I'll Try and Keep an Open Mind

I will purchase this book and read it. I will try and keep an open mind. BUT... BUT... BUT...

Mssrs Hoggan, Suzuki and other environmentalists still have a singular event to answer to. Just when BC was potentially going to change governments, not so long ago, forces were marshalled, phone calls were made, and guess who arrived right on time to undermine REAL political change and support Gordon Campbell's carbon tax. Mssrs. Hoggan, Suzuki and way too many other 'progressive' groups and people. To thwart the potential election of the dreaded 'socialists'.

As we all know, global warming is bad, air pollution is bad, but 'socialism' is far, far worse. Of course, it's kind of hard to explain, because no-one can really say why. But we know it must be true because we've been told this all our lives. Socialist are like, well, communists, right? And communists are like, terrorists. And they're ALL BAD. So whatever we do, don't question the oil monopolies, banking monopolies, insurance monopolies, media monopolies and corporate elites. Don't read Tommy Douglas' biography (2003 by Walter Stewart). The elites know what's good for us when it comes to money. Money is THEIR business. We don't really want much to do with it. It's icky and comes with volatile yelling and anger from those who have too much of it.

Instead, lets go to another global warming rally! Let's get mad about the melting ice caps. And the elites will see the light. I know they will. And they'll fix everything. It'll be okay.

Hoggan's credibility, as Jeffrey J notes, is frayed

Hoggan, Suzuki and Ms Berman drank the BC Liberal Kool Ade and Andrew Weaver even took to the phones in a certain Victoria riding to shill for the Campbell gang...These are the same people who supported an ersatz revenue neutral Campbell tax which ignores major polluters and does less than nothing to reduce CO2.

I'm afraid Hoggan likes the spotlight a lot more than he likes the truth.

There was a chance for change in May - I tend to hold guys like Hoggan responsible for the fact we didn't get any.

I think we need to get mad at opportunists and dissemblers like Hoggan and his ilk...power means an awful lot more to them than the truth.

Bill - Hoggan is a Lib Supporter

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2009/04/15/SuzukiChairLiberalSupporter/#article_comments

Can't you see through the smokescreen??!!

Chutzpah

The points he makes about corporate support of deniers are excellent .

In fact there is massive corporate support as well for so called Green organizations that dis the nuclear option and push solar and wind energy. Big Oil/Coal knows that only the nukes will put them out of business - and they make ten's of trillions of dollars annually. They fight back dumping millions of dollars into organizations like Pembina, Greenpeace and Amory Lovin's who spew the renewable nonsense. Big Oil loves wind and solar - they know none of it will make a dint in their profits.

That said the author of this book - a PR flack - is one of the best examples of a self styled environmentalist whose actions actually work to destroy the environment. We saw them out in 2000
supporting Ralph Nader, defeating Nobel prize winning environmentalist Al Gore, and giving us George Bush. The consequences - a million dead Iraqi's, a ten year setback in the worlds climate change battle, the first depression in almost a hundred years and the some of the worst environmental devastation the US has seen. We see them out actively supporting Canada's “Green” party's using the Green trademark to siphon votes from established progressive party's with a chance of actually winning seats or government thereby electing and reelecting environmentally unfriendly and economically devastating Neocon governments.

Here's this PR specialist and BCLiberal supporter whose support for the Gordo will destroy according to Alexandra Morton the BC Salmon, will build pipelines and tanker routes to the BC Coast to support Tar Sands exports, will expand natural gas, oil and coal production, and will devastate our economy and environment and double our power rates with a moronic $45 billion purchase of 1 gigawatt baseload equivalent of sometime each spring power that BCHydro can't use and must be sold on the spot market at an 80% loss. Note the going rate for one gigawatt baseload nuclear power is $2.5 billion (Ontario, Areva) and is expected to drop to $1 billion with mass produced and Gen IV nukes.

Pr specialist Hoggan claims his support was all about Gordo's silly 3 cent a liter carbon tax. Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman in articles in the New York Times has shredded the carbon tax idea and shown the NDP's cap n trade to be far superior.

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2009/04/15/SuzukiChairLiberalSupporter/

His company was even paid more than $350K to work on the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion project and Canada Line - some excellent examples of the Gordo's environmentally destructive projects. Hoggan even gave back almost $9000 to Gordo in campaign donation thank you's. Is this expected when one gets a BC Government contract? Did this contract go out for bids? Who else bid?

