The founding father of the DeSmog weblog talks in regards to the “unhealthy actors” who hinder local weather safety measures.
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
James Hoggan, co-founder of De-Smog Blog, seems to believe that people who speak out against climate change are “bad actors”. My question – how does this confrontational approach work for you, James?
Making a one-of-a-kind climate change PR professional
A pioneering public relations expert on climate change describes in his own words his views on how to navigate today’s hyperpolarized public space.
Posted by James Hoggan | Thursday March 25, 2021
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My own journey from the company’s PR consultant to co-founder of a new media website addressing climate change disinformation has been eye opening. We started DeSmogBlog in January 2006 to “remove the PR pollution tarnishing climate science”. We have written about Darth Vader’s public relations campaigns in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, largely funded by the coal and oil industries. When I found myself in the midst of a violent international dispute over the climate crisis, I realized that the strategies used to mislead people with anti-science propaganda and anti-environmental protection are much more developed and robust than those people use Science and the environment are educated.
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Over time, I realized that environmentalists are not crazy or even radical. They very often tell the truth: humans are rapidly destroying the oceans, driving record numbers of species to extinction, and dangerously overheating the climate. Environmental collapse is not just a future risk. It’s in full swing.
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The more I got into the war on fact-based reality, the angrier I got. The disinformation was so obvious and shameless. And a lot of that involved ad hominem attacks. But the main source of my anger was the effectiveness of the tactic: at least they worked somewhat. Toxic conversations like this hamper our ability to think together, act in our own interests, and solve the many dangerous environmental problems that haunt everyone on earth.
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There is the “climate category” when, in late 2009 and shortly before the Copenhagen climate negotiations, an unknown hacker stole more than 1,000 emails from climate researchers at the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit in Great Britain. The hacked emails were then used to tricking much of the free world media into writing misleading stories suggesting that climate researchers were falsifying data and increasing the possibility that global warming was a hoax.
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It’s not just bad actors who pollute and polarize public conversations. Carol Tavris, author of The Best Selling Mistakes Made But Not Mine, told me that once we make a decision, we all see reasons why we are right.
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Empathy and evidence must replace disinformation and division. That is a challenge. The science of how to mislead people about science is advanced and muscular. The well-funded propaganda machines fighting environmental regulations know far more about fueling divisions than environmental scientists do about convincing us to support science-based public policies to protect the environment.
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Read more: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/03/the-making-of-a-one-of-a-kind-climate-change-pr-professional/
James Hoggan said a positive thing while railing about Climategate and accusing people who spoke out against climate action of being bad actors. “The aim of the argument and public debate should be NOT be it to destroy someone who disagrees with you but brings the truth forward“.
Here’s a truth for you, James. Most contributors who write about WUWT would have no problem cutting carbon emissions as long as it didn’t cost us anything.
You might think you can convince us and our fellow travelers that reducing carbon emissions is worth helping, maybe even making some sacrifices – but how well has this persuasion strategy worked for you since 2006? How much has the efforts of DeSmog Blog and all of your colleagues affected the rise in atmospheric CO2?
If you really want an end to the split, if you seriously believe that if we keep emitting large amounts of CO2, the world is in danger, compromise a little. Most of us are fans of nuclear energy, which happens to be a zero carbon energy technology. Join us, join NASA’s former GISS director James Hansen, join Michael Schellenberger and get on the nuclear car.
France has thus proven that mass-produced nuclear power is affordable. This satisfies most of our objections to not having to pay for it – all that needs to be nuclear to be economical is a favorable regulatory environment. Nuclear energy is carbon-free or very close to it. So if you build nuclear power plants and shut down fossil fuel plants, you can reduce your CO2 emissions on a large scale.
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