Independence Institute again used public television to promote global warming misinformation

Summary: As host of public television's Independent Thinking, Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute allowed James Taylor of the "free-market" Heartland Institute to make misleading claims and disseminate misinformation about climate change. Colorado Media Matters documented that Caldara and his research organization similarly used a series of public and media forums earlier this year for global warming critics to spread misinformation.

On the March 20 broadcast of public television KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, host and Independence Institute President Jon Caldara continued his "free-market" organization's attack on the Colorado Climate Action Plan that Gov. Bill Ritter (D) released in November 2007. Caldara allowed James Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at the "free-market" Heartland Institute and managing editor of Heartland's monthly publication Environment & Climate News, to make several misleading and debunked claims regarding global warming.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, from late January through mid-February the Independence Institute provided a variety of public and media platforms in Colorado for Paul Chesser, director of Climate Strategies Watch, which criticizes global warming "alarmists" and is a "joint project" of the conservative John Locke Foundation and the Heartland Institute. On the February 14 broadcast of Independent Thinking, Caldara and Chesser attacked the Center for Climate Strategies, which supported and facilitated the work of the Colorado Climate Action Panel, whose report became the basis of the Colorado Climate Action Plan. Further, neither acknowledged that the Heartland Institute received funding from the fossil-fuel industry.

As Colorado Media Matters pointed out, the Heartland Institute received $115,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2006. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), from 1998 to 2005 Heartland received $561,500, including $119,000 in 2005 alone. Heartland also maintains a separate "Global Warming Facts" Web page that promotes books by and offers links to the works of authors critical of mainstream climate change theories, as well as a "Primer on Global Warming" section with links such as, "There is no consensus."

During the March 20 broadcast of Independent Thinking, Taylor made the following claims:

1. No scientific consensus on man-made global warming

Taylor asserted:

There certainly is no scientific consensus that humans are causing any substantial global warming, or any global warming in the future that we should be concerned about. The media certainly would like people to believe that. The environmental activist groups would certainly like people to believe that. But the climate scientists themselves don't say that.

However, as Media Matters for America repeatedly has documented, organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share the consensus view that, as stated in a June 2006 NAS report, "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming" of the planet.

2. The Oregon Petition

Taylor further stated:

Indeed, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences has a website -- you can go to OISM.org -- it's the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. He has co-authored a statement on this, and it's co-authored with a astrophysicist from Harvard University. It's a lengthy paper that documents where alarmist global warming theory simply does not cut it. And more than 19,000 scientists have signed their name in support of this criticism of the quote, unquote "consensus."

Media Matters has noted that the petition to which Taylor apparently referred, the Oregon Petition, is almost 10 years old. Media Matters also has documented that many of the signatures on the petition apparently belong to people who are not climate scientists.

Moreover, Frederick Seitz, the past president of the National Academy of Sciences to whom Taylor apparently referred, according to a June 5, 2000, item in Business Week, "for 28 years ... was also a paid director and shareholder of Ogden Corp., an operator of coal-burning power plants." Business Week reported that Seitz "sold most of his 11,500 shares" of Ogden in 1999 -- after promoting the petition in 1998.

While Seitz wrote a letter accompanying the Oregon Petition, he did not co-author the "lengthy paper" that also accompanied the petition, as Taylor claimed. In fact, the paper was co-authored by Arthur B. Robinson, "a physical chemist" who, according to the Associated Press, "acknowledges he has done no direct research into global warming"; his son Noah E. Robinson, also a chemist; and Willie Soon, apparently the "astrophysicist from Harvard" whom Taylor mentioned. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the UCS has identified Soon as a "[s]cientific spokespe[rson] [a]ffiliated with ExxonMobil-funded [g]roups."

3. Fewer than half of the world's leading climate scientists think science justifies making global warming a public policy issue

Taylor also misleadingly asserted:

[J]ust a few years ago, a couple of climate scientists at Germany's Institute of Coastal Research, they surveyed more than 500 of the world's leading climate scientists, and what they found -- there were about 100 or so individual questions -- but the one that was most important, they asked, "Does the science justify turning this issue over to policy makers," such as the governor and his climate action plan? Less than half of the world's leading climate scientists said, "Yes, the science justifies this becoming a public policy issue."

Germany's GKSS Research Centre's international survey of climate scientists was conducted in 1996 and again in 2003. As the authors of the study -- Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch -- explained, "Most questions were designed on a seven point rating scale. A set of statements was presented to which the respondent was asked to indicate his or her level of agreement or disagreement, for example, 1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree. The value of 4 can be considered as an expression of ambivalence or impartiality."

Taylor apparently cited the following survey question: "To what extent do you agree or disagree that natural scientists have established enough physical evidence to turn the issue of global climate change over to social scientists for matters of policy discussion?" According to the 2003 results, 43 percent of the scientists surveyed disagreed to some extent (that is, 43 percent marked 5, 6, or 7), 10 percent were impartial (marking 4), and 44 percent agreed to some extent (by marking 1, 2, or 3). Four percent of those surveyed did not respond.

