Taking Us for Fools

A Climate Depot piece by Roger Pielke on a familiar problem, the success of climate propaganda. Familiar but worth reading because of Pielke's stress on what he calls the use of symbols, authority, and institutions of expertise to build the propaganda.


Taking Us for Fools: How a turnkey method attributes any trend to climate change

By ROGER PIELKE JR.

Excerpt: One of the most brazen — and successful — propaganda campaigns sits out in plain sight. I am referring to the concerted effort by climate advocates to create a belief that “climate change” causes bad weather and disasters, and that we can prevent those bad things from happening with climate policies.

At the center of the propaganda campaign are scientists who perform political alchemy by turning the symbols, authority, and institutions of expertise into public and policy maker (mis)understandings of climate science. These scientists all well know that “climate policy” — however construed — cannot reduce the number or intensity of extreme weather events in any meaningful or detectable way in my lifetime, or even my future grandkids’ lifetimes.

I am using the term propaganda here as a technical term, which Harold Lasswell defined almost a century ago as, “the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols.”