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Michael considered fate at 12:17   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

60 minutes, which I missed this week, had a sobering piece on the political spin that scientific salad is put through before it reaches the citizen's plate. CBS News summed it up for me, though:

[Phil] Cooney, the former oil industry lobbyist, became chief-of-staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. [Rick Piltz of the federal Climate Change Science Program] says Cooney edited climate reports in his own hand. In one report, a line that said earth is undergoing rapid change becomes “may be undergoing change.” “Uncertainty” becomes “significant remaining uncertainty.” One line that says energy production contributes to warming was just crossed out.

Whether you believe that global warming is happening or not, or whether you believe it's natural or "man-made", it would seem that political spin on the issue isn't going to help matters..

And that's not it. Enter astro-turf: the new term for fake activism (don't they just have a cute name for everything). Environmental Science and Technology has an article outlining one heinous group:

ES&T has examined in detail one short-lived “grassroots” environmental organization that was based in Oregon—a state with vast forests and species-rich ecosystems. The leading figures in this group played a key role in passing President Bush’s Healthy Forests legislation and are now promoting changes to ESA [Endangered Species Act]. From dozens of interviews and reviews of thousands of pages of documents, ES&T has found clear evidence that this “grassroots” organization has clear ties to timber corporations—an industry likely to benefit financially from legislative reforms.

Meanwhile, companies like ExxonMobile are pushing "ad-ed" pieces (hey, look, another cute name.. I think that's a joke on op-ed, but I'm not laughing). This one (pdf) was published in the New York Times - you know, that "well respected news source" - a few weeks ago:

Peak Oil? Contrary to the theory, oil production shows no sign of a peak.

Nevertheless, one of the largest oil trade journals, World Oil, has this to say about the oil issue:

Every key oil pipeline and processing facility is also at 100% capacity, as is global refining capacity. The oil system has never been so tight.

Also, 2005 will go down in history books as perhaps the poorest year for exploration success for both oil and gas since World War II. This dismal success was not for lack of effort. Record amounts of funds are being plowed into Exploration and production capital spending, which is why all the world's rigs are now in use.

Oil issues via Scientific America