All language subtitles for Merchants.of.Doubt.2014.720p.BluRay.x264.YIFY.eng

My expertise is in deception.

The thing that sets magicians apart
from con men...

...and other kinds
of thieves and liars...

...is that we're honest liars.

It's the moral contract.

Please give it up for Jamy Ian Swiss.
Give it up!

Good evening. Thank you.
Thanks a lot.

We'll begin at the beginning
with incontrovertible evidence...

...of a misspent youth.

I'm saying, "I'm gonna fool you,
but it's okay." Right?

"That's my job, and I'm gonna bring you
back in a not severely altered condition."

You ever seen anybody take cards,
wave their hands...

-...and have it change into another card?
-No.

You wave your hands over it,
and it changes just like that.

You don't always have
to wave your hands over it.

Sometimes you just give it a little snap.
It changes just like that.

-Watch again, just a little snap.
-No.

It changes just like that.

I make an honest living, right?

Therefore, it offends me...

...when someone takes the skills
of my honest living, if you will...

...and uses it to twist and distort
and manipulate people...

...and their sense of reality
and how the world works.

I know how to fool people...

...and I know how to recognize
when people are being fooled.

Dioxins, pesticides,
chemicals in general.

There's no evidence
that these are harming us.

Asbestos, designed to last a lifetime...

...a trouble-free lifetime.

Catastrophic global warming is a hoax.

There's no scientific consensus.

There is no consensus. This is a myth.

Cigarette smoking
does not cause cancer, yes or no?

It is not known
whether cigarettes cause cancer.

There really isn't
a scientific consensus.

Do you accept the basic premise
that smoking kills?

No, I think that the scientists
who make statements like that...

...are making political statements,
not scientific statements.

-How do you spell your name?
-G-L-A-N-T-Z.

-I got it.
-I can give you a card.

-No, it's all right. Stan, right?
-No?

-Or Stanton. Stan.
-Are you a...?

I got involved in the tobacco issue
in 1978...

...over clean indoor air. Then, the radical
thing was to have a nonsmoking section.

Good evening, the captain
has turned off the no-smoking sign.

Smoking was everywhere.

It was on airplanes.

It was in restaurants.

I work in a hospital.

People were smoking in the hospital.

What in the world is so wrong
about smoking in the workplace?

I mean, I smoke on my job every night.
I'm not hurting anyone.

-Well, that's bullshit.
-Is it?

One thing you've gotta be willing to do
when you're doing science...

...that is not in the interest
of these giant corporations...

...when people come after you
for baloney reasons...

...you've gotta be willing
to stand up to them.

I don't know of any evidence,
conclusive evidence.

-Here. You could read this.
-Let me ask you something.

-Let me ask you something.
-Read this.

Let me ask you one simple
damn question. Hold on.

We spent a long time
banging our heads up against the wall...

...because these guys are rich,
they're politically powerful...

...and they're mean.

-How old are you?
-I'm 42.

Forty-two. Now, I smoke four packs
of cigarettes a day.

I am 55.

Wait a sec, wait a sec, wait a sec.

Tell me if I don't look
20 years younger than this asshole.

Come on.

But when you went to policy makers
or the media...

...and talk about just how dishonest
and manipulative they were...

...people would kind of think
you were a little paranoid delusional.

And then the whole situation changed.

I'm sitting in my office
on the 11th floor of the hospital...

...and a box arrives.

And in there
was thousands of pages...

...of internal
tobacco industry documents.

The documents in the box
came from somebody on the inside...

...working for the companies...

...copying a bunch of documents
and sneaking them out...

...and making them available
to people on the outside.

We now have over 80 million pages...

...and the great bulk of those
have become available...

...because of lawsuits
against the tobacco companies.

The thing that is so important
about the documents...

...is it gets you behind the veil,
it gets you inside the companies...

...where you don't have to speculate
about what they're doing.

You could read about it.

That the tobacco companies knew
smoking caused cancer in the '50s.

It is not known
whether cigarettes cause cancer.

That they knew smoking
caused heart disease in the '60s.

No causal relationship between
cigarette smoking and heart disease?

No, as a matter of fact there are--

That they knew nicotine
was an addictive drug in the '60s.

