Merchants of Doubt Book

[ggies07]

Alright, I might be a little late to the party on reading this book, but at least I'm reading it now. All I have to say is I'm blown away by what I'm learning.....greed and stupidity really did get (and still does) the best of us.

So far in my reading on the Climate Change chapter, which takes place in the 60s-80s, I can't believe Nierenberg was able to get the Carbon Dioxide Committee to agree on individually signed chapters presented by natural scientists and economists and then have the balls to push the economists agenda.

Then the fact that:

Tom Pestorius, senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology, said to Nierenberg on giving the report "technology will ultimately be the answer to the problems of providing energy and protecting the envirnoment."

Nierenberg simply ignored climate science in favor of the claims made by economists: treating the symptoms rather than causes would be less expensive, that new technology would solve the problems that might appear so long as government didn't interfere, and that if technology couldn't solve the problems, we could just migrate.

So that was in '79, boy did they get this wrong. The extreme storms and droughts are causing the country millions of dollars each year and new tech (mostly solar) while steeply getting cheaper year after year still has a hard time because the fossil fuel industry has taken over the country since then - making it extremely difficult for technology to answer our problems of today.

 

[Takumi]

http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/

 

[AudubonB]

The prominence of that book on my shelf is an ever-present reminder to me of hubris, of the difficulty of making the Good Call, and of the fallibility of human beings. Bob Jastrow was a good man and, on balance, a good scientist. He was, on the other hand, so wrong about some pretty simple atmospheric science and, if I recall correctly, on SDI and some other awfully large blunders.

 

[tigerade]

Here's an awesome trailer for the movie, has anyone seen it yet?

Merchants of Doubt Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Documentary HD - YouTube

 

[ggies07]

http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/

Here's an awesome trailer for the movie, has anyone seen it yet?

Merchants of Doubt Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Documentary HD - YouTube

Thanks for the trailer! Can't wait to see it.

 

[ggies07]

Watching the doc now....it's put together quite well. Good overview of the book if you haven't read it yet.

 

[nwdiver]

Watching the doc now....it's put together quite well. Good overview of the book if you haven't read it yet.

Where did you find it? iTunes?

 

[ggies07]

Where did you find it? iTunes?

Yep. Google Play and Amazon have it as well.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

 

[SR22pilot]

Yes. What got to me was the guy who took joy in having put out the email addresses of scientists so that they received death threats. His complete lack of a moral core made me sick.

When scientist are attacked people sow doubt. When you ask for the replacement there is none. For example, with cigarettes there was doubt sowed about the studies. However, studies showing cigarettes are safe were never presented. Today, doubt is cast on climate change models but alternative models don't exist. Therefore the opposition can't be tested. Science is always about testing the theory and testing the model. People just don't seem to get this.

Here's an awesome trailer for the movie, has anyone seen it yet?

Merchants of Doubt Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Documentary HD - YouTube