The O.J. tactic: Climate change skeptics sound like Simpson’s lawyers: If the winter glove won’t fit, you must acquit

Carey — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:19:45 +0000

By Bill McKibben – Guest Columnist | OregonLive.com | March 02, 2010, 5:00AM

Image: 2009 (c) Nancy Battaglia

In recent years, every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril of climate change. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the last two decades. And Earth’s major natural systems are all showing undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater and so on.

Yet because of a recent onslaught of attacks on the science of climate change, fewer Americans now believe humans are warming the planet than did just a few years ago.

The doubters of climate science have launched an enormously clever — and effective — campaign, and it’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy is perhaps the O.J. Simpson trial.

Read on: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/the_oj_tactic_climate_change_s.html

[Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist. In 1988, he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming. He is the co-founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign that organized the most widespread day of action on global warming in history.]

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The O.J. tactic: Climate change skeptics sound like Simpson’s lawyers: If the winter glove won’t fit, you must acquit