Friday, January 07, 2005

ExxonMobil's dog-bite defense

In a classic joke a man who defends himself in a dog-bite case uses the following arguments: "My dog doesn't bite, it wasn't my dog, and furthermore, I don't have a dog!"

So it is with the global warming's disinformation bad-boy, ExxonMobil. Worldchanging has a post on the official-sounding groups who are nothing but fronts for the company's campaign to discredit the scientific consensus on global warming. The aim appears to be merely to sow confusion. Taken together, the groups seem to be using a modified dog-bite defense, to wit: Global warming will be beneficial, but, at the very least, it won't be that bad. It costs too much to do anything about. It's not caused by humans, so there's nothing we can do about it. And, furthermore, there's no global warming!

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