Timeline Take 2

This week brings the conclusion to the time line of political events as outlined in the Kevin Armitage, "State of Denial" paper. The timeline continues with the backlash from this IPCC report... 

Bad America! (source: http://giphy.com/)

 

1989- oil companies joined together to form the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). This lobbied against climate change legislation and started a media campaign against it, being helped in their efforts by a small group of scientists who received the funding for their reseach papers (BIAS!!!!)

1990- The US flatly rejects the IPCC report

1992-  'Earth Summit' held in Rio de Janeiro. Over 150 states signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). Negotiations at this summit included targets for emission reductions and the economic inequality between industrialized and developing countries, calling for developed countries to pay a disproportionate amount towards combating climate change.

1992 - Appeal from 1,700 of the leading climate scientists stating plainly that "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course" and begging for action to be taken. This statement recieved little attention in the US.

1995 - Second IPCC report held a stronger stance on climate change staring that there is a "discernable human influence on global climate", this drew widespread media attention however the right wing politics critised the report and the Clinton administration put relatively little effort into the global warming issue.

1997 - UN Nations Kyoto Conference on Climate Change - the conference nearly broke down due to the issues about power relationships between wealthy contries. The conference was 'saved' by the arrival of the US Vice president, Gove , who pushed through a comprimise that stated industrialized countries would cut emissions by 5.2%. Developing countries would be exempt from these cuts. The Clinton administration strongly disagreed with this and thus didn't push the treaty and America became omitted from reducing emissions - this furthur gave other countries excuses to continue with unsustainable practices

2000- McCright and Dunlap's paper was published, finding that 71% of the documents sampled by the right-wing politicans attempted to discredit the scientific evidence for global warming.

2001- the administration of George W. Bush rejected any significant reduction in CO2 emissions and thus publically renounced the Kyoto protocols.

2002 - National Academy of Sciences conclused that abrupt climate change is possible and global climate events could be alot closer than expected. US National Secruity released a report speculating the most extreme cases of climate change and hypothesised cases such a nuclear showdown of dwindling fresh water supplies and famine.

2004 - (August) Bush administration released a report that stated that CO2 was the most plausablie explanation for climate change. (this was kept pretty underwraps)

2005 - The New York Times confirmed the continuation of the Bush strategy of "denial" despite    the aforementioned report.

The paper finishes it's analysis in 2005 hence why the timeline stops here, but as we can see right-wing politics really ups it's game in their denial strategy. It seems as the evidence for global warming as caused by humans increases the back lash against environmentalism also increases. The campaign against global warming shows politicians manipulating data and in some cases even funding research to provide the evidence they need.

It's no wonder the citizens of the United States are so confused about global warming when there are so many mixed messages coming at them! In the ideology of balanced reporting, major influential media publications such as The New York Times would report climate change with equal coverage of the peer reviewed science and the reports of scientists who don't believe in the whole affair. Only in America!

 (source: http://giphy.com/)

~A Brief Interlude~

I was expecting my next post to be a continuation of the timeline of the United States resistance to the belief in global warming, followed by a few happy months worth of blog posts worth of change and what the US is now doing to support the issue. However something has come to my attention in the news that shows even in this fine year of 2014 the US are looking to take yet another step back in their stance on global warming.

The 2014 midterm elections has shown a storm in the Republicans control in the Senate. With things looking up for the Republicans, things aren't looking promising for the environment. At best the new congress now could seem disengaged from serious climate change issues, when now more than ever a decision needs to be reached. At worst the new Congress could actively oppose the environment and waste no time in their "pro-energy, pro-growth" agenda.

Senator James Inhofe (who features in my next timeline) is an Oklahoma Republican. His views on global warming are certainly interesting and to summarize his stance on the issue of global warming, I think we should all just reflect on the title of his 2010 book, "The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future". Yep. This is the man who's most likely going to be leading the Environment and Public Works Committee when the Republican party takes control next year. So I can't even imagine what this will mean for the global warming issue.

Hopefully Obama can save the day though, stating "Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign" meaning that not all hope is lost. He might here be referring to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that Republicans will be pushing - this issue has been delayed for quite some time as it is a massive project to increase shipments of oil from Canada to the US.

Fingers crossed the Republicans show mercy for the environment, only time will tell!