Yet 30 years later, the CEOs
of all the big tobacco companies...

...stood up under oath and told Congress
that nicotine wasn't addictive.

-You believe nicotine is not addictive?
-I believe nicotine is not addictive, yes.

I don't believe our products
are addictive.

-Not addictive.
-Not addictive.

-It's not addictive.
-Not addictive.

The science that they did internally
was very good, often decades ahead...

...of what people on the outside
were doing.

It's just that you don't want the people
on the outside...

...to know
what that evidence is saying.

The tobacco issue broke
into the public consciousness in 1953.

Faced with undeniable evidence
that smoking was killing people...

...they did what any self-respecting
big corporation would do.

They hired a public relations firm.

And Hill and Knowlton said to the heads
of all the big tobacco companies:

"You can't deny the evidence.

You can't say smoking
doesn't cause cancer.

But what you can do is cast doubt."

I think there's a great deal of doubt as
to whether or not cigarettes are harmful.

Smoking may be hazardous,
it may not be.

Smoking may be hazardous,
it may not be.

It may be or it may not be.
We don't know.

None of the things which have
been found in tobacco smoke...

...are at concentrations
which can be considered harmful.

But the components themselves
can be considered harmful, can they not?

Anything can be considered harmful.

Applesauce is harmful
if you get too much of it.

I don't think many people
are dying from applesauce.

They're not eating that much.

The playbook that big tobacco
developed to attack science...

...worked for them for 50 years.

Because every day that they can delay
effective policy action...

...is one more day
that they can make more money.

They can be out there
selling a product...

...that's killing a half-a-million Americans
a year and get away with it.

And so other businesses that were faced
with regulatory challenges...

...had to look at this and say,
"Boy, if this works for tobacco...

...we ought to be able
to use that playbook too."

What's happened is that people working
on a whole range of other issues...

...that you wouldn't think had much
to do with tobacco...

...have gone into the documents
and found things...

...that we never would have thought
to have looked for.

My partner and I,
we were both ready...

...to take on a new project,
something we could sink our teeth into.

And almost everybody said:

"You should be looking
at flame retardants."

I had no idea that there were flame
retardants in my couches, my chairs.

These are chemicals measured
by ounces and pounds.

In the average couch, there could be
up to 2 pounds of flame retardants.

We all wind up with the chemicals
in our bodies because of it.

Because those chemicals come out
of the foam, they migrate in the dust.

American babies are born
with the highest levels...

...of flame retardant chemicals
of any place in the world.

They're linked to health problems.

And kids are the most vulnerable.

So then the big question was,
"Do they really protect us from fires?"

One of the early breakthroughs was...

...when we talked
to the leading fire scientist.

It was his study that the chemical
industry was holding up as proof...

...that flame retardants work.

And yet when we talked to him, he said,
"They're grossly distorting my work."

That flame retardants in your house...

...they don't protect you from anything.

And then I thought, "Wow, okay.

We have them in our bodies,
they're rising exponentially...

...and they don't work?

How can that be?"

In the '70s, thousands of people
were dying in fires started by cigarettes.

When you smoked a cigarette
and put it down...

...it could burn for up to 30 minutes
after you'd put it down.

The tobacco industry
was under pressure...

...to create
a self-extinguishing cigarette.

Tobacco kept insisting,
"We can't do it."

You start tampering
with a cigarette...

...it is a very highly technical
and complex undertaking.

They didn't want to alter a product...

...that was making them
billions of dollars a year.

So what they needed
was a scapegoat.

And they had this perfect scapegoat,
and it was furniture.

The furniture was to blame here.

You need to fireproof the world
around the cigarette.

The cigarette industry at that time
was having credibility problems...

...so they needed a credible third party
to go out there and deliver their message.

There was this document
in the tobacco archives...

...that laid bare their strategy
in pretty callous language.

"You have to try to understand
who is a potential threat to you...

...so you can neutralize them.

Example,
the self-extinguishing cigarette.

Who would be involved
in the self-extinguishing cigarette...

...on the other side of the fence?
The firefighting community."

This is an international group
of executives.

He's saying,
"This is what you need to do.

Find your enemies.
In this case the fire service.

