Ching — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:24:29 -0800

Most of the current reporting on climate change is neglecting to ask a critical question: What should we do to prepare ourselves to live in a warmed world? “Plan B: Adapting to Warmer World,” a six-part radio series by Marketplace in association with CIR, begins to answer this question. If the investments, lifestyle changes and technologies the world is looking toward to stave off climate catastrophe don’t pay off, what do we have to do today to prepare to live with tomorrow’s consequences? These radio stories were broadcast on Marketplace Morning Report and Marketplace on January 28, 29, and 30. For a list of stations and broadcast times for these shows, visit www.marketplace.org. >> Visit the Marketplace Plan B website for more information and to listen to the complete radio stories. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Monday, January 28: WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE Under dry sky, Aussies turn to the sea With climate change reducing reliable rainfall in Australia, many cities are tapping the ocean as a water source. Nate Dimeo reports on Australia’s “Plan B” to desalinate seawater to provide clean water for drinking, agriculture, and recreation. Australia is promoting a new desalination technology that is less energy-intensive than the typical desalination plant. Seeing opportunity in rising oceans Conservative projections say rising seas from climate change would displace hundreds of millions of people and cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the next century. Sam Eaton travels to Bahia Kino, Mexico to meet with atmospheric physicist Carl Hodges, who is transforming abandoned agricultural fields into green pastures by diverting the fertile wastewater from the region’s industrial shrimp farms (which is usually pumped back into the Sea of Cortez and is already causing massive dead zones). WEB EXTRA: Another view of Plan B Dennis M. Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, talks with Marketplace's Sam Eaton about Plan B visions of living with climate change. Tuesday, January 29: TOWN AND COUNTRY Dutch homes float with the climate Marketplace Morning Report visits the Netherlands where a majority of the country is below sea level. Estimates indicate that climate change could raise water levels an additional 25 percent. Dutch engineers are building houses that float as needed to cope with flooding. Innovators plan to export the technology. Rico Gagliano checks out the climate-proof homes and looks into whether it will work. Dutch plan for flooding: Higher ground Marketplace returns to the Netherlands to report on “extreme landscape architecture.” The Dutch are welcoming flood waters into valleys that are now home to Dutch farms and building them a new one ... higher in the sky. Wednesday, January 30: THE BIG FIX More ice helps save polar bears Ice melting in the Arctic is forcing polar bears to go farther to hunt for food or forage inland, making many of them starve. In our last installment of the Plan B series, Janet Babin explores how scientists are combating their extinction. Engineering solutions to climate change Scientists have come up with several potentially viable solutions to the climate crisis that could change things without you having to change your lifestyle. These “geo-engineering” initiatives are varied: from enormous mirrors to reflect the suns rays, to tiny particles that bolster a depleted atmosphere, to creating algae fields that will work overtime at consuming CO2. Marketplace reports on why the scientists don’t want you talking about these solutions. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : For a list of stations and broadcast times, visit www.marketplace.org.

Last ditch effort

Duane Moles — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 6) On my last reporting day in Shanxi our team has split up. I decide to try my luck at getting into a better-run state coal mine. As the option only came up in the morning, I no longer have a translator with me and head off with just a driver and one of the school's photo instructors who had come up to scope out the area. On our first drive-by, the situation appears to be a bust. The one man that we had a connection to is already down in the mine for his shift, so I decide to park it for an hour and wait for the shift change. I figure I can get a few photos of miners coming and going. We park by the office where the miners come to change into their work clothes. I ask the first miner I see if I can take his picture. He agrees and my driver chats with him a bit. Within a couple of minutes, word spreads that a Westerner is hanging around and I find myself surrounded by 20 to 30 people, my back to the taxi. Without a translator, I get a bit unnerved. At a loss, I reach into my bag and pull out the West Virginia mining photos that my family sent me before I left. This peaks everyone’s interest and loosens up the situation. Par for the course in China, an older man offers me a cigarette, and before long he is telling us how to get inside the mine office and down to the tracks for the shift change. The pics had set a few people at ease before, this time they seemed to part the seas. Coming from a family that has worked in mining, I am one of them and my interest is honest. The miners at the shift change smile and wave. The driver, Susan, and I mill around, walk up to the entrance to the mine shaft and check out the transit system. A group of dusty faces comes off shift and before the next heads in we are run off by a supervisor. We watch the rest of the change from outside a fence.

