1. If you don’t like Exxon used here, pick whomever you want on that side of the debate.

2. I’m not sure what you mean by financial stakes. People care about more values in society than wealth. The point is that people who wish to squelch debate come from both sides of the issue, and in seeking to limit debate they have a lot in common.

Thanks!

The Royal Society only asked Exxon to identify the organizations through which Exxon speaks on climate change. Unlike Exxon, which can easily mask when it speaks by using unidentified proxies, everyone knows when Jim Hansen speaks. I think it is perfectly appropriate for the RS to seek to clarify the debate by asking for this information.

“Those who seek to silence their opponents, from either side of this issue, have far more in common than they might ever care to admit.”

How would you apply this to Hansen and Exxon? Are their respective financial stakes relating to climate change and political influence comparable?

Thanks for your comments. A few replies:

1. “. . . Rorschach blot . . .” Yes;-)

2. Re: Monbiot, Mooney, Roberts, etc. I can’t speak for any of them, but many people today would seem to agree with Lippmann’s diagnosis of the problem for their political opponents only and disagree with his prescription which calls for more engagement with those opponents.

3. I do agree that more debate is needed. Not over science, but as Lippmann says in his book, over science and morals. In my forthcoming book I explain this as debate over policy options. The reflexive urge to silence Jim Hansen or ExxonMobil should be countered by an effort to engage such people in debates over policy.

Those who seek to silence their opponents, from either side of this issue, have far more in common than they might ever care to admit.

Thanks!

“the more rational is overcome by the less rational, and the opinions that will prevail will be those which are held most ardently by those with the most passionate will”?

sophistry?

“exploit the ignorance, and incite the passions, of the people”?

Sounds to me like this belongs in the previous thread.

Very interesting and very relevant. I suspect that in the context of climate change, the article is like a Rorschach blot that all will read differently.

Lippmann says: “because the purpose of the confrontation is to discern truth, there are rules of evidence and of parliamentary procedure, there are codes of fair dealing and fair comment, by which a loyal man will consider himself bound when he exercises the right to publish opinions. For the right to freedom of speech is no license to deceive, and willful misrepresentation is a violation of its principles. It is sophistry to pretend that in a free country a man has some sort of inalienable or constitutional right to deceive his fellow men. There is no more right to deceive that there is a right to swindle, to cheat, or to pick pockets. It may be inexpedient to arraign every public liar, as we try to arraign other swindlers. … But, in principle, there can be no immunity for lying in any of its protean forms.”

Isn’t this the point that David Roberts was trying to make, echoing George Monbiot and Chris Mooney?

“If there is not effective debate, the unrestricted right to speak will unloose so many propagandists, procurers, and panders upon the public that sooner or later in self-defense the people will turn to censors to protect them. An unrestricted and unregulated right to speak cannot be maintained. It will be curtailed for all manner of reasons and pretexts, and to serve all kinds of good, foolish, or sinister ends.”

Let’s see: the Royal Society, Inhofe, NASA and NOAA?

Lippman suggests that the only answer is to have more open debates – do you agree, and how would you suggest we enhance the debates already underway?

It strikes me that with the rise of the modern state and PR industries, the opportunities for differing interests to fight for favors from government have grown markedly, with no particular end in sight.