Those folks are a real threat to us.
Neutralize them."

"We had turned them around
and made allies.

Third-party defenders for ourselves."

So there was a guy at the Tobacco
Institute named Peter Sparber.

The Tobacco Institute
planted Peter Sparber...

...inside the National Association
of State Fire Marshals.

And the fire marshals named him
their legislative representative.

What the fire marshals didn't know
was that big tobacco...

...was paying him $200 an hour for work
they thought was volunteer work.

So in some ways
he's almost like a spy.

He would go in,
he would talk to the fire marshals.

And he convinced them that they should
deliver the message of big tobacco.

That it's not cigarettes causing
all these fatal fires, it's the furniture.

Manufacturers had to put pounds
of toxic chemicals...

...into the cushions of your couch.

You have to hand it
to Peter Sparber.

I don't think there's too many guys
that could pull that off.

He said, "If you can do tobacco...

...you can do just about anything
in public relations."

Peter Sparber went on to work
for the pesticide industry, the oil industry.

There are other Peter Sparbers
out there.

You see the same small group of people
that the tobacco industry used...

...working on all kinds of other issues.

This is not what the drunk driving debate
is about.

This is political sound bites
instead of good science.

They had developed
a certain set of skills...

...that a lot of industries
are gonna want.

Dioxins, pesticides,
chemicals in general.

There's no evidence
that these are harming us.

The only way these guys
are actually effective...

...is if the public thinks
they're an independent voice.

Steve, first of all,
are you in bed with big oil...

...and if so, how good in bed are they?

Not in bed with anyone, just trying
to do the right thing on climate change.

Red. Watch it. You win. You lose.

Red. Watch it. You win. You lose.

You lose. See.

How did you miss that one?

Nobody ever won
at Three-Card Monte in history.

They've been playing it for 150 years,
and nobody's won.

That one's your red.
That one's your black.

People want to think
that the Three-Card Monte...

...is all about the sleight-of-hand
maneuver the Monte operator uses...

...to switch one card for another.

That's the least of it.

The Monte operator, he wants
to instill that confidence in you.

That's where "con" comes
in con game.

And so he enlists
the assistance of confederates...

...shills, people who stand there
and bet with money and watch the game.

The shill wins so that you have
the confidence...

...that the Monte operator will pay.

Pay me. Thank you. Thank you.

They're gonna look
like they're independent.

The idea of how to mask the shill...

...how to make the shill
look legitimate to the audience...

...so that they're not suspect
when they're playing the game...

...is all part of the psychology.

The game does not work
without that concealment.

The evidence does not support
the notion...

...that humans are causing
global warming.

There is no scientific basis for alarm.

We do not know enough
about what affects climate.

We don't know if there's a problem.

Climate scientists
have a political agenda...

...and they are using science
to drive that political agenda.

First of all, Dr. Hansen, say your name,
spell your last name, give your title.

Well, I'm James Hansen.

I'm the head of the Goddard Institute
for Space Studies. And it's H-A-N-S-E-N.

Okay.

You've created quite a stir.

Are you glad that the stir is happening?

Well, I think that it's important
to have the attention...

...on the possible climate changes.

-Let's try that again.
-Sure.

-You want to ask the question?
-No.

No, you just go ahead
and answer them.

Well, I think that--
What I'd like to say is that, frankly...

...I would rather do my research
than be interviewed for TV.

What made you fall in love
with science?

Well, that's what I could do.

I could do physics and mathematics.
That was easy for me.

I got into science with NASA...

...as the space program
was just getting started.

I had proposed an experiment to go
to Venus on the Pioneer Venus mission.

The question was,
"Well, why was Venus so hot?"

As it turned out, the greenhouse effect
was the reason...

...why Venus had a temperature
of about 600 degrees.

We started realizing
that our own atmosphere was changing.

So I then began to work full-time...

...on understanding our planet
instead of Venus.

The CO2 that we put in the air
by burning fossil fuels...

...will stay in the climate system
for millennia.

It's like putting a blanket
around the planet.

It holds in the heat.

Civilization has developed
in the last several thousand years...

...in a climate
that has been very stable...

...varying by no more
than about one degree.

So if you warm up a few degrees...

...you're putting the planet
outside that which has existed...