Feeling the environment

Duane Moles — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 5) Ahh … the joys of a sinus infection, or at least that's what it seems to be. One fellow reporter develops nosebleeds while my sinus clogs and my breathing is punctuated by coughing fits. I start taking some of the industrial strength antibiotics brought from the U.S., but am unsure whether they will do any good. Part of my daily routine: I note the color of the water that rinses from my body each morning as I shower. A light grey, or would you call that pewter? I try to take note each day, a mental color chip to compare for the next day. How can so much black come from a sky so white? The less said of ears and cotton swabs the better.

Escape attempt

Duane Moles — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 4) We decide to give the village a break and give ourselves a day to digest what we have seen, so our crew heads out early one morning for Pingyao, an ancient town-turned-tourist trap. We bring our still cameras, but my larger video camera is left tucked in the trunk. A mistake. Halfway to our vacation retreat, the horizon turns fuzzy. A coking plant -- where coal is baked before being used in smelting iron -- is spewing a sulfur dioxide cloud three stories high that snakes its way a mile downwind. As we cruise closer to the giant cloud, the air cuts through my nostrils like rotten eggs from the wrong side of the river Styx. Speechless, I fire my still camera as quickly as I can while digging out a tiny hand-sized digital video camera. Driving through the cloud, only the occasional “my god” breaks the silence. Born in the early 70s (with SO2 caps already in place in the U.S.), I had never seen pollution being pumped out so blatantly. This ancient walled town allows us the indulgences of being tourist for a day: American coffee, countless baubles and fake antiques, museums with spiked weapons and statues of calm buddahs, and a few fellow Western faces. I imagine most of these happy tourists never see pollution as blatant as we witnessed that day.

Know your energy

Duane Moles — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 3) There is an analogy that creeps around in the back of my mind. Walk through a Chinese market with carcasses hung across the stalls and there is little doubt that the Chinese know the source of their food. The same could be said for their energy—particularly in Shanxi. For many the coal that brings them electricity is mined from directly underneath the villages and towns of the countryside. Homes have piles of coal stacked along their front walls or stacked in courtyards. One reporting day, a young man and his father prepare a meal of homemade noodles for lunch while I observe. The small brick stove in the kitchen has a tiny metal portal on the top. After placing a crude metal pot atop the stove, the father grabs a small shovel and scoops a chunk of shiny black coal -- larger than a grapefruit -- from a bin under the counter, then crams it through the portal. The fire brightens and lights his face. A storage room off the courtyard holds a pile waist high and some five feet deep. In the bedroom area, a second brick stove abuts a low platform used for the family’s bed. An intricate flue system from the stove runs underneath the platform to fend off the cold Shanxi winters. The coal that keeps them warm and cooks their meals had been several hundred feet below their village streets just a year ago. Through the house, the lights are compact fluorescent bulbs. Considering that there is no running water, and the electric wiring strung along the walls had the distinct markings of improvisation, I ask whether the lights were provided by a government program. The young man says no. He bought them out of pocket to save on his electric bill. In the U.S. these energy efficient bulbs are the symbol of the ecofriendly consumer, touted as a way to put a dent in our electricity consumption -- on a per capita basis, some 12 times that of the Chinese. (California is even considering banning traditional incandescent bulbs.) But in the Chinese countryside, where saving a buck or two actually means something, the bulbs are simply a good investment.

