Deep pockets, hot air
Editorial
Copyright 1998 Washington Times
August 31, 1998
It's not that the scientific evidence of
global warming is too weak. It's not that the Clinton administration has tried to stifle
debate about the real costs of cooling off man-made warming. It's not even
that some students of
climate change actually believe a little warming would be good
for the globe.
None of these arguments explains congressional inaction on the
administration's
climate-change agenda. The real problem, according to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, is
that notwithstanding high-profile administration
global-warming warnings, it just hasn't been able to get its message out.
"We've really been outgunned," Mr. Richardson
said last week.
"We've been outgunned in the Congress and media ads. We have to do better. And
what we need to do is find ways that we can communicate why it's important -
climate change, agricultureal disasters, water rising, why - ozone layer, why that is
important to the American people."
Apparently Mr. Richardson means the administration is being outspent
by evil oil and coal groups whose heat-trapping gas emissions would supposedly
generate a kind of industrial Armageddon. The charge is ridiculous. According
to a budget analysis released by the Competititve Enterprise Institute earlier
this month, the Environmental Protection Agency alone has handed out some $30 million in grants to promote fear of
climate change. James Sheehan and Ilya Shapiro report the money has gone to environmental
advocacy groups, academic researchers, government agencies and even foreign
governments.
Not only can EPA buy the kind of research findings it wants
through these grants. It has created a class of dependents whose interest it
is to see that the general public lives in fear.
In 1995, for example, an organization known as the Climate Institute collected
$258,000 from EPA to educate
"millions" of Americans about
global warming. Last year,
it got $469,199 to promote
"awareness of
climate change and air pollution resulting from fossil-fuel use." No agenda there.
In 1994, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy received
$333,726 to promote reduced greenhouse gas emissions in China. In 1994 the
World Resources Institute got a $1.2 million grant to do an analysis of
domestic and international
climate change mitigation strategies. In 1998, it collected $150,000 to assess the public
health consequences of fossil-fuel combustion and to show how
global warming policy can have beneficial
results.
Academics, too, have done well by fear of
global warming. Tufts University received $1.3 million in 1996 to assess the impact of
climate change on water resources. Foreign governments have enjoyed U.S. taxpayer support
for their work on
climate change. Tanzania obtained $307,480 in 1994 to identify policy measures to mitigate greenhouse gas
emissions and to heighten public awareness of the impacts of
climate change.
And that's just government-funded activism. Private foundations have also
contributed millions to get the message out.
Far from being at the mercy of industry on this issue, as Mr.
Richardson suggested, the Clinton administration has created an industry of its
own to sow fear of
climate change worldwide. That it has so far been unable to generate congressional support
for its
global-warming agenda despite all this spending says less about the need to get its message
out than it does
about the substance of the message itself.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk
Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.
Material presented on this home page constitutes opinion of Steven J. Milloy.
Copyright © 1998 Steven
J. Milloy. All rights reserved on original material. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair
use." Site developed and hosted by WestLake
Solutions, Inc.