ADDENDUM::House Votes To Deny Climate Science And Ties Pentagon's Hands On Climate Change | ThinkProgress

One ramification of denying science, specifically climate science . "Sea level rise impacting naval bases. Climate change altering natural disaster response. Drought influenced by climate change in the Middle East and Africa leading to conflicts over food and water — as in, for instance, Syria."

In other words, the Pentagon is concerned about the following national security issues: 1] oil supplies being cut off, making the transporting of troops and machines difficult. 2] local or regional wars, in "areas of interest" to the US, over food and water. 3] Loss of property vital to infrastructure such as farmlands, storage facilities, airports and/or sea ports.

The attitude displayed by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) et al in ignoring Pentagon concerns is reminiscent of the article I posted in March

To be most effective in spreading their message to the public to influence opinion, staffers in these groups "publish books, they give congressional testimony, they go around and make speeches, they serve as sources for newspapers, they write op-eds," Brulle said.

"It's based on a political strategy, which is to develop these arguments and get them out into the public," he said, adding that the environmental movement doesn't have equivalent think tanks. The total impact is hard to tell, but only 46 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence the world is warming, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a 2013 Pew study.

A political strategy funded by 

,,,top-tier conservative think tanks in Washington, such as the AEI and Heritage Foundation, which focus on a range of issues, as well as more obscure organisations such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the John Locke Foundation.

Funding also went to groups that took on climate change denial as a core mission – such as the Heartland Institute, which held regular conclaves dedicated to undermining the United Nations climate panel’s reports, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which tried and failed to prosecute a climate scientist, Michael Mann, for academic fraud.

“I call it the climate-change counter movement,” Brulle, told the Guardian. “It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.” And we don’t even know who’s behind it. The majority of the funders, about 75 percent, channeled their money in such a way that Brulle was unable to uncover their identities.

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With a mostly party-line vote on Thursday, the House of Representatives passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) that seeks to prevent the Department of Defense from using funding to address the national security impacts of climate change.

“You can’t change facts by ignoring them,” said Mike Breen, Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project, and leader of the clean energy campaign, Operation Free. “This is like trying to lose 20 pounds by smashing your bathroom scale.”

The full text of McKinley’s amendment reads:

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order

In other words, the House just tried to write climate denial into the Defense Department’s budget. “The McKinley amendment would require the Defense Department to assume that the cost of carbon pollution is zero,” Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) said in a letter to their colleagues before the vote. “That’s science denial at its worst and it fails our moral obligation to our children and grandchildren.”

The amendment forces the Defense Department to ignore the findings and recommendations of the National Climate Assessment and the IPCC’s latest climate assessment, specifically with regard to the national security impacts of climate change. It would also do the same for the Social Cost of Carbon, which provides a framework for rulemakers to take into account the societal, security, and economic costs associated with emitting more carbon dioxide.

House Votes To Deny Climate Science And Ties Pentagon's Hands On Climate Change | ThinkProgress

How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American

"It's based on a political strategy,,,"

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Searching for a reason major climate change legislation hasn't passed Congress yet?

You could do worse than start looking around Washington, D.C., with its endless think tanks, lobbying firms and trade groups, many of which have swung into action in the past to block such bills and stand ready to do so in the future.

[,,,]
The study's author, Robert Brulle, a sociology and environmental science professor at Drexel University, takes a systematic look at what he calls the climate change counter-movement (CCCM), made up of groups that Brulle says have an average annual income of just above $900 million, although much of that money is not even spent on climate change-related activities and is used for other issues.

To be most effective in spreading their message to the public to influence opinion, staffers in these groups "publish books, they give congressional testimony, they go around and make speeches, they serve as sources for newspapers, they write op-eds," Brulle said.

"It's based on a political strategy, which is to develop these arguments and get them out into the public," he said, adding that the environmental movement doesn't have equivalent think tanks. The total impact is hard to tell, but only 46 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence the world is warming, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a 2013 Pew study.

[,,,]
"It's like guerilla warfare; all you can hope for is to stay [in the debate] long enough for people to wake up," said Richard Lindzen, a professor emeritus of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who said he believes think tanks have "relatively little" influence over the climate debate.

[,,,]
She conceded that she hadn't read the study but said the Drexel researcher seemed to be more "systematic and intellectual honest about the whole thing" than previous researchers on the topic had been. She said that DonorsTrust does not reveal its account holders, many of them individuals from the business world, but said that "there are plenty of good reasons to be anonymous" when giving money.

She said that groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, which partly works on climate change and environmental issues, are on a "jihad against capitalism," but her group helps its donors "protect their legacy of liberty."

How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American