The Chutzpah of this PR specialist and self styled environmentalist to write a book criticizing corporate support of deniers is amazing.

"Democrtacy Now !" Intervew

there is a good story on today's 'Democracy Now!' about this book, and an interview with the author.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/20/pr_executive_james_hoggan_on_james

tha's right...

yeah Jim, anyone questioning the gospel of anthropogenic global warming, the IPPC, climate modelers, et al is surely an agent of big oil/tobbaco

Thanks Bill

It's common knowledge that the the PR firms (and their front groups) and lawyers that fought on behalf of big tobacco have shifted over to big oil to do much of the same thing: divide and confuse the science and facts.

The issue of big petroleum vs. climate change is further amplified by the looming reality of peak oil, and I'll be really interested to read what Hoggan says about this.

Thanks, Bill Tieleman, for highlighting Hoggan's book.

SCIENCE, MEDIA, POLITICS, ENGOs - SOME THOUGHTS

My understanding was that the IPCC still considered us to be in a general anthropogenic warming trend despite recent cooling periods. Don't receding glaciers and polar ice coverage still demonstrate that we are clearly, relative to the past hundreds and thousands of years, in a severe warming trend positively and independently correlated to CO2 levels?

Working closely with government and industry in a variety of sectors over the years I find it amusing when people discuss / debate these "conspiracies" of big oil and other big business. It's not a conspiracy. It's too obvious to be subversive. Big business buys its own biased research(ers), it influences media coverage, it spins and distorts, and its political contributions lead to direct political influence by all parties in all parts of the world. It's not good for "democratic consolidation" but it's not a conspiracy. It's just reality.

I think Berman and Suzuki and others rolled the dice with supporting the Liberals' climate change policy (NOT the party directly) because it was the most progressive / first to directly tax carbon in North America (I believe). If the NDP hadn't come up with its preposterous and populist position against the carbon tax this massive rift in the environmental / left-political community might have been avoided. Why the NDP doesn't come out strongly in support of things like carbon taxes and electoral reform is completely lost on me. Imagine if this spring we had heard the Opposition say "you know... they actually got this part of it right... we disagree with them on x, y and z but they DID get this right and we agree with them..." Revolutionary, I know...

LeftRightLeft

"Why the NDP doesn't come out strongly in support of things like carbon taxes.. .. is completely lost on me."

Because its a bad policy that raises the price of fuel until the poor cry uncle but leaves everyone else to continue on as normal.

Wouldn't it be nice if for once environmentalists could support good policies instead of bad policies with warm and fuzzy sounding names?

Now THAT would be revolutionary.

Not Wanting to Quibble... But

The majority of climate change experts on the IPCC say that a multi-layered and comprehensive approach to CO2 emissions are needed, such as punitive taxes (e.g., the carbon tax), cap and trade systems, public education, regulatory policies (e.g., vehicle emission standards), etc... so singling out the carbon tax as bad policy because the Liberals introduced it is the essence of good politics trumping good policy.

"So-called" environmentalists like David Suzuki and Tzeporah Berman... Huh?!? Keep eating your young like this and there won't be anyone "left"...

"The carbon tax only affects the poor"...? Right... big business was really fond of it.

Follow the money

Wow the is conversation really heating up: an issue we can lose friends over!

Is it the mediaeval warming spell or the hockey stick? Are we still disputing the actual temperature rise or just disputing anthropogenic causes?

His hyperbole is colourful but . . . Lord Monckton . . . http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=14570 . . . may have a point.

If, indeed, warming is reaching such exponentially dangerous levels why are David Suzuki and Bill Rees, vigorous blamers of anthropogenic causes, constantly off junketeering, pontificating: deriding the very travel habits and life styles to which they are wedded.

Business class at 35,000 ft, all over the world and back, several times a month has to be carbon richer every time the seat belt light goes on!

Even Mayor "Green Vancouver" (hell, greening Portland, Seattle, Vancouver: sort of latter day Alexander the Great) Gregor is off junketing to distant 5-Oh parts.

And for sure, carbon trade will make Wall Street and Al Gore filthy rich: as they need it!

When will these august pillars of environmental decorum be called to practice what they preach? When may we will take them seriously?

Extend the 'x' axis of the hockey stick far enough back, we have questions. Examine ice cores, we have questions.

Climate changes constantly: we have absolutely no influence . . .

