ALEC Denies That We're Causing Global Warming, But They Don't Want Folks To Know That They Deny Global Warming

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been around since the eighties. They draft and support business friendly legislation. As part of their mission, they have received money from oil companies, such as Exxon, to deny the existence of climate change.[1]

            They have been a big part of the global warming denialist industry, but suddenly they don’t want folks to know that they are in the denialist industry. ALEC lawyers have sent letters to Common Cause and the League of Conservation Voters telling them to immediately “cease making false statements” and “remove all false or misleading material” that may suggest that the conservative organization has any doubt about climate change.

            Common Cause and the League of Conservation Voters certainly do call out ALEC for its global warming rhetoric. You can check out instances of where the do so here (League of Conservation Voters) and here (Common Cause).

            And ALEC really does, at least in a gobbledygook sort of way deny that we humans are causing global warming. The following is from ALEC’s Position Statement on Renewables and Climate Change:

Climate change is a historical phenomenon and the debate will continue on the significance of natural and anthropogenic contributions. ALEC will continue to monitor the issue and support the use of sound science to guide policy, but ALEC will also incorporate economic and political realism. Unilateral efforts by the United States or regions within the United States will not significantly decrease carbon emissions globally, and international efforts to decrease emissions have proven politically infeasible and unenforceable. Policymakers in most cases are not willing to inflict economic harm on their citizens with no real benefit. ALEC discourages impractical visionary goals that ignore economic reality, and that will not be met without serious consequences for worldwide standard of living.

OK, nowhere in this statement do they come out and deny that we are making a very warm world with our power plants and automobiles, and I guess that ALEC’s lawyers could stand up in a court and expect to convince a judge or jury that this statement does not deny that climate change is real. But to me it’s obvious that such statements as “the debate will continue on the significance of natural and anthropogenic contributions,” reveal their intention to keep their obfuscation going.

If all of ALEC’s money came from the fossil fuel industry, they could brush aside the organizations that point out their denialism, but other companies, such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have left ALEC because of its stance on global warming. Even British Petroleum left ALEC because of its denialist position.

So ALEC wants to have it both ways. They want to serve their supporters who want them to deny that global warming is happening. And they want to bring back Google and Yahoo into their tent as well. So they are left in the very awkward position of denying their denial.

The world keeps getting warmer and my head keeps spinning.

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[1] Lee, J. S. (2003, May 28). Exxon backs groups that question global warming. New York Times

Freedom to Farm Act: Shielding Slaughterhouses and Meatpacking From Public Scrutiny

This sounds like something out of a country with a “Ministry of Truth.” And these developments are also nauseating.

            In an effort to keep the eyes of the public out of their slaughterhouses, meat processing plants, and over-crowded feed lots, the meat and dairy industries are pushing legislation in several states that would make it a crime to notify the public as to what actually goes on in the production of our food. Bills circulating in the state houses of Indiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania would make it a crime to take videos at agricultural facilities. Similar legislation is being proposed in California and several other states. The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a business backed conservative “think tank,” is providing much of the push for these laws.

            These “Ag Gag” laws are in response to academics, journalists, and activists who have shown us slaughterhouse conditions that would be recognizable to Sinclair Lewis, who chronicled his experiences in the meat packing yards of Chicago just over a century ago. Modern day men and women in the mold of Lewis have taken videos of cows being cruelly prodded with forklifts and veal calves being skinned alive. New School University assistant professor of politics Timothy Pachirat spent several years working in modern slaughterhouses and meatpacking in Omaha, Nebraska. Without the veneer of fiction that Lewis used in “The Jungle,” he describes the conditions of modern slaughterhouse work and his often stomach-churning experiences with his recent book “Every Twelve Seconds.” The book’s publication prompted the Iowa legislature to pass and the governor to sign HF 589, which makes it a criminal offence for a journalist or activist to get a job at a slaughterhouse or other agricultural facility with the intent of exposing the conditions of the places that bring us much of our food.

            In the last 30 years our food has become less safe to eat. Meat processing is now performed on a grand scale, with hundreds or thousands of pigs or cows being processed at the same time. The tainted meat from one animal now has the ability to taint thousands of pounds of hamburger or sausage shipped to dozens of states. You would think that this would prompt greater scrutiny by our government for the safety of our food, but budget cuts to the FDA that started with the Reagan administration have lead to fewer FDA workers inspecting more and more food.

            Exposing cruel or unsanitary conditions at a slaughterhouse or stockyard should make lawmakers and policy makers take notice, passing stricter food standards or providing more food inspectors, but in true “ignorance is strength” fashion, states are giving greater cover to meat and dairy producers to operate without public scrutiny. Adding to this Orwellian scenario, some of these laws label those who expose the dark underbelly of producing pork bellies as terrorists. That’s right. Taking a video of unsanitary meat processing puts you in the same league as Osama bin Laden.

And while we see less and less of how our food is produced, more people will get sick and more people will die from food poisoning. Thanks a lot, Ministry of Truth!