Paul Krugman: Gambling with Civilization

Nordhaus is, of course, aware of this, but I think downplays just how bad things are. He notes that the book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future was written by “a US senator”; he doesn’t point out that the senator in question, James Inhofe, was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works from 2003 to 2007, and that someone with similar views will probably take that position if Republicans regain the Senate next year. He tells us that a manifesto titled “Cap and Trade—Taxing Our Way to Bankruptcy” came from “an advocacy group,” but doesn’t point out that this advocacy group, the Heartland Foundation, is a lavishly financed enterprise largely devoted to promoting climate science denial; it’s secretive about its funding, but appears to be backed both by major corporations and by wealthy individuals. The point is that there’s real power behind the opposition to any kind of climate action—power that warps the debate both by denying climate science and by exaggerating the costs of pollution abatement. And this isn’t the kind of power that can be moved by calm, rational argument.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.