The polar bears have survived . . . so have we . . . until now . . .

PS . . . Jeffrey, "when it

PS . . . Jeffrey, "when it comes to money. Money is THEIR business."

So is control . . .

G West

You need to learn to let go. Yes we get it ad nauseaum, you oppose the carbon tax, and you deduce that anyone and everyone who supported said tax in BC is a Liberal lackey, part of a great Campbell hoodwinking, greenwashing conspiracy.

Jim Hoggan supported the carbon tax and the Liberals, therefore his thesis/book is wrong even before it hits the bookstore shelf?

Even Tieleman, who is no fan of the Liberals or the carbon tax, sees the climate change denial writing on the wall, via Hoggan's book. Are you able, G West, to rise above your carbon tax frustrations and NDP Ax the Tax failures in addressing the issue at hand? Can you distinguish message from messenger?

Do you deny Hoggan's thesis? Or is it that you simply deny Hoggan wholesale?

Introducing...the 'Spin Doctor' himself

While I don't disagree with Hoggan's overall thesis about conflict of interest either Bill, it confuses me that you seem to be missing Jims own fancy-pants super duper PR twist. It's no secret that Hoggan is marinating in his own hypocracy... so instead of blowing smoke up his you-know-what Tieleman with your raving, fluff review, you could use your platform for good by asking some real questions about one of the most twisted PR cats at the epicenter of the biggest energy/ natural resource heist roaring in our British Columbian backyards.

James says this in a recent interview...

"Our book—I’m a PR guy of about thirty years, I stumbled across this confusion campaign, when I was doing some reading. And we’ve documented this two-decade-long campaign by industry and Canada and the United States, that the energy industry basically designed to confuse the public about climate change and give people the sense that there’s a debate about the science of climate change."

While I'm glad he's shedding light on the new evolution of cut throat strategy being used by big industry to manipulate public opinion and expose Astroturf Organizations and how they work to shape public policy. This statement is by far my favorite... Hoggan says, "And my reason for writing this book is that I don’t think that PR people and industry front groups should be determining what our policies are in Canada and the United States on solving climate change." <- I couldn't agree more James, I couldn't agree more.

However, I can't help but wonder what James' angle is for writing a book that essentially calls to question PR firms furthering an agenda just like his own.

One doesn't need to look far to see the possible conflicts of interest oozing from the pockets of one who takes hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for work on anti-environmental mega projects like Gateway and then give repeated, sizable donations to Gordo come election time, hired also by Alcan, BC Hydro(Accenture), ... all the while Chairman and Communications Advisor to the high-profile "non partisan" DSF in bed with Astros Pembina and Berman... receiving donations from Big Oil and Gas and Energy Multinationals. All, skipping down to California- speaking on behalf of the Citizens of BC, giving a big green light to US Government and MAMOTH Energy Multinationals to cap and trade or purchase our "renewable, green energy". Shutting the door on public oversight and the community-at-large...

LeftRightLeft

"so singling out the carbon tax as bad policy because the Liberals introduced it is the essence of good politics trumping good policy."

I don't care that it was the Liberals that introduced it, it would have been just as bad a policy if the NDP or the Greens had introduced it. You shouldn't assume that just because the NDP opposes something it doesn't mean the policy is automatically good.

"So-called" environmentalists like David Suzuki and Tzeporah Berman... Huh?!? Keep eating your young like this and there won't be anyone "left"..."

Tzeporah Berman is left-wing? She says she was a paid up member of the NDP but the party couldn't find any evidence of that. Is Suzuki also claiming to be an NDPer?

Now they both attacked the NDP during an election campaign. So who is eating who's young? If they're NDPers they've had a hard time demonstrating it.

"The carbon tax only affects the poor"...? Right... big business was really fond of it."

Last time I checked big business bankrolled the party that brought it in and ridiculed the party that opposed it. Good thing they didn't like it eh?

James Hoggan

As others have stated, Hoggan's resume pretty much places him on the side of those his book opposes. I doubt that its a medical problem, probably just good old-fashioned do as I say and not as I do" hypocrisy.

I don't think I'll be picking up a copy of the book since I know the profits will be partially donated to the political vehicle of the businesses the book opposes.

Atta boy James.