Work comes quickly

Duane Moles — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 2) Outside of Beijing, the sight of a Westerner arouses interest. I am stared at constantly. Our team has traveled to Taiyuan, the capital of China’s Shanxi Province. I think of Shanxi as the West Virginia of China -- though it certainly does not feel like home. Along the miles from Beijing, factories increasingly dot the landscape, which seems to grow drier by the mile. A distinct twinge of sulfur hits me as I step out of the train and my nose tells me I am in coal country. Social and business connections appear and evaporate quickly in China. By the afternoon, one person leads to another, then quickly to a third. One connection goes by the Chinese equivalent of “John Doe.” The crevices of his teeth are stained from cigarettes, yet he dresses in a soft pastel sport jacket. He smokes with a caring underhand grip and looks at his cigarette lovingly. I need little more than my half-dozen words of Mandarin to realize two things about our John Doe: he’s very well connected, and he’s not completely trustworthy. A quick phone call and a couple of hours later I am filming in an illegal coal mine 50 miles out in the countryside. The mine owner, his fingers yellowed from years of filterless smokes, points out the basics of the mine. Despite the rapid-fire concerns of his second in command, the mine owner says that we are friends and I can film all I want to. Small-scale illegal mines in China are a current government bugaboo. Current edicts say the State is going to close down tens of thousands of them because they are unregulated and the source of thousands of deaths a year. The mine we visit is little more than a bricked hole in the ground. A power generator runs a winch that raises and lowers a bucket down a six-foot wide shaft. Below men pick away at the earth by hand and work a bucket at a time. The technology here lags decades behind mining in the U.S. Take away the generator and it’s more like a century. Living conditions would make most workers pine for the good ol’ days of the company town and coal baron. The hovels are simple holes cut in the hillside and lined with tarps. Neither the mine owner nor our connection allowed pictures of them taken. John Doe had planned to speak with us the next day about meeting some other mine bosses, but stopped answering our calls and we never heard from him again.

Seeing is believing

Duane Moles — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

(China's Coal: Part 1) This spring, CIR reporter Duane Moles traveled to China to report on the environmental effects of the coal mining industry in Shanxi Province. Moles, a native of West Virginia, is a graduate student at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Moles' reporting journal will appear on The Muckraker Blog through the next two weeks: After months of talking with my fellow student reporters about the slew of environmental crises in China, I confront the reality of China’s environment before my feet ever touch the country’s soil. Gliding down through what I thought were clouds, the true nature of environmental degradation materializes as suddenly as the appearance of the Beijing Airport landing strip outside my window. I'm surprised when I see gate and ground transit blurring alongside the plane -- because of the "clouds" I thought we were still some 10,000 feet in the air. A fellow reporter who had lived in Beijing for years was shocked at the thickness of the smog. Welcome to China.

