Climate vs. free speech
Just when you think debate about climate change can't get any worse, juridical oversight of speech rears its deplorable head-in the United States of America, of all places.
In a Mar. 9 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch confirmed that the Department of Justice had sent the Federal Bureau of Investigation information about oil companies that argued climate science remains unsettled. Responding to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Lynch said, "We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on." Whitehouse asked whether a civil matter under Justice Department authority had been sent to the FBI. Lynch said she was aware of no such referral.
Tobacco and oil
The exchange mentioned only "the fossil fuel industry" without reference to specific companies. In January, however, Assistant Atty. Gen. Peter J. Kadzik wrote two Democratic lawmakers from California to advise that, "as a courtesy," the department had forwarded to the FBI their correspondence of last October asking for an investigation of ExxonMobil Corp.'s handling of climate change issues. The lawmakers, Ted W. Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier, accused the oil company of "organizing a sustained deception campaign disputing climate science and failing to disclose truthful information to investors and the public." In February, Lieu and two other Democratic colleagues, Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania and Peter Welch of Vermont, asked Lynch to investigate Shell Oil Co. based on similar complaints, essentially that the company knew the climate was changing but continued to do business anyway.
Questioning Lynch, Whitehouse summarized concerns expressed by Lieu and the others usefully. "The similarities between the mischief of the tobacco industry pretending that the science of tobacco's dangers was unsettled and the fossil fuel industry pretending that the science of carbon emissions' dangers is unsettled has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who study the climate denial apparatus that the fossil fuel industry has erected," he said. "Under President Clinton the Department of Justice brought and won a civil RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act] action against the tobacco industry for its fraud. Under President Obama, the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme."
About the senator's claims, a few observations are in order:
• Few deny climate change or the existence of human contributions to it. Because there is no denial, there can be no "denial scheme."
• Large and important questions exist within climate science, especially with regard to the amount by which the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributes to observed warming. Those questions grow as the atmospheric temperature record fails to validate model predictions of dangerous warming. Science is far from settled.
• Science, in fact, is never settled. Assertions to the contrary represent propaganda.
• Comparisons of the oil and tobacco industries are specious.
Whitehouse and partners in this witch hunt cling to a false narrative that drives climate politics and prevents serious deliberation of proper questions, such as whether forced changes to human behavior can materially influence global average temperature. Their absolutism defaults to radical prescriptions doomed to collapse from the economic hardships they'd impose. It also forecloses public discussion of genuine issues and exploration of affordable and therefore durable response.
Intolerance of dissent
The problem isn't denial; it's intolerance of dissent by unreasonably self-certain advocates of futile remedies. The dogmatism takes an appalling step when it tries to criminalize conversation within companies about the nature and hazards of climate change. Officials should welcome discussion within companies about the nature and ramifications of climate change, especially discussion that accommodates a range of views. Policy on climate would benefit if the process were allowed, finally, in the political sphere.
Cherry-picking company records in service to politically motivated legal prosecution squelches debate dangerously. Free speech is a foundational American right. It matters more than anxiety about the climate.