Global Warming Denialism: The Elephant in the Room

"Nobody dared fight the flames. Attempts to do so were prevented by menacing gangs. Torches, too, were openly thrown in, by men crying that they acted under orders. Perhaps they had received orders. Or they may just have wanted to plunder unhampered."---the Roman historian Tacitus, who made a convincing circumstantial case that Nero ordered the fire that burned Rome in 64 A.D. [Text]

"The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service [KGB General Yevgeni Primakov] made a number of really sensational announcements. He mentioned the well-known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing the U.S. scientists’ 'crafty' plot against mankind were fabricated in KGB offices."---Izvestia, March 19, 1992

Some American politicians are betraying the American people for fossil fuel money and endangering the future of civilization by telling lies about the so-called “hoax” of global warming. I think that a lot of the money that sponsors this vicious and cynical disinformation campaign has grown out of the lucrative collaboration of Western energy companies and Russia’s government-controlled energy companies.

The Russian petrostate makes lucrative arrangements with foreign energy companies and politicans who can be relied on to promote the petrostate’s economic and political agenda within their own countries. This is nothing new. As the Bolshevik revolutionary Lenin rightly observed, some capitalists donate the rope.

Russian ships are sailing to China through the Arctic Ocean. Russian scientists employed by state universities study the thawing of the permafrost which is releasing the powerful greenhouse gas methane and accelerating the warming. The analytical side of the Russian state security hires outside specialists to predict the consequences of global warming. Ordinary Russians are asking if global warming may have contributed to the hundreds of fires that took thousands of lives in Russia last summer.

Russians have noticed global warming, in spite of the ridiculous Russian “expert” cited as an authoritative source by denialists such as Senator Inhofe, Attorney General Cuccinelli, and others.

Who is the big “expert” on global warming cited by these fossil-fuel financed politicians and fossil-fuel financed “think tanks” like the Cato Institute? Whom does the “respected” Russian business daily Kommersant and Russia’s official press agency RIA Novosti quote about global warming nanoseconds after the EPA comes out with its finding that CO2 is a health risk?

These American politicians, “think tanks,” and Russian media outlets (often owned by Russian energy companies such as the government-controlled Gazprom) unanimously cite the Russian economist, Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin adviser. They cite the Russian economist, Andrei Illarionov, who worked for Chernomyrdin, the former head of the Soviet Gas Ministry and its post-Soviet reincarnation Gazprom. I guess they can't get any reputable scientist to compromise himself.

Has any scientist written about llarionov and his "former" bosses in an op-ed?

Virginia's Attorney General Cuccinelli is attacking the Nobel-Prize winner Dr. Michael Mann and his scientific research on climate change and global warming. Cuccinelli actually cites Andrei Illarionov's denialist Russian "think tank," the Institute for Economic Analysis (IEA), in his suit against the EPA. Does Virginia's subversive, mendacious Attorney General actually imagine that our scientific agencies will take their marching orders from the petrostate's propaganda outfits?

Cuccinelli cites RIA Novosti as a credible scientific source in his lawsuit against the EPA when it is actually the press agency of the Russian government. RIA Novosti is not where Russian scientists publish their research on climate change and global warming. This summer, RIA Novosti even published the paranoid claims of a Russian Ph.D. in history who suggested that U.S. scientists were causing global warming by beaming "secret climate weapons" at Russia. This gaff, which sailed across the blogosphere at warp-speed, probably embarrassed the authorities, who suddenly began reporting an amazing truth in RIA Novosti: NASA was helping Russia spot the terrible fires.

Has any scientist written an op-ed noting the fact that Cuccinelli’s dad is a career gas lobbyist who donates to his son’s campaign? Has any scientist written an op-ed that asks who the dad’s “European” clients are?

Since Attorney General Cuccinelli refuses to disclose the facts about his father’s clients, citizens are entitled to their suspicions. I wonder if the elder Cuccinelli’s “European” clients include Russian companies such as Gazprom, its many “gas trading” cover companies, or its media and Internet businesses. Gazprom owns a lot, and more than half of Gazprom belongs to the Russian government.

I have not seen one newspaper ask if the fact that Cuccinelli’s dad is a career gas lobbyist might have something to do with his son’s persecution of climate scientists and the University of Virginia. It’s really kind of creepy that nobody even asks Cucinelli for some kind of response to this question.

Famous climate scientists won’t even confront their persecutors with questions about Cuccinelli's financial sponsors, even though the global warming denialists funded by fossil fuel interests use the media to characterize our great scientists as greedy liars in vicious, propagandistic attacks redolent of Stalinism that metasticize in the blogosphere. The despicable Marc Morano's mendacious site comes to mind in this context.

A denialist “think tank” hypocritically filed a lawsuit and accused NASA scientists of blogging during working hours. What a joke! I suspect the global warming denialists are blogging on the government’s dime, too. It’s just not our government’s dime.

Attorney General Cuccinelli claims he is for “states’ rights” and compares President Obama to King George the Third. I think the Attorney General is a subversive who is using “states’ rights” as a wedge to destroy the federal agencies that protect our people. I think the Attorney General is getting money from European companies that formally pay his dad for professional services, but really pay for the services of our meretricious Attorney General.

Cuccinelli can’t protect our people from anything, yet he evokes the American Revolution in his quest to subvert the federal agencies that actually do protect our people. I think that Virginians fought a revolution because they didn’t like being ruled by the stooges of European tyrants. Doesn't Cucccinelli worry that his calls for revolution may backfire on him?

Attorney General Cuccinelli and other politicians have hijacked the name “conservative.” There is nothing conservative about the radical, subversive Cuccinelli. He is persecuting and repressing our scientists and our flagship university under the color of the law. That’s not conservative. He should be protecting and encouraging our scientists so they can do the important work which will help us learn how to meet the challenges of global warming. If Cuccinelli were really a conservative, he would want to help us conserve our planet for our children and grandchildren by encouraging the development of renewable energy sources.