Well, there is "Big Oil" and there is "Big Al"

Somehow, seeing how Al Gore is intimately involved with a $683 million dollar Climate Solutions Fund from Generation Investment Management and was raising $400 million for Kleiner Perkins (venture capital) last year, I am about as sanguine about "Big Al's" motives as I am about "Big Oil".

They both want to pick my pockets and they both will lie through their teeth to do so.

Very strange. And very inaccurate

What I actually wrote and I've certainly written it here before at least a dozen times - is that the 'revenue neutral' Campbell tax is NOT A REAL CARBON tax and that it does less than nothing to ameliorate the increasing production of greenhouse gases originating in this province.

In fact, after the introduction of the Campbell Tax in July of 2008 the consumption of gasoline, diesel and other motor fuels actually rose despite the highly significant increase in the cost per litre of gas at the pump – which, by the way, had nothing to do with Campbell and clearly demonstrated that the demand for gasoline is almost completely inelastic – something else I pointed out early on – again here at Tyee.

Not one kilometer of rapid transit line was financed by the proceeds of the carbon tax, not one work truck was converted to natural gas, not one gas guzzler was removed from the fleet of the provincial government. Furthermore, airlines and cruise ships – both of which are enormously bad polluters are EXEMPT from Campbell’s pretend and entirely feel good law.

As I have stated several times here at Tyee, had the Campbell Tax taken its revenues and used for anything other than a money laundry I would have reluctantly supported it.

If you actually take some time to do the research I think you'll find THAT in the record too.

However, I did not have to make such a difficult choice. The phony tax you and Hoggan and Suzuki and Berman and Weaver supported has NO redeeming virtues and I have registered my opposition to it from the very first time the thing was proposed - in fact long before the NDP decided what its policy would be toward the 'tax'. After you've taken the time to check the archives I assume you'll be man enough to apologize.

If you don’t believe me, ask Frank – he was around for all those debates and, to my recollection, you weren’t.

Cheers.

King C.O.N.G.

Coal Oil Nuclear Gas
http://www.solartopia.org/

Hockey-stick update :
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11646

Denial-saurs heading for carbon-choked extinction:
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2251568/first-solar

OilbertaRedTory

Given the choice between being a "Denial-saur" and a "Solartopian", I think I prefer being a Denial-saurian - Esp if I'm asked to swallow codswallop like the following: "......a post-pollution planet supremely prosperous, livable and fair, with women empowered, corporations tamed and waste banished...." Golly, I've heard that solar panels cure warts too - is that true?

The warmist's shamans keep telling us that we've less that ten years before we're just like fish in the frying-pan. Hmmmm, the most optomistic estimates I've seen re the minumum time that is required to retool to the so-called "renewable" energy sources is thirty to forty years - IF we devote half our GNP toward doing so.

OTOH, we could completely, and economically, switch to breeder reactors over approx twenty years, but the Solartopians wouldn't allow us to do THAT. Makes me think that the urgency they profess is somewhat contrived.

Maybe we should be advised by their favourite scientific truth - the Precauionary Principle - and start stockpiling suicide pills so we can avoid the distress of being boiled / burnt alive in 2019.

ME2, I am gonna raise your blood pressure!

If you are blowing your top over Global Warming, you have one more thing coming.

This is an excerpt from a letter written on July 30th of 2009, by Captain Moore of the Oceanographic Research Vessel, Alquita which was at the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre at the time and investigating plastics in the ocean. This letter is written to Laurie David, one of Al Gore's close collaborators.

-------- start excerpt--------

"...when we measure the qualities of ocean water, in addition to salinity and dissolved oxygen, we now need to stipulate the quantity of plastic it contains, since none of our samples have been plastic free.

This insidious invasion of the biosphere by our plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming"

--------- end excerpt -----------

ME2, get ready for a plastic tax and plastic credits.

A cure for brain warts ...

... from a recovering plunderer ;

http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_anderson_on_the_business_logic_of_sustainability.html

Take nothing ; do no harm.
Transformation away from petro-intense in 12 years.
Increased profits through reduced costs.

For those who can keep up with the new millenium ;

Today's Solar Ontario:
http://www.ckwstv.com/index.cfm?page=news&id=1312

Today's renewable energy hub:
http://tinyurl.com/RenewableEnergyHubNM

Wind power beating nukes in UK :
http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20091020.html

After half a century, nukers still can't build straight:
http://dcnonl.com/article/id35796

Call me a skeptic

Where to begin. It wasn't too many years back that the scientific community made a big deal about the ozone layer in the atmosphere. We were all going to be exposed to such intense UV rays that life as we know it would cease to exist. Life seems to still be going on, and I cannot remember the last time anyone has addressed the ozone problem.