...for hundreds of thousands of years.

We'd just assumed that humanity
would take sensible actions...

...to avoid undesirable consequences.

Thank you for being here.

Dr. Hansen, if you'd start us off,
we'd appreciate it.

Mr. Chairman and members--

You have to talk
right into the microphone.

These are not high-tech microphones.

You have to pull it right over close
and talk right into it or people can't hear.

-Okay.
-There you go.

Most scientists
are not good communicators.

We're not trained to do that.

Science itself is hard enough...

...without trying to communicate
with the public.

The global warming
is now large enough...

...that we can ascribe
with a high degree of confidence...

...a cause-and-effect relationship
to the greenhouse effect.

So in 1988, Jim Hansen testifies,
and the news media reports it.

It could mean devastating changes
to life on Earth.

John Passacantando,
executive director of Greenpeace.

I just trundled into this fight...

...as really just another
earnest environmentalist.

I've worked on this for 20 years.

Environmentalists, we thought
this was a fight about science.

Get the science out there,
into the media...

...politicians will listen,
we can solve this.

The question is,
what will the White House do about it?

Politicians, even President Bush,
say, "We're gonna tackle this."

Those who think we're powerless
with this greenhouse effect...

...are forgetting
about the White House effect.

So the fossil fuel industry realizes
it has an enormous problem.

Bill O'Keefe is executive vice president
of the American Petroleum Institute.

He's also a board member
of the Global Climate Coalition...

...made up of oil and electric companies,
automakers and others.

We believed it was a war on oil,
they had an off-oil agenda.

Climate change was part of that.

I think that it's unfortunate
that the science...

...is so distorted and misstated....

The science is complicated,
and there are lots of factors.

You have to understand
the whole picture.

There is a natural variability
that has nothing to do with man.

Climate is changing naturally.

It has to do with sunspots,
the wobble of the Earth.

And so it's not too difficult...

...to persuade some of the public
that we really don't know for sure.

So let's wait awhile.
We need to have more proof.

We need more data.

The science isn't there
to make a determination.

There is no need for us to rush
to this kind of judgment....

Others put out ads saying
more pollution is gonna be good for us.

A doubling of the CO2
in the atmosphere...

...will produce a tremendous greening
of Planet Earth.

CO2 benefits plant life.

It's increasing
the bounty of the planet...

...our ability to feed populations.

What you see
from the coal industry...

...is analogous to what
the tobacco industry used to do.

They refuse to change. They're trying
to convince us that it's good for us.

The way they used to say,
"Luckys make you healthy."

So there's this hope that,
as the science continues to emerge...

...the public will become aware...

...and our political leaders
will solve this problem.

But that's not what happened.

I was always interested in broader
questions about scientific knowledge.

Why we believe some things
and not others.

How do scientists come
to consensus?

What does it take for scientists to say,
"Yes, we know this is true"?

The problem is, there's no consensus
on what's causing it.

Consensus has not been met
among scientists....

A decade after Hansen
had testified in Congress...

...that climate change
was happening...

...the media are still presenting this
as a big scientific debate.

Gentlemen, I'm sure that this debate
is gonna continue for a long, long time.

I had the idea
that we could test this question...

...of whether or not there was
a consensus among scientists.

Active scientists,
people who are doing research...

...and publishing in journals.

Not the public at large,
not politicians, but scientists.

And so we got a list
of all of the papers...

...that had been published
from 1992 to 2002...

...that had used that key word phrase
"global climate change."

And then we read them.

The question was...

...how many of these papers disagree
that most of the observed warming...

...is due to the increase
in greenhouse gas concentrations?

So I certainly thought
we would get some that disagreed.

And when we found nothing...

...then I thought, "Oh, this is a result
that needs to be published."

When my article
on the scientific consensus came out...

...I started getting threatening e-mails,
saying that I was a communist...

...that I should be fired from my job.

A few people began to say to me:

"Other people have also been attacked
in a way that seems similar."

People who worked on acid rain,
who worked on the ozone hole.

I started doing research on the people
who were attacking me.

And that's when I discovered
a startling fact.

They were the same people...

...who had attacked the scientists
on all these issues.

