The Business of Doubt

On Monday the Daily Egyptian printed an editorial by Jonathan V. Last about Al Gore and environmental uncertainty. Since you can’t read Mr. Last’s irresponsible editorial online at the DE website, you need to visit the Philadelphia Inquirer where it is was originally printed.

Thankfully, Jonathan M. Gray, an SIU Associate Professor of Speech Communication, had his rebuttal printed today. I can’t improve upon his analysis other than to note that Mr. Last has previously written:

“Killing the environment will take time. This big ball of mud is pretty resilient. But if we love our planet -- and really, who doesn't? -- then we have to show corporate America how little we care about it. Only then will it be safe to be an environmentalist again.”

Satire? Or just sowing more seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about the problem?

There does seem to be a concentrated effort by well-funded climate change deniers to cast doubt about the seriousness of humanity's disruption of the planet’s ecosystems. At least one group, DeSmogBlog, is taking on the deniers by outing their credibility. They state

“Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet.”

Check it out!