Oil Slick

Carrie Ching — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:08:49 -0700

The petro-giants are touting their new sensitivity to global warming. They’re also spending huge amounts of money to defeat anti-warming legislation. To hear the captains of the oil industry speak these days, you’d think the petro-giants are leading the charge against climate change. At a recent energy conference in Houston, the CEOs of both Chevron and ExxonMobil pledged to combat global warming. Chevron boss David J. O'Reilly called for national regulation of carbon dioxide fumes, while Exxon honcho Rex Tillerson said, “We know our climate is changing, the average temperature of the earth is rising, and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing.” He later added: “Our industry has a responsibility to contribute to policy discussions on these important issues – and to take concrete actions ourselves to reduce emissions.” Chevron has rolled out a four-part plan to address global warming, and set up an environmentally focused website that states, “One of the most critical environmental challenges facing the world today is reducing long-term growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” and goes on to blame fossil fuels for those emissions. While the industry is publicly playing up its concern about rising temperatures, major oil business players are doing their best to scuttle laws intended to stop global warming. An analysis of recent lobbying and campaign spending by the Center for Investigative Reporting found during 2005 and 2006 oil companies spent roughly $100 million trying to kill green legislation in California alone. The oil industry, led by Chevron and ExxonMobil, lobbied vigorously against AB 32, the state’s precedent-setting anti-warming bill, which was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last winter. Although state disclosure forms don’t pinpoint precisely how much money the firms spent trying to derail the bill – or exactly how they spent the money -- the documents show the petroleum industry and its trade associations devoted more than $11.5 million to lobbying while the bill was under consideration. Oil firms also poured more than $94 million into defeating Proposition 87, a ballot measure that would’ve taxed petroleum and funneled the money into an array of alternative energy initiatives, funding research into renewable fuel technology, and providing financial incentives for consumers to purchase hybrid autos. Paul Vercruyssen of Sacramento’s Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a nonprofit pushing for clean energy legislation, says the industry’s behind-the-scenes actions contradict its new public stance on warming. “The reality in the halls of the legislature and in the state agencies is that they’re not following through on the image they put out,” comments Vercruyssen. The oil firms, he adds, “have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything” about climate change. A landmark of 21st century eco-legislation, AB 32, titled the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is the first American law at either the state or national level to place a firm cap on greenhouse gas pollutants. The law, which limits greenhouse emissions from oil refineries, power plants, and factories, promises to pull emissions back down to 1990 levels by 2020. Since Governor Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed the bill, the national media has hailed the former action movie star as an environmental hero, with glossy magazines like Outside and Wired praising him as a visionary. But if the oil industry had gotten its way, AB 32 would’ve died a quiet death. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who co-wrote the bill with then-assembly member Fran Pavley, says Big Oil exerted heavy pressure on legislators, encouraging them to water down or bury AB 32. The industry mounted “fierce opposition,” recalls Núñez, a Democrat. “They had a well thought-out, very intense campaign to kill the bill every step of the way. They concentrated their resources on the legislature. ...They were trying to get at people from as many different angles as possible.” Núñez’s contention is backed up by lobbying reports on file with the California Secretary of State. Those records don’t show precisely how much each company spent trying to modify or scuttle AB 32, but they do show that the world’s biggest oil companies lobbied on the bill, and that they poured millions of dollars into lobbying efforts during the months lawmakers were debating the merits of AB 32. Big spenders include ExxonMobil ($280,921); Shell ($1,182,717); Chevron ($1,832,467); and an industry trade group, the Western States Petroleum Association ($6,712,215). Additionally, Chevron funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to business associations that lobbied against AB 32, giving $100,000 to the California Chamber of Commerce, and $329,000 to a San Francisco-based lobbying group called the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance (CCEEB). Letters obtained by CIR detail the industry’s position. In a June 2006 letter to legislators, CCEEB urges politicians to oppose the bill, describing the regulations as “neither reasonable nor cost-effective.” “We believe that if AB 32 is implemented it could set back California’s constructive efforts to address climate change,” continues the letter, which argues for more study of the potential costs of the anti-warming law, and advocates for voluntary – rather than mandatory – reductions in greenhouse fumes. The Western States Petroleum Association, a lobby supported by oil firms doing business in California and five other states, made an even more dramatic case against the bill. “We estimate a potential loss of 17 percent of fuel production, equivalent to the loss of three average sized California refineries,” wrote an association spokesman in an April 2006 letter sent to legislators in both houses. According to the trade group, “AB 32 could lead to mandated shortages of transportation fuels in California making California more uncompetitive.” At the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental group, Devra Wang followed the statehouse wrangling closely. “They were simply telling folks to vote no, saying ‘It’s going to cause us to ration gas. It’s going to bring down the economy. It’s going to force us to flee the state,’” says Wang, director of the organization’s California energy program. “They lobbied pretty hard. They made it a top priority.” However, she notes, the oil firms “didn’t do a very public campaign. I think that’s because the public wants to see action on global warming.” Tupper Hull, director of strategic communications for the petroleum association, says the oil companies he represents have a philosophical problem with AB 32, because the law employs a “command and control, top-down, regulatory approach. Business doesn’t care for those methods.” Despite the industry’s disdain for anti-warming regulation, Hull says the oil business is intent on developing carbon-neutral energy sources. “Someone would have to live in a cave not to be aware of the tremendous focus on this issue and the billions of dollars that the industry is pouring into the development of alternative fuels,” he comments. One thing that Hull and Wang can agree on is the fact that the major oil firms don’t speak with a single voice. Wang credits London-based oil producer BP, which is in the process of creating a $500 million renewable energy research center with the University of California, with taking a helpful approach to AB 32. “BP was generally engaged in a good-faith effort,” she notes. “From my experience they were the only oil company that engaged in a constructive dialogue.” The company has since joined with Alcoa, DuPont, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, and other corporate heavyweights to champion mandatory curbs on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Chevron spokesman Alex Yelland says the company (which pocketed a record $17.1 billion in profits last year) fears a patchwork of state anti-warming laws will raise costs for the company and consumers. “We do not support a state-by-state approach,” Yelland tells us, adding that Chevron is pushing for a “national framework” for dealing with climate change. Any nationwide rules, argues Yelland, should be “flexible” and allow oil companies to pocket a reasonable profit. Speaking of profits, Chevron last year dumped a decent chunk of its earnings into defeating Proposition 87, a 2006 California ballot measure that would have levied a per-barrel tax on oil and piped the money into a fund for developing renewable energy sources. Campaign records show Chevron spent a staggering $38 million to defeat the measure, which was bankrolled by Hollywood film producer Steve Bing. Not surprisingly, they weren’t the only ones spending big money to stop Proposition 87: Aera Energy, a joint venture of ExxonMobil and Shell, pumped $32.8 million into the No on 87 effort, while BP and ConocoPhillips contributed about $3 million each. The petroleum association’s Hull says Proposition 87 “was bad public policy and the voters rejected it. It made no sense to penalize the production of oil within the state of California.” In total, oil industry spending tallied more than $94.1 million – providing nearly 100 percent of the funding for the No campaign, which blanketed TV, radio, and print publications with ads in the weeks leading up to the election. On the other side, the pro-87 crowd blew more than $61.2 million. The combined spending frenzy made Proposition 87 the most costly ballot measure skirmish in California history. “It was just ridiculous,” recalls Vercruyssen of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. The oil companies, he says, had a practically “bottomless pit of money and they were going to spend whatever it took” to choke Proposition 87.

