The lecture reprinted below, “Mediocre Careerism, Respectability Politics, and Bad Behavior by Senior Scientists Erode Global Climate Leadership,” was given last week at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Sarah Myhre‘s session title was titled “Is environmental science serving or failing society?” Her remarks follow without comment.

“… effective action on climate change has been impeded for 30 years because of the political assassination and anti-democratic campaigns (a form of extortion, lies, intimidation, bribery, and toadery) waged by ExxonMobil, Shell, British Petroleum and other fossil fuel companies…. Their transactions of power are so damaging and genocidal….”

“Here we find the genocidal systems of white supremacy, fascism, nationalism, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. Here we find the billionaires, the oligarchs, the war mongers, the predators, the enablers.

“A recent Politico article on the bad messaging of Democrats on climate and energy, Democrats Bite on Burgers and Straws–and Republicans Feast, is fair warning. It is high time the hometown paper of the center of the oil and gas industry stop the blatant bias against the very energies that consumers naturally prefer.”

There is no representation for conservatives or libertarians on the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle. So when it comes to energy, fossil fuels (because of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions) are seen as the enemy of the climate rather than a greening agent; protection against heat, cold, and precipitation; and a first responder after weather extremes.

Mineral energies in capitalist settings have much to do with the precipitous drop of climate-related deaths in the last century–and are essential to human betterment going forward.…

Editor note: A 2008 exchange at Rossputin.com included these comments from (then) Cato Institute senior fellow Jerry Taylor and his brother James Taylor. Their arguments continue to stand today, defying Jerry’s peculiar conversion to climate alarmism/forced energy transformation.

Jerry Taylor:

“… let me note that there are very good reasons for people (not just libertarians) to be skeptical of expert scientific consensus regarding environmental doom given the track record of that community.”

“Consensus from [the alarmist] community once told us that industrial chemicals were the cause of a modern cancer epidemic; that population growth would outpace food production and usher in a Malthusian apocalypse; that mineral scarcity would soon turn off the industrial engines of the Western world; ad infinitum.”

“Conspiracy theories are not necessary to explain the proliferation of such views – information cascades and professional biases will do nicely.”…

Bradley has tackled a vast and dynamic energy landscape through the big prism of Enron. He was wise to include necessary contexts for 15 chapters of markets and personalities. Navigating FERC deregulation orders over a decade was a fearsome writing task, done well. Pipeline and power plant deals at home and abroad; solar, wind, and other alternative energies, the list goes on. Politics in Austin, Washington, DC, and foreign capitals. Enron was everywhere.

Robert L. Bradley Jr. has written a very important book about Houston’s most controversial company. This is the first of a two-volume corporate biography chronicling the rise, fall, and aftermath of Enron; his tetralogy has already produced a book on worldview (Capitalism at Work: 2009) and prehistory (Edison to Enron: 2011).

Few observers have been as ideally located to chronicle this modern-day version of a Greek tragedy.…