Climate Change: Newsweek Documents Conservative Coverup of Global Warming

QUOTE: “A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, [a staffer] told [Senator Barbara] Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. 'I realized,' says Boxer, 'there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up.' ... outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.

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, August 13, 2007 issue.