… Gone, even: ‘needs more study.’ …

Quote of the Day — 24 February 2011

” Over the weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives voted along partisan lines in favor of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri (pictured at left) to cut funding for the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). When I flagged this incredible news on my Discover blog, the clean energy activist Michael Noble tweeted back: “Gone, even that old refrain: ‘needs more study.'”

The more I think about it, the more profound that little remark becomes.

Time was when I, and many others tracking and critiquing the climate “skeptics,” would linger on their manufacture of uncertainty, their sowing and merchandising of doubt. “Doubt is our product,” as the infamous tobacco memo put it.

Up through “Climategate” and the ensuing attacks on the IPCC over matters like the Himalayan glaciers blunder, the resistance to climate science really was well captured by this broad strategy. The central theme was that there was a body of science being produced by experts, and those who didn’t like its findings were problematizing, nitpicking, fighting around the edges while ignoring the big picture. …

… But that’s not really what you see out there anymore. A decision to defund the IPCC, rather than attack or criticize it, doesn’t bespeak a strategy of doubt-mongering. It signals extreme certainty that one is right, that we don’t even need to consider (skeptically or otherwise) any more new results from climate scientists. … ”

— Chris Mooney
— “The Denialists Progress: From Doubt-Mongering to Certainty“
— DeSmogBlog.com

www.desmogblog.com/denialists-progress-doubt-mongering-certainty
www.desmogblog.com