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Climate Cover-Up

The Crusade to Deny Global Warming

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By James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore

Greystone Books, 240 pages, $20

Our Choice

A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

By Al Gore

Rodale, 416 pages, $35

Few books have arrived with more momentous timing than these two. Coinciding with the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, as well as the suspiciously timed "Climategate" scandal that preceded it, both books underscore the urgency of the climate problem as well as the powerful political machinations with which it is being denied or resisted.

In Climate Cover-Up, Vancouver-based James Hoggan and his co-author, Richard Littlemore, unveil the massive, well-funded and duplicitous campaign to discredit the scientific consensus behind climate change.

They show that it is occurring almost entirely outside the scientific community, in an "echo chamber" of like-minded think-tanks, websites and blogs.

The casual newspaper reader will be forgiven for assuming that there is indeed a "controversy" about climate change, or that the science is still in doubt within the scientific community. The authors convincingly demonstrate that all this has been a surprisingly effective illusion, one crafted in the board rooms of lobbying firms, public relations agencies, lawmakers and affiliated partisans.

Hoggan and Littlemore are the team behind DeSmogBlog.com, a website dedicated to documenting this climate change denial "industry" and uncovering the money behind it -- which it turns out is considerable and almost entirely originating from oil, gas and coal companies.

The authors show how opponents to meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have not conducted any actual climate research of their own that might counter decades' worth of credible science, but instead have focused entirely on lobbying policymakers and cleverly manipulating public opinion into believing that the only "sound" science is that which counters the consensus on climate change.

Their intent, according to the authors, has not been to establish a new set of facts, but to simply sow confusion and doubt.

Hoggan's background in public relations enables him to effectively demolish this cynical campaign, which has relied heavily on the creation of "astroturf" (or phony grassroots) organizations with disarmingly benign-sounding names like "The Friends of Science" and the "Greening Earth Society."

In addition to a highly selective use of data, another common and deceptive tactic identified in the book is "argument by petition." This is where climate deniers produce the signatures of thousands of contrarian "scientists," who turn out to be either well outside their areas of expertise (i.e., work in areas other than climate science) or who aren't even scientists at all.

Instead, the authors reveal that many of these self-proclaimed "experts" grossly overstate their qualifications, while some don't hesitate to sue anyone who says as much in print.

But negative coverage of the deniers has been rare: Hoggan and Littlemore accuse the mass media -- whether through laziness, constrained resources or an intent to actually mislead the public -- of willingly giving the deniers a platform in a misguided effort to maintain "balance."

As Al Gore argues in his new book Our Choice, this is like giving airtime to flat-Earth proponents.

Gore is the former American vice-president and author of Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth. Here he goes beyond merely explaining the science to outline in detail the numerous ways in which existing and emerging technologies, approaches and arrangements can not only dramatically reduce carbon emissions but stimulate the global economy and create a more stable and peaceful world.

Indeed, there are so many ideas here that the book might be better entitled Our Choices.

Gore presents a highly readable and beautifully illustrated exploration of our present and possible energy systems and a review of key natural elements and processes related to forests and soils, before demonstrating the inexcusable inefficiencies with which we use all of them.

So that we might successfully meet these challenges, adopt new technologies and correct inefficiencies (and address the many resulting social injustices), he argues for a reappraisal of our value systems, particularly those related to the political economy.

Our economic indicators (like the GDP) have for too long disguised the true costs of our consumptive economy and the ecological destruction upon which it is based.

Gore argues that the most important step to correct this is to price carbon; only then will investments in energy conservation and renewables be viable, while at the same time giving rainforests a higher monetary value intact than burned.

The book concludes with a remarkable and inspiring essay in which Gore assumes the voice of a narrator from the future describing how the word's nations finally overcame their resistance to change and made the necessary energy and infrastructure investments that would eventually save our children from a fiery and desperate future.

But as Gore, Hoggan and Littlemore show, such an outcome depends solely on how we respond to the choices now before us. These two excellent books are essential guides to understanding and making those choices.

Michael Dudley is a research associate and library co-ordinator at the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 26, 2009 H9