Are We Feeling Global Warming? [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2007.

After a 70 degree day in NY this weekend, a record-breaking absence of snow, and a generally warm winter, questions have been roiling: Is it global warming? The answer is a complicated one, but more or less: yes.

While temps rise slowly, incrementally on the average over long periods of time, scientists tell us that we will also experience sharp spikes and trends toward broken records -- even if we do snap back and only see gradual warming in the overall numbers...

In this video excerpt Amy Goodman talks to Greenpeace's John Passacantando who discusses the recent heat wave, the effort to get Polar Bears put on the endangered species list, and ExxonMobil's scandalous efforts to drive the environmental policies of the world's most influential nation.

The most dumbfoundingly predictable part is that in addition to ExxonMobil having simply misinformed the public about global warming, as Tara lays out beautifully HERE, they also effectively sicced the IRS on Greenpeace, via their front groups, to punish them for their public disagreements. That, according to Passacantando. Watch the video, upper right.

Here's the money excerpt (full transcript HERE):

AMY GOODMAN: Right now, Greenpeace has experienced an IRS audit. Can you talk about what you went through and who you think was behind what happened to you?

JOHN PASSACANTANDO: Well, it's very clear, and it ties to the larger story about global warming. Why has the United States been so far behind the other industrialized nations in recognizing that global warming is from our emissions, CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, and so far behind taking actions? It comes down to a concerted effort by companies like ExxonMobil. Our records at Greenpeace show -- and this is all documented on a research website called exxonsecrets.org -- that between 1998 and 2005, ExxonMobil funded groups that were going to be skeptical of global warming, in some cases lie about the truth about global warming, gave them almost $20 million to confuse the American public about global warming.

Greenpeace, being one of the groups that was exposing these lies, ExxonMobil -- it was later found -- created a small group called Public Interest Watch. Public Interest Watch in 2004 wrote a completely erroneous report that said Greenpeace was...

...doing illegal things with its money. This report instigated an IRS audit that Greenpeace went through for a three-month period in 2005. Greenpeace came through this audit with flying colors, but what we later learned, a Wall Street Journal reporter found that ExxonMobil funded the group that called for Greenpeace to be audited, in fact funded the group in its entirety, in the year that it published the report, 2004. So ExxonMobil has been involved in a whole array of attempts to confuse the American public and to delay any measures to put a cap on global warming pollution.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does the US stand in relation to the rest of the world on this issue?

JOHN PASSACANTANDO: The US stands incredibly far behind virtually every other industrialized democracy. The US has essentially taken the position of ExxonMobil to the international negotiations, expressing skepticism about the science of global warming, when, in fact, it is airtight, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, now with decades of research, is showing the public just exactly what is happening from global warming. So the US administration, the Bush administration, has essentially run the oil industry's agenda.

The analogy is to the tobacco companies. The oil companies have denied global warming is a problem, and the US administration has repeated that, and now, as the evidence becomes so irrefutable, it becomes so obvious the administration is taking almost a flat earth position. They're saying, "Well, we know something's happening, but we still need more evidence and more research." It's an effort to stall.

And hopefully, now with more Democrats in the Congress and Democrats in the majority, they can push through this, actually have the hearings they need to have to expose this lie that was perpetrated on the American people by ExxonMobil and others through our government, because I believe it was really one of the great corporate crimes of the late 20th and the early 21st century.

For a somewhat funnier-seeming take on global warming, go HERE. It's not actually funnier, but it's animated... so it seems like it.

Tagged as: environment, global warming, corporate crime, greenpeace

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.