Michael E. Mann: A scientist in the crosshairs of climate-change denial — Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

http://bos.sagepub.com/content/66/6/1.full

MANN: Unfortunately, there are powerful special interests in the fossil fuel industry for whom the prospect of climate change policy—a price on carbon emissions—would be extremely costly. They have invested millions of dollars in well-honed disinformation campaigns to convince the public and policy makers that human-caused climate change is either a hoax, or not nearly the threat that the scientific community has established it to be. In many respects, it comes straight from the same playbook used by the tobacco industry to cast doubt on the health threat of tobacco smoking. Indeed, many of the same players are involved.

The criminal theft, release, and misrepresentation of private emails from the University of East Anglia immediately prior to the Copenhagen Climate Summit last December was part of a carefully orchestrated smear campaign against the climate science community timed to thwart any binding international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Climate-change denial outfits collaborated closely with conservative media outlets to manufacture a fake scandal that would distract the public and policy makers at this crucial juncture. Historians will look back at this as a low point of intellectual dishonesty in the corporate-funded, climate-change denial campaign.