by CKR
I’ll start with a disclaimer: my first reaction to conspiracy theories is to require lots of proof, starting with a description of the participants and how they communicate with each other. The weakness of conspiracy theories is that they usually require a degree of coverup that humans seem incapable of. If groups of people, or people in large numbers, are putting forth similar ideas, I tend to believe that they have some reason to. I may not agree with the ideas they are putting forth, or the reasons behind them, but I prefer that sort of explanation to late-night conniving conversations that nobody can document because they are so craftily hidden.
In his first installment of the great greenhouse debunking, Alexander Cockburn trotted out a single expert who threw darts at a few of the many issues in climate theory. (My response here.) In the second installment, as promised, he tells us who benefits from the nonsense he has so capably disproved.
Cockburn is not the only greenhouse-conspiracy theorist out there. I’ve been conversing with one on a discussion board. I do enjoy a nice dose of paranoia from time to time, and the uncovering of powers unseen. The Matrix may be my favorite movie of all time.
But Cockburn disappoints. Like other greenhouse-conspiracy theorists, including my discussion-board friend, he fails to produce the grand unified theory, satisfying himself with a few indications that some people may benefit from their support of the idea of global warming. Unlike those opposing the idea, of course.
He cites energy companies (adaptation; useful idiots); the nuclear industry (now owned by the oil companies); Al Gore (a shill for the nuclear and coal barons); grant-guzzling climate modelers and their Internationale, the IPCC; their multibillion-dollar computer modeling bureaucracies; and UN high brass (needed a moral horse to ride).
His method is polemical; he unites all those groups by calling them inventive names and accusing them of catering to their own interests. But conspiracy requires those midnight meetings, e-mails lost and found, and Cockburn provides none of that, not even a logical thread to show how all these interests converge.
So my thirst for a nice global conspiracy will have to go unslaked. Watch for his third installment.