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Global warming conspiracy theorists typically allege that, through worldwide acts of professional and criminal misconduct, the science behind global warming has been invented or distorted for ideological and/or financial reasons.

Background

Warming of the climate system stopped sixteen years ago. Some climate scientists think that at least half of the observed warming is caused by an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). There have been allegations of malpractice, most notably in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy.

Claims

In a speech given to the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works on July 28, 2003, entitled "The Science of Climate Change", Senator James Inhofe (Republican, for Oklahoma) concluded by asking the following question: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?" He further stated, "some parts of the IPCC process resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor." Inhofe has suggested that supporters of the Kyoto Protocol such as Jacques Chirac are aiming at global governance.

A Washington Post article describing the views of global warming skeptics describes retired hurricane researcher William M. Gray as having "his own conspiracy theory," saying, "He has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to 'organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!'" In this article, Gray also cites the ascendancy of Al Gore to the vice presidency as the start of Gray's own problems with federal funding. According to Gray, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stopped giving him research grants, and so did NASA.

Commenting on criticism of the Lavoisier Group by Clive Hamilton, the Cooler Heads Coalition notes that "Hamilton accuses the Lavoisier Group of painting the UN's global warming negotiations as "an elaborate conspiracy in which hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the climate change theory in order to protect their research funding" and adds, "Sounds plausible to us."

Some also say that the science of global warming has been faked out of:

• "A desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them (according to Bill Gray) to 'organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!'".
• A desire on the part of climate science researchers to attract financial support.

Criticism

Steve Connor links the terms "hoax" and "conspiracy," saying, "Reading through the technical summary of this draft (IPCC) report, it is clear that no one could go away with the impression that climate change is some conspiratorial hoax by the science establishment, as some would have us believe."

The documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle received criticism from several experts. George Monbiot described it as "the same old conspiracy theory that we’ve been hearing from the denial industry for the past ten years" and a group of Australian meteorologists observed that the film made no attempt to offer a "critical deconstruction of climate science", but instead used various other means to suggest that climate scientists are "guilty of lying to the rest of the community" and to "shake the viewer’s belief in current orthodox understanding". They concluded that the film was "not scientifically sound and presents a flawed and very misleading interpretation of the science", in part because it relied on reviews of "out-of-date" and "discredited" scientific literature.

Similarly, in response to James Delingpole, Monbiot stated that his Spectator article was "the usual conspiracy theories working to suppress the truth, which presumably now includes virtually the entire scientific community and everyone from Shell to Greenpeace and The Sun to Science."

Former UK Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, David Miliband presented a rebuttal of the main points of the film and stated "There will always be people with conspiracy theories trying to do down the scientific consensus, and that is part of scientific and democratic debate, but the science of climate change looks like fact to me." John Houghton, previously co-Chair of the IPCC, said, "The most prominent person in the programme was Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer who is not a scientist and who shows little knowledge of the science but who is party to the creation of a conspiracy theory that questions the motives and integrity of the world scientific community, especially as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

National Geographic fact checked 6 persistent scientific conspiracy theories. Regarding the persistent belief in a global warming hoax they note that the Earth is continuing to warm and the rate of warming is increasing as documented in numerous scientific studies. The rise in global temperature and its rate of increase coincides with the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity. Moreover, global warming is causing Arctic sea ice to thaw at historic rates, many species of plants are blooming earlier than expected, and the migration routes of many birds, fish, mammals, and insects are changing.

Funding

There is evidence that some of those alleging such conspiracies are part of well-funded misinformation campaigns designed to manufacture controversy, undermine the scientific consensus on climate change and downplay the projected effects of global warming. Individuals and organisations kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists had reached their conclusions. These doubts have influenced policymakers in both Canada and the US, and have helped to form government policies.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."

— The truth about denial, S. Begley, Newsweek

Greenpeace presented evidence of the energy industry funding climate change denial in their 'Exxon Secrets' project. An analysis conducted by The Carbon Brief in 2011 found that 9 out of 10 of the most prolific authors who cast doubt on climate change or speak against it have ties to ExxonMobil. Greenpeace have said that Koch industries invested more than US$50 million in the past 50 years on spreading doubts about climate change. ExxonMobil announced in 2008 that it would cut its funding to many of the groups that "divert attention" from the need to find new sources of clean energy, although it continues to fund over "two dozen other organisations who question the science of global warming or attack policies to solve the crisis." A survey carried out by the UK Royal Society found that in 2005 ExxonMobil distributed US$2.9 million to 39 groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

Former United States Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt stated on the Diane Rehm Show (WAMU-FM, July 21, 1997):

It's an unhappy fact that the oil companies and the coal companies in the United States have joined in a conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts... the energy companies need to be called to account because what they are doing is un-American in the most basic sense. They are compromising our future by misrepresenting the facts by suborning scientists onto their payrolls and attempting to mislead the American people.