Next, we get the global warming scare. The oceans will rise at such a rate that we all better grow fins and develope gills. All of a sudden we are told that temperatures are actually receeding a bit so global warming is no longer saleable. No problem, we'll now call it climate change. A much better phrase as we can now use any weather phenomena as proof of climate change. Much more saleable to the great unwashed.

From my very limited recollection of my teachings in school, earth has been changing and evolving for centuries. How many of you think that Greenland was so named because it resembled a gigantic mass of snow and ice? Scientists are no different than the rest of us. They may be analytical, but they also have biases. Do they have a preconcieved notion that they then try to prove, or do they see a situation and try and discover what caused that situation? Is CO2 the culprit it is made out to be or is it just a scapegoat, a flavour of the month so to speak?

Fear mongering by any group or faction seems to have become an accepted practice by too many people, and once an idea gets legs it seems to get blown out of proportion. It's as if the masses need some bandwagon to jump on and cling to, and in the process we encourage the opportunists to take adavantage of the less informed.

Take James Hoggan's book for an example. What is his motive for writing it? Is it to alert the world of an impending catastrophe, or to make money off its sales? I suspect that it is the latter otherwise he would have made it available to all for free. Just one man's opinion.

Holes in the Mediazone ...

... are often the result of shockingly short attentions among those who only imbibe the kool-aid flavoured advert-driven media.

http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Global heating by man-made greenhouse gasses, leads to climate change, leads to weather disruptions.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20091015_sepglobalstats.html

Homo economicus : Carbon-belching the equivalent of 10,000 volcanoes since the beginning of the industrial age.

Does this matter?

"Liberals snub NDP climate-change bill
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009
CBC News

Federal Liberals say they won't support the NDP in its effort to push a private member's climate-change bill through the House of Commons on Wednesday.

The proposed legislation, called Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act, sets strict targets for greenhouse gas emissions and is currently being considered by a House environment committee.

The committee has asked for an extension of 30 sitting days to review the bill, a request that will be considered Wednesday when the House sits.

But New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said the delay would undermine efforts to have the bill passed into law before the Copenhagen summit in December.

Layton wants the bill's tougher greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to be in force when Canada sends delegates to the summit, where international leaders hope to forge a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the global greenhouse-gas treaty ratified by dozens of countries, including Canada.

The bill has passed through two readings in the House of Commons since it was introduced by NDP member of Parliament Bruce Hyer, receiving support from the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois.

Liberal environment critic David McGuinty, however, said the committee needs more time to study the implications of the bill.

"We need to hear more about the American position, the European position, the Chinese position" before considering the bill, McGuinty told CBC News."

I guess we've all seen the complete turn around on the BBC. Do they now have the 'truth'?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm

realisticman! Don't you know that Ignatieff is "Just Visiting"?

and does not care what happens to Canadians. He has a homes located all over the world on high ground and will let the rest of us drown after the ice caps melt and put Ottawa twelve feet under water. Not to mention that he has his own Twin Otter on floats to whisk him out of Ottawa on a moments notice once the flood takes place. Rumour has it that his pet dog has a Mustang "doggie floatie" to boot. He cares more about his pooch than me! (T-I-C)

Actually, I am glad that McGuinty et al are taking their time to look this over.

Rome was not built in a day and the Global Climate is sure as heck not going to "teeter over the brink" between now and a year from now. If ever.

Climate deniers have betrayed all of us

The case is building to string the deniers up for crimes against humanity: http://www.celsias.com/article/case-crimes-against-humanity-or-end-rex-tillerson/. James Hansen and Paul Krugman have said the same.

These are not good people, and certainly not wise.

oh well...

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That this should ever be!
Yes, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

Samuel Coleridge

more poetry

"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these f***ing people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the f***ing planet?

...The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!"

George Carlin

George Carlin

You guys are missing the important thing that no one is disputing. Sure, the planet won't go anywhere, but we will wipe out ourselves by our own actions. Carlin understands that... and has a nuanced p.o.v. on the topic that seems to be going over yr heads.

Frankly, invoking a comedian using semantics to get a laugh as an argument for climate change denial is pretty weak sauce.