Climate Skeptics in Mainstream Media

Carrie Ching — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:25:37 -0700

Even though a large majority of the scientific community agrees that climate change is real and is caused by human forces, some scientists continue to argue that climate change is a hoax. Many of these scientists have received funding either directly or indirectly by the oil, coal, and gas industries. Mainstream news organizations have helped to prolong the debate about global warming by giving this small group of skeptics plenty of airtime and column inches. The news organizations may be acting primarily because of traditional concerns about the appearance of neutrality. But over the past decade, this strategy by mainstream news organizations, especially television outlets, has served to confuse the public, transforming well-established science into a “he said/she said” debate. Ultimately, the net result of the media coverage is that the American public has been misled about global warming science, and has been slow to demand any action from the federal government to stop climate change.

[video:3246:mini]	Larry King Live: Bill Nye vs. Richard Lindzen In this broadcast, Bill Nye "The Science Guy" debates global warming skeptic Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen has been linked to Western Fuels and other oil and coal interests. February 2, 2007
[video:3253:mini]	CNN Headline News: "CA law enacted about Global Warming" A report about California's efforts to cap greenhouse gas emissions focuses mostly on Sen. James Inhofe's speech, in which he calls global warming "the most media-hyped environmental issue of all time." September 28, 2006
[video:3244:mini]	Fox News: Global Warming Skeptics Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity interviews Dr. Timothy Ball, a climatologist featured in the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. March 5, 2007

Video News Releases (VNRs)

Carrie Ching — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:11:10 -0700

The controversial practice of releasing “fake” news stories and sending them for free to content-starved small local news stations is common in many industries. These Video News Releases (called VNRs) are often aired on these stations as real news, often without any attribution or disclaimers to reveal that the stories were paid for and produced by private companies. This tactic is also used by global warming skeptics.

[video:3250:mini]	"Global Warming and Hurricanes: All Hot Air?" After Hurricane Katrina hit, this VNR, which aims to dispel the notion that climate change adds to the strength of hurricanes, was distributed to local news stations.
[video:3249:mini]	WTOK News Report This is the resulting story that ran, unattributed, on a TV news broadcast in Meridian, Mississippi.

Where did it come from? According to an investigation by PR Watch, this VNR was produced in June 2006 by Medialink Worldwide for TCS Daily Science Roundtable, a website published by Tech Central Station. Tech Central Station was a project of DCI Group, a conservative lobbying and consultant group that has included ExxonMobil as one of its clients. In addition, ExxonMobil gave a donation of $95,000 to the Tech Central Science Foundation in 2003 for “Climate Change Support,” according to Greenpeace.

