Washington Post: Climate Deniers Officially on the Run

Here’s a follow-up on yesterday’s news that the far right wing American Legislative Exchange Council is now threatening to sue anyone that looks at their long record of denying climate change, and calls them climate deniers.

Dana Milbank of the Post adds some new wrinkles.  Is it really true that the Heartland Institute is giving up climate denial?
Going into the election, this is going to be veeery interesting…..

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post:

The problem for ALEC is that as recently as 2013, it was still reaffirming “model legislation” calling on states to consider “legitimate and scientifically defensible alternative hypotheses” to the “mainstream scientific positions” on climate. The proposed legislation states that there is “a great deal of scientific uncertainty” about the matter and suggests states treat possible beneficial effects of carbon “in an evenhanded manner.”

The turnabout at ALEC follows an about-face at the Heartland Institute, a libertarian outfit that embraces a description of it as “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change.”

But on Christmas Eve, Justin Haskins, a blogger and editor at Heartland, penned an article for the conservative journal Human Events declaring: “The real debate is not whether man is, in some way, contributing to climate change; it’s true that the science is settled on that point in favor of the alarmists.”

Haskins called it “a rather extreme position to say that we ought to allow dangerous pollutants to destroy the only planet we know of that can completely sustain human life,” and he suggested work on “technologies that can reduce CO2 emissions without destroying whole economies.”

To be sure, this is a tactical retreat, and you shouldn’t expect conservative groups to start lining up in favor of a carbon tax. Rather, they’re resorting to more defensible arguments that don’t make them sound like flat-earthers. My Post colleagues quoted energy lobbyist Scott Segal saying that “the science issue just isn’t as salient as it once was.” Instead, Segal talks about the cost and viability of proposed regulations.

It’s likely no coincidence that the shift is occurring as the Obama administration approaches a June target to finalize rules on power-plant emissions. Those who oppose regulation are wise to abandon a position that holds little public appeal; a healthy majority of Americans accept that global warming is real, and a New York Times poll earlier this year found that even half of Republicans support government action to address it.

National Journal picks up:

ALEC is pushing back against the “denier” tag at a sensitive time for the group, whose corporate members face pressure from climate activists. In recent months, a number of major corporations including Google, Facebook, and BP have abandoned the group.

Banzhaf said ALEC could try to use tort claims beyond defamation, such as “intentional interference” with contracts, noting that ALEC has been losing corporate members amid criticism of its climate stances. But he predicted that it wouldn’t work. “I don’t think, quite frankly, that any of them would be successful,” Banzhaf said.

ALEC, for its part, accuses activists of mischaracterizing its views. “ALEC’s position is clear. ALEC does not deny climate change,” the group said in its early-March letter to Common Cause and a separate letter to LCV.

The group points to its standing position that “human activity has and will continue to alter the atmosphere” and “may lead to demonstrable changes in climate, including a warming of the planetary mean temperature.” Those phrases are found in “model legislation” ALEC has developed that also says: “Such activity may lead to deleterious, neutral, or possibly beneficial climatic changes.”

But Common Cause’s response delves more deeply into what constitutes climate-change denial.

“The characterization of an individual or entity as one that denies climate change is well understood to refer not only to those who deny outright that earth’s climate is changing, but more broadly to individuals or organizations who, while admitting that changes in the earth’s atmosphere are occurring as a result of human activity, question or cast doubt on the scientific evidence regarding climate change or its impact,” their letter states.

In case you’re wondering if you stepped thru the looking glass, Greenpeace has a page that documents the rich history of denial, distortion, and dishonesty, that is ALEC, and the climate denial industry.  You can find there more examples like the images of speakers on this page. In addition, Greenpeace has initiated the hashtab #alecdenial, for your twittering pleasure.

Oh, and yes, Milbank in the Washington Post piece, neglects to remind readers that some of the most widely published climate deniers in the world are Washington Post columnists George Will and Charles Krauthammer….