However, Taylor did not note that respondents overwhelmingly disagreed with another survey question stating, "There is enough uncertainty about the phenomenon of global warming that there is no need for immediate policy decisions." According to the 2003 responses to this statement, 80 percent of those surveyed disagreed to some extent (10 percent marked 5, 24 percent marked 6, and 46 percent marked 7), while 4 percent were impartial, and 15 percent agreed to some extent.

In addition, another survey question stated, "Climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes," to which, in 2003, 53 percent agreed to some extent, 13 percent were ambivalent, and 29 percent disagreed to some extent. Five percent of those surveyed did not respond.

4. Global warming will not be a crisis "likely for centuries"

Taylor further claimed:

[T]he good news is that the science indicates that this is not a crisis, will not be at least for decades, more likely for centuries.

However, the IPCC concluded in 2007 that in Africa, "[b]y 2020, between 75 and 250 million of people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change," and that "in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%," which "would further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition." The IPCC's "projected regional impacts" of climate change also include:

• "By the 2050s, freshwater availability in Central, South, East and South-East Asia, particularly in large river basins, is projected to decrease."
• "By 2030, water security problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia and, in New Zealand, in Northland and some eastern regions."
• "By 2030, production from agriculture and forestry is projected to decline over much of southern and eastern Australia, and over parts of eastern New Zealand, due to increased drought and fire. However, in New Zealand, initial benefits are projected in some other regions."
• "By mid-century, climate change is expected to reduce water resources in many small islands, e.g. in the Caribbean and Pacific, to the point where they become insufficient to meet demand during low-rainfall periods."

5. Bill Clinton said, "A declining economy [for the sake of reducing greenhouse emissions] is a good thing"

Finally, after Caldara repeated the conservative talking point that when former president Bill Clinton "was here in town recently, he let slip at a rally ... 'We're going to have to have our economy go down so that we can save the planet for our grandchildren,' " Taylor added, " 'A declining economy is a good thing,' he [Clinton] said, which is something I completely disagree with."

In fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted (here and here), during a January 30 speech Clinton said that "rich" countries could approach the global warming crisis by slowing down their economies. However, Clinton went on to say why he thought such an approach wouldn't work, asserting that the "only way" to fight global warming is to prove that doing so "is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy."

From the March 20 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking:

CALDARA: So, first of all, let's talk about the consensus, and tell me about the consensus, and then I want to go over to the science. So when you hear -- and you hear it all the time -- you see NBC changes its peacock to all green, and does a green report -- it's the fact. The fact is the planet is warming, and it's our fault.

TAYLOR: Right. So I'm gonna pick a few bones with you here. There certainly is no scientific consensus that humans are causing any substantial global warming, or any global warming in the future that we should be concerned about. The media certainly would like people to believe that. The environmental activist groups would certainly like people to believe that. But the climate scientists themselves don't say that. Indeed, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences has a website -- you can go to OISM.org -- it's the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. He has co-authored a statement on this, and it's co-authored with a astrophysicist from Harvard University. It's a lengthy paper that documents where alarmist global warming theory simply does not cut it. And more than 19,000 scientists have signed their name in support of this criticism of the quote, unquote "consensus."

On top of that, just a few years ago, a couple of climate scientists at Germany's Institute of Coastal Research, they surveyed more than 500 of the world's leading climate scientists, and what they found -- there were about 100 or so individual questions -- but the one that was most important, they asked, "Does the science justify turning this issue over to policy makers," such as the governor and his climate action plan? Less than half of the world's leading climate scientists said, "Yes, the science justifies this becoming a public policy issue."

[...]

TAYLOR: China has just recently surpassed us as the leading nation in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And their pace of increase has been astronomical. India, Indonesia, the same thing. As time goes by, even if the U.S. does nothing, our percentage of greenhouse gas emissions relative to the rest of the nations is going to get smaller and smaller.

CALDARA: What are they doing? They're building power plants, they're driving cars.

TAYLOR: Coal-fired power plants for electricity. Also, as wealth increases, there's more demand for automobiles, there's more demand for transportation other than bicycles. So we are seeing more carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. But the good news is that the science indicates that this is not a crisis, will not be at least for decades, more likely for centuries. And by then, the technology will have advanced enough that we'll have more affordable solar, wind, hydrogen; whatever technologies emerge will have emerged by then. If we make a big rush to force this technology now, we're economically punishing ourselves to try and take this quick step that's entirely unnecessary.

[...]

CALDARA: Here in Colorado we have a renewable mandate, which is going to make cost of electricity go skyrocketing. Our utility bills are already at all-time highs. So we're gonna pay for this. How much do we pay? When Bill Clinton was here in town recently, he let slip at a rally, "Yes, we're going to have to. We're going to have to have our economy go down so that we can save the planet for our grandchildren."

TAYLOR: Right.

CALDARA: At least he was honest.

TAYLOR: "A declining economy is a good thing," he said, which is something I completely disagree with.

—C.H.