Exactly what is a Global Warming Denier?
For more than a decade, the best science has been telling us that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate with even more alarming consequences. Extreme droughts and floods and longer-lasting and more frequent tropical storms are on the horizon. The consensus among scientists has been that the prime cause of warming is the emissions of heat-trapping gases caused by the burning of fossil fuels. So why has global warming been largely covered in the U.S. as a debate? For years, a network of organizations have worked together to block action on global warming. In the words of the U.K.’s Royal Society, one of the most prestigious scientific academies in the world, these groups “misrepresent the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence.” This network has been consistently funded by ExxonMobil. Since at least 1998, ExxonMobil has spent $17 to $23 million to bankroll these groups. Today, ExxonMobil is the only known oil giant directly bankrolling global warming denier group
A GW Denier is someone who claims temperatures have not risen. In order to claim temperatures have not risen, the denier must show that either (a) temperature records from the past have been falsified, (b) temperature records now are being falsified, or (c) both. This is distinct and different from an AGW denier, who will readily admit that temperatures have risen, but attribute the cause of the increase to factors other than human intervention.