Next: Climate Skeptics in Mainstream Media >>

Documentary Films

Carrie Ching — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:24:18 -0700

[video:3251:mini]

“The Greening of Planet Earth”

This documentary film was produced by Western Fuels Association, via the now-defunct subgroup “The Greening Earth Society,” an organization that promoted the idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) has beneficial effects on the earth’s biosphere and humankind.

[video:3248:mini]

“The Great Global Warming Swindle”

This documentary film aired on the U.K.'s Channel 4 station in March 2007 and has been the source of heated controversy. While there is no indication that the documentary itself was funded by the energy industry, it features a long list of global warming skeptics who have been funded for years by ExxonMobil and others in the oil, coal, and gas industries. Featured interviewees include: Dr. S. Fred Singer, Dr. Patrick Michaels, and Richard Lindzen. RealClimate.org, a website on climate science created by meteorologists, geochemists, and climate scientists from prominent universities and NASA, rebuts each argument in the film one by one.

Next: Video News Releases >>

Satires and Web Videos

Carrie Ching — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:57:40 -0700

[video:3243:mini]	"An Inconvenient Story" This web-only video was produced by Competitive Enterprise Institute to criticize Al Gore’s travel in the promotion of “An Inconvenient Truth.”
[video:3252:mini]	"Al Gore's Penguin Army" Another group influencing public opinion and receiving money from ExxonMobil is DCI Group, a Republican lobbying and consulting firm in Washington, D.C. This video, which satirizes and criticizes Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” was eventually linked to an email from DCI Group’s offices.

Next: Documentary Films >>

Sophisticated Ad Campaigns

Carrie Ching — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:00:17 -0700

[video:3228:mini]	"We Call it Life" The Competitive Enterprise Institute is one of the organizations most heavily funded by ExxonMobil and other industry leaders as part of a campaign to spread doubt about global warming. CEI produced this 60-second TV ad, which aired in 14 U.S. cities from May 18-28, 2006.
[video:3242:mini]	"Glaciers" Another TV ad by CEI seeks to spread doubt about media coverage of climate change. CEI has received $2,005,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Next: Satires and Web Videos >>

