Climate Cover-Up The Crusade to Deny Global Warming

by Hoggan, James; Littlemore, Richard

• ISBN13: 9781553654858
• ISBN10: 1553654854
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-29
• Publisher: Greystone Books

Summary

An insider's view of how the energy industry has fuelled a bogus controversy about climate change. This book rips the lid off the campaign to discredit scientists, confuse journalists, and deny climate change. The tactics have been slick, but PR expert James Hogganand investigative journalist Richard Littlemorehave compiled a readable, accessible guidebook through the muck. Beginning with leaked memos from the coal industry, the oil industry and the tobacco-sponsored lie-about-science industry, the authors expose the plans to "debunk" global warming; they track the execution of those plans; and they illuminate the results -- confusion, inaction, and an epidemic of public mistrust. Climate Cover-Up names names, identifying bogus experts who are actually paid lobbyists and flaks. The authors reveal the PR techniques used to misinform, to mangle the language, and to intimidate the media into maintaining a phony climate change debate. Exposing the seedy origins of that debate, this book will leave you fuming at the extent, the effect, and the ethical affront of the climate cover-up.

Author Biography

James Hoggan is president of the award-winning PR firm Hoggan and Associates and a leading authority on public perceptions of environmental issues. He is chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian chapter of A1 Gore's The Climate Project. Richard Littlemore is a strategist and senior writer at Hoggan Associates and editor of DeSmogBlog.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Preface	p. 1
Lemmings and Lifeguards: Keeping humankind from crashing on the rocks	p. 7
The Inconvenient Truth: Who says climate change is a scientific certainty?	p. 16
From Bernays to Today: A brief history of private prophets and public lies	p. 23
The Age of Astroturfing: In which industry steals credibility from the people	p. 31
Internationalizing Uncertainty: Taking the doctrine of doubt on the road	p. 49
Mangling The Language: Making doubt reliable and science unbelievable	p. 61
Think Tank Tactics: Moving public policy into private hands	p. 73
Denial by the Pound: Many wrongs don't make a right, but they sound better	p. 88
Junk Scientists: An expert for every occasion; an argument for every position	p. 99
From Denial to Delay: A more reasonable-and more dangerous-trend in obstructing action on climate change	p. 118
Slapp Science: Using courts and cash to silence critics of climate confusion	p. 134
Manipulated Media: An industry overwhelmed in the age of information	p. 151
Money Talks: Calculating the heavy weight of political capital	p. 168
Whitewashing Coal: In coal country, cleanliness is relative, but profit is absolute	p. 190
Little Coal: Salvaging a future that's stuck in the tar sands	p. 206
Nobody Wants to be a Chump: How the debate cripples public policy and paralyzes private action	p. 215
Saving the World: Tactics for turning back the clock on global disaster	p. 227
Notes	p. 237
Index	p. 241
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