The Heat is On

The influx has begun. We are beginning to reach the saturation point in the mainstream media with articles talking about everything from energy security to climate change to oil independence to alternative energy to the one phrase you still can’t say on TV; global warming. But what is the crux of this issue? Where do we focus? When there are so many competing versions of the same problem, it can be hard to identify the reality of the situation, even harder to know what steps to take to fix it.
On Tuesday, the UN released what’s widely considered the most comprehensive and conclusive study on global warming. The results should be alarming: the best scientists in the whole have concluded with 90%+ certainty that the changes in the earth’s climate have been caused by the actions of man. The changes that may have already have caused future sea levels to rise above recorded levels, caused huge weather patterns like the Gulf Stream to change, and altered the atmosphere’s chemical makeup were our fault.
It’s hard for a general audience to accept these truths, and apparently even harder for those who stand to lose profits. According to the U.K.’s Guardian, The American Enterprise Institute, an oil lobby funded primarily by Exxon-Mobil, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 each to publish articles that undermine the findings of the UN report. The article also reports close ties between the lobby and the federal government: “AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.” It seems that even science can be bought.
This type of blatant manipulation of scientific evidence casts doubts on the reliability of any report on an issue so controversial as this one. But the case for global warming has been made and made strongly; it seems only the conglomeration of the oil business, the auto industry, and the Bush administration that try so vehemently to oppose the evidence. Yet their campaign has been successful. While 73% of those surveyed in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll said that global warming was a “serious problem,” only 44% said it would be an “important factors” in determining their vote, compared with 47% who said it was “not a factor” in their decision. As long as it doesn’t influence policy, the Bush administration could care less about global warming.
It seems obvious that the links between big business and government have become increasingly close in the past few years – from Haliburton’s stranglehold on military contracts, many without competition, to the links between the Bush family and Saudi Arabian investors, to the revolving door between government agencies and the K street lobbying agencies which seems to have been well-lubricated by the Bush administration. But this is America, we say, where the government works for the people! Our politicians can’t be corrupt! The media gives us this image, this myth to cling to and then whitewashes us with news on both sides of the issues in an effort to be “fair and balanced,” when really they may be doing the American public a great disservice by not adequately explaining the backing for research and findings and failing to look critically at the links between interest groups and government actions.
Global warming has become a flagship example of this type of deliberate malleability of the news and of science in the name of industry and profit. Exxon-Mobil last year made $39.5 billion in profits; the largest margin in recorded history. To contrast, in the recently released federal budget for fiscal year 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency was allotted $7.7 billion. With this type of economic disparity, it’s easy to understand why the problem is so hard to combat. The facts remain that the private sector, especially in the energy industry, and its close links to so many of the positions of influence in the federal government, hold an immense resource gap over the heads of regulator and citizens alike. Yet what remains appalling to an informed American is the ready access to this type of information and the complete lack of attention these links receive in the mainstream media.
In short order, one can find the records of every single congressional session of the last several years, the sponsors behind every Washington lobby, the past private sector career of many of our current public servants. The internet has placed a huge array of information at our fingertips; we need only to thumb through it to find the hidden story behind the actions of our government. The links are barely concealed beneath a thin veneer of public trust and faith in a system of government separate from business. Woven of slick language and impeccable public relations illusions, the veneer is enough to sway most of the voting population.
When combined with an issue as inflammatory as global warming – an issue that, if proven, stands to gigantically alter the way we live – this type of media gloss can be extremely effective at mitigating public outcry and large-scale outrage. The government and the corporate world aren’t the only one who prefer business as usual; we all do. Not a single consuming American wants to believe that his or her actions have a potentially catastrophic consequence in the future. The mere shadow of a controversy is enough to stifle large-scale action on the issue. Until it becomes apparent to a large portion of Americans that the survival of their grandchildren is solely dependent upon their actions in the immediate future, it’s hard to imagine any sort of sea change. Until we find a reporter or an agency that’s willing to expose the obvious interconnections between interests and policy, science and profits, we may be doomed to an incremental and unsubstantial resolution of an issue that is at once pressing and enormous.