Never one to allow facts to get in the way of a good sound bite, let alone a chance to pander to her political fans, former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has dismissed the thousands of scientific studies that support global climate change as a "bunch of snake oil science."
Palin made her comments at a logging conference in northern California on February 8 2010. The event was closed to the media, but The Associated Press got around the press blackout by purchasing a ticket and sending a reporter to hear what Sarah had to say.
This wasn't the first time Palin had used the term "snake oil science" to describe climate science that confirms global temperatures are rising. She wrote the same phrase in a tweet on her Twitter account in December 2009, when she urged President Obama to boycott the international climate conference in Copenhagen because, as she wrote, "Public leary re: snake oil science."
Inconsistent Opinions on Global Warming
At the same time, Palin's position on global warming seems to be a moveable feast. She has changed her position almost as many times as she changed colleges—she attended four colleges, one of them twice—on her way to earning a communications degree from the University of Idaho in 1987. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin told an interviewer she knew global warming was a serious problem, but she wasn't convinced it was caused by human activity.
“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location," she said in August 2008. "I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made.”
Palin's comments were so far out of step with her running mate, presidential contender John McCain, and the Republican Party platform that a campaign spokesperson tried to repair the damage by touting Palin's previous work on climate change issues.
“Governor Palin not only stands with John McCain in his belief that global warming is a critical issue that must be addressed, but she has been a leader in addressing climate change,” said Maria Comella, spokeswoman for the McCain/Palin campaign.
As evidence, Comella said Palin had endorsed efforts to learn more about human impacts on climate change. Comella also pointed out that, in 2007, the former governor created the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet Agency to advise her office "on the preparation and implementation of an Alaska climate change strategy."
If Palin believes global warming is "bogus," as she has declared elsewhere, then why did she create a special state agency to prepare and implement a strategy cope with it?
In her speech to the logging conference, Palin went on to criticize what she said were heavy-handed environmental laws and regulations that make it difficult for businesses to succeed. And she told the story of how, as governor of Alaska, she sued the federal government in an effort to overturn the decision to list polar bears as a threatened species. Palin said she disagreed with the science the government used as its basis for protecting the bears.
Palin, like everyone else, is entitled to her opinion. But to really disagree with the science, one has to understand it, and Palin seems to have no better grasp of climate science than she has of economics or foreign affairs.
Palin, Climategate and Political Agendas
In an opinion piece Palin wrote for The Washington Post op-ed page in December 2009, she claimed the so-called Climategate scandal invalidated decades of climate science research and was reason enough to stop all efforts to control or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She urged President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate conference that was about to begin.
Climategate had hit the news not long before Palin's op-ed appeared, when hackers broke into an East Anglia University database and got hold of a bunch of email messages between climate scientists. Despite the claims of Palin and others at the far-right end of the political spectrum, the hacked messages actually showed little more than the frustration of respected climate scientists with the ongoing efforts of climate change deniers to mislead the public, by denying either the existence of climate change or any link to human activities, and their determination to stall the political action needed to address an increasingly urgent problem.
In her op-ed for The Washington Post, Palin writes about climate change: "But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes."
Well, first of all, Sarah, we're talking about climate change, not weather changes. And, no, it's not the same thing. Second, we can say with assurance that man's activities are a primary cause of the accelerated climate change we're now seeing. All we have to do is listen to the leading climate scientists from virtually every nation and every respected scientific body on the planet.
In the op-ed Palin continues: "We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs."
Really? How can we say that? Where is the independent research to support that statement? If you claim we can't make any link between human activities and climate change, despite decades of independent scientific research by thousands of climate scientists worldwide, then what evidence are you offering to show that the cost of fixing the problem would outweigh the benefits?
Throughout her op-ed, Palin repeatedly refers to any legitimate climate research as "agenda-driven," yet the only agenda seems to be trying to address the escalating problem of climate change rather than ignoring it. Her central theme seems to be: "I've always believed that policy should be based on sound science, not politics." Ironically, throughout her political career she has chosen to ignore sound science and the advice of expert scientists to push her own political agenda.
Next page: Is Sarah Palin Deserving of Public Trust?