The Manipulation of Science

Carrie Ching — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:55:33 -0700

In the spring of 1998, a remarkable document surfaced. The eight-page "action plan" detailed plans by the American energy industry -- notably oil companies and a large electricity producer -- to derail the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. At the time, then-President Bill Clinton and his deputies were pushing to get the United States, the top generator of heat-trapping atmospheric pollution, to ratify the pact. Unveiled by The New York Times in a front page story, the document laid bare a sophisticated multimillion dollar scheme to influence the discourse on global warming over a span of years. The key? Tapping scientists to express skepticism about climate change and developing a media and public outreach campaign to get that message out to the public.
The Plan The action plan memo describes a strategy that had been used effectively by the tobacco industry in earlier years: attack the science. "Because the science underpinning the global climate change theory has not been challenged effectively in the media or through other vehicles reaching the American public, there is widespread ignorance, which works in favor of the Kyoto treaty and against the best interests of the United States," states the memo, which was developed by officials from Exxon, Chevron, an industry trade group called the American Petroleum Institute, several conservative think tanks, and Southern Company, a major electricity generator. The coalition sought to recruit five scientists to speak to the media; distribute research papers undercutting conventional scientific wisdom; funnel a steady stream of information to science writers at newspapers and magazines; produce opinion pieces; and convince journalists to re-examine the theory of global warming. Scuttling Kyoto and making climate change a "non-issue" were the stated goals of all this work. (See CIR's web exclusive report: "Hot Air: Shaping the Media Message") In the years following the development of this action plan, at least one oil company made good on the document's goals. According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, from 1998 to 2005 ExxonMobil spent nearly $16 million funding "advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science." Large amounts of funding from Exxon went to some of the same groups who helped develop the "action plan" memo.
Many of these organizations in turn funded scientists who dispute the reality of global warming or who argue that warming temperatures will be a positive force. Several of these scientists became regulars on talk shows and news programs about the global warming debate. A Major Turnaround In the past two years, as agreement on global warming among climatologists has solidified, members of the oil industry lobby have one by one begun to soften their public message about climate change and global warming. ExxonMobil was one of the last holdouts, and as recently as 2005 gave large grants to various organizations mentioned in the "action plan" memo. For example, Exxon gave $241,500 to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which works in part to fight state initiatives that address climate change, according to Exxonsecrets.org. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) got $270,000.
But in early 2007, ExxonMobil began to announce a major reversal, saying publicly that it would stop funding some of the groups that question global warming science and even claiming that Exxon’s past position had been "misunderstood." An ExxonMobil website says: "ExxonMobil's position on climate change continues to be misunderstood by some individuals and groups." And Exxon’s top official is now willing to admit that climate change is, in fact, real. "We know our climate is changing, the average temperature of the earth is rising, and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing," said ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson at a recent energy conference. Tillerson is now encouraging the oil business to grapple with global warming: "Our industry has a responsibility to contribute to policy discussions on these important issues -- and to take concrete actions ourselves to reduce emissions." The Role of Government In the past five years, even as energy industry groups were changing their public position about climate change, the federal government was acting to influence scientific discussion in controversial ways. Since President Bush took office, government climate change experts at a range of federal agencies have complained about being effectively muzzled, saying administration officials have attempted to bar them from bringing grim news about rising temperatures, increased potential storm activity, and other data to the public. The alleged tactics have prompted one senior scientist, Rick Piltz, senior associate at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the body that integrates climate research by 13 different government agencies, to resign in protest. Piltz, who has testified before Congress, now heads a nonprofit group dedicated to "setting the record straight on the relationship between science and politics in the federal climate science program." And even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report removes what little scientific doubt remained about global warming, President Bush and Vice President Cheney remain unconvinced. At a press conference last year, the president told a reporter that the "fundamental debate" was whether climate change was "manmade or natural." Cheney echoed that view in a recent interview with an Australian correspondent for ABC News.
LINKS AND RESOURCES: Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty New York Times | April 26, 1998 The original article revealing the "action plan" memo. While Washington Slept Vanity Fair | May 2006 Mark Hertsgaard, an editorial consultant to FRONTLINE's Hot Politics documentary, writes about the global warming disinformation campaign. Exxon Cuts Ties to Global Warming Skeptics MSNBC | January 12, 2007 ExxonMobil Warming Up To Global Climate Issue Washington Post | February 10, 2007 ExxonMobil changes course in the debate over climate change. Read the complete eight-page "action plan" memo. Read the IPCC's report: Climate Change 2007

Science Suppressed

Carrie Ching — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:30:03 -0700

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A major climate change report commissioned by the Clinton Administration warned of the impacts on agriculture, coasts, and water. Interview excerpts from Hot Politics reveal the Bush Administration tried to suppress the report. Resource Links: Read the complete National Assessment of Climate Change report online. An email from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to Phil Cooney at the White House announcing his plan to call for the resignation of EPA chief Christie Whitman. A GAO Report about the Bush Administration missing legal deadlines for subsequent climate change assessment reports that were required by law.

Adapt or Die

Carrie Ching — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:28:19 -0700

Mark Hertsgaard travels to New Orleans and Bangladesh, two of the places most threatened by the impacts of climate change, and reports in The Nation on the urgent paradigm shift now needed to slow the environmental shifts that endanger our way of life.

Don't Bet on Offsets

Carrie Ching — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:24:20 -0700

At least 35 companies sell "carbon offsets," which promise to defray the damage done by our fossil fuel-dependent lifestyles. Do they live up to the marketing hype?
ALSO: Adapt or Die
Mark Hertsgaard travels to New Orleans and Bangladesh, two of the places most threatened by climate change.

Hot Politics

Carrie Ching — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:24:01 -0700

FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting go behind the scenes to explore how bi-partisan political and economic forces prevented the U.S. government from confronting what may be one of the most serious problems facing humanity today. The film examines some of the key moments that have shaped the politics of global warming and how local and state governments and the private sector are now taking bold steps in the absence of federal leadership.

Gone with the Wind

Carrie Ching — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:58:21 -0700

The wealthy don't want wind turbines ruining their coastal views on Cape Cod, but in Delaware citizens are ardently battling politicians -- and the coal industry -- to build the nation's largest offshore wind park. Katherine Ellison reports for Salon.com.