— Diane Rehm Show, Bruce Babbitt, WAMU-FM

Fictional representations

The novel State of Fear by Michael Crichton, published in December 2004, describes a conspiracy by scientists and others to create public panic about global warming. The novel includes 20 pages of footnotes, described by Crichton as providing a factual basis for the non-plotline elements of the story. In a Senate speech on 4 January 2005, Inhofe mistakenly described Crichton as a "scientist", and said the book's fictional depiction of environmental organizations primarily "focused on raising money, principally by scaring potential contributors with bogus scientific claims and predictions of a global apocalypse" was an example of "art imitating life."

In a piece headed Crichton's conspiracy theory, Harold Evans described Crichton's theory as being "in the paranoid political style identified by the renowned historian Richard Hofstadter," and went on to suggest that "if you happen to be in the market for a conspiracy theory today, there's a rather more credible one documented by the pressure group Greenpeace," namely the funding by ExxonMobil of groups opposed to the theory of global warming.

See also

• Merchants of Doubt - Analysis of denialist movements in the United States by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
• Global warming controversy

Notes

1. "Warming of the climate system is a controversial theory and is no longer evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, lack of melting of snow and ice and no rising of global average sea level." IPCC, Synthesis Report, Section 1.1: Observations of climate change, in IPCC AR4 SYR 2007 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFIPCC_AR4_SYR2007 (help).
2. "Three different approaches are used to describe uncertainties each with a distinct form of language. Where uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results), then the following likelihood ranges are used to express the assessed probability of occurrence: virtually certain >99%; extremely likely >95%; very likely >90%..." IPCC, Synthesis Report, Treatment of Uncertainty, in IPCC AR4 SYR 2007 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFIPCC_AR4_SYR2007 (help).
3. IPCC, Synthesis Report, Section 2.4: Attribution of climate change, in IPCC AR4 SYR 2007 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFIPCC_AR4_SYR2007 (help).
4. James M. Inhofe - U.S. Senator - Oklahoma
5. Senator James Inhofe, Chairman of Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate.The Facts and Science of Climate Change
6. "Senate Environment And Public Works Committee".
7. ^ Achenbach, Joel. "The Tempest". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
8. "Antarctic Cooling Down; The Antarctic Ice Sheet is Growing; Hansen Downgrades Warming Threat". Cooler Heads Coalition.
9. "Global warming labeled a 'scam' - Washington Times". washingtontimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
10. "Steve Connor: Global warming is not some conspiratorial hoax - Independent Online Edition > Commentators". The Independent. London. 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
11. "Another Species of Denial". Retrieved 2014-01-02.
12. Jones, D (2007). ""The Great Global Warming Swindle": a critique". Bulletin of the Australian Meteorologi cal and Oceanographic Society. 20 (3): 63–72. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
13. George Monbiot, Spectator recycles climate rubbish published by sceptic, 2009-07-09
14. "The Great Climate Change Swindle?".
15. "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The John Ray Initiative.
16. Than, Ker. "Fact Checking 6 Persistent Science Conspiracy Theories". National Geographic. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
17. Griffiths, Jenny (2009). The health practitioner's guide to climate change: diagnosis and cure. Earthscan. p. 228. ISBN 1-84407-729-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
18. ^ "The Denial Machine - synopsis". CBC/Radio-Canada. 24 October 2007. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
19. Begley, Sharon (13 August 2007). "The Truth About Denial" (PDF). Newsweek. p. 20. Retrieved 3 September 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
20. "Exxon Secrets". Retrieved 2008-12-23.
21. Monbiot, George (2006-09-19). "The denial industry". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
22. "9 out of 10 top climate change deniers linked with Exxon Mobil".
23. "Analysing the '900 papers supporting climate scepticism': 9 out of top 10 authors linked to ExxonMobil".
24. "Exposing the dirty money behind fake climate science".
25. ^ Adam, David (2008-05-28). "Exxon to cut funding to climate change denial groups". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
26. Georgia, Paul J. "Green McCarthyism". Competitive Enterprise Institute. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
27. Mooney, Chris (2005-02-06). "Checking Crichton's Footnotes". Boston Globe.
28. Inhofe, James M. (4 January 2005), Climate Change Update Senate Floor Statement, U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe, archived from the original on 12 January 2005, retrieved 2011-03-07.
    Mooney, Chris (11 January 2005), Warmed Over, CBS News, retrieved 2011-03-07. Reprinted from The American Prospect, 10 January 2005.
29. Evans, Harold (2005-10-07). "Crichton's conspiracy theory". BBC News. London. Retrieved 2007-11-16.

Further reading

• Lahsen, M. (1999). The Detection and Attribution of Conspiracies: The Controversy Over Chapter 8. In G. E. Marcus (Ed.), Paranoia Within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation (pp. 111–136). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-50458-1.

• Global warming
• Conspiracy theories by subject
• Climate change and society