Then I began to realize, "This is a debate,
but this is not a scientific debate."

And if it's not scientific,
then the question becomes:

"Well, what sort of a debate is it?"

Dr. Fred Singer was greeted
like a rock star...

...at a recent meeting
of global warming skeptics.

This 84-year-old,
Princeton-trained physicist...

...is the grandfather
of a movement...

...that rails against
the broad scientific understanding...

...that global warming is real,
man-made and potentially catastrophic.

It's all bunk. It's all bunk.

There are so many scientists
who disagree with you.

The IPCC, NASA, NOAA,
the National Academy of Sciences...

...American Association
for the Advancement of Science...

...The American Geophysical Union,
The American Meteorological Society.

We're talking about scientists
all over the globe.

What can I say? They're wrong.

When we talk about scientists,
there are really two camps.

Those of us who wish to have decisions
that are evidence-based...

...are called, not just skeptics,
which is a good word...

...but they're called deniers.

And some of us are called criminals.

What would you call yourself?

Well, I consider myself,
primarily, a scientist.

A major part of the mystery
of this story...

...was to understand
the scientists in the story.

This whole thing doesn't work
unless there are credible voices.

Eminent scientists,
Drs. Singer and Seitz...

...promote the skeptic view
on climate change.

Singer and Seitz rose to high positions
of influence and power...

...within the American
scientific establishment.

Fred Seitz was one of the most important
American physicists of the 20th century.

He was the president of the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences.

But now we see him starting
to attack science and scientists...

...in areas
in which he has no expertise.

So why would a man like that question
the work of his own scientific colleagues?

One of the other things
that emerged was that Seitz...

...had worked for the R.J. Reynolds
Tobacco Company.

The blame for smoking
should be placed upon smokers.

If they buy them,
it's their responsibility.

Yeah, but you know
that in the '80s...

...the tobacco company very clearly
said that there wasn't a direct linkage.

If people wanted to believe that,
it was their own doing.

But was that also political on the part
of the tobacco companies?

-Well, they wanted to keep up sales.
-Yeah.

Was it irresponsible on the part
of the tobacco companies?

It was irresponsible
on the part of the smokers.

Fred Singer, like Fred Seitz,
also worked with the tobacco industry.

You can find many documents that attest
to his relationship with Philip Morris.

I still think that the EPA has cooked
the data on secondhand smoke.

I am annoyed by the fact
that this tobacco business...

...comes up every time
when I speak about global warming...

...which has nothing to do
with tobacco.

So why did Seitz and Singer do this?

Why would they make common cause
with the tobacco industry?

Most people assume
the answer's money.

But it was clear to me early on
that that wasn't the whole story.

Lift off.

Lift off at 34 minutes....

Both Seitz and Singer
are Cold War scientists.

They both worked on Cold War
weapons and rocketry programs.

I was primarily concerned
with building instrumentation...

...to be put into captured V2 rockets.

We felt the threat
of the Soviet Union quite strongly.

They also shared a kind of political
ideology, deeply, deeply anti-communist.

When the Cold War ends...

...they begin systematically attacking
all these other issues.

There's a bit of a mystery. What do
these things all have in common?

All of these issues are issues
that involve...

...the need for government action.

That's when the penny dropped.

I began to realize,
none of this is about the science.

This is a political debate
about the role of government.

So in a number of places,
we found these people saying...

...they see environmentalists
as creeping communists.

They're Reds under the bed,
they call them watermelons...

...Green on the outside,
Red inside...

...and they worry
that environmental regulation...

...is a slippery slope to socialism.

Socialism will not be buried
under the ruins of the Berlin Wall.

We're not seeing
the end of communism.

But the beginning of a new threat to free
enterprise and to liberal democracies.

By any other name...

...government control of the economy is
still government control of the economy.

I call them watermelons.

They're Green on the outside,
but Red on the inside.

You know,
at the end of the Cold War...

...we threw these people
out the window Red...

...and now they've walked
back in the front door Green.

I'll tell you what the environmental
movement is in this country.

It is the modern home...

...of the socialist-slash-communist
movement in America.

This bill is Green on the outside
and inside it's deep communist Red.

The further down the road somebody
gets in terms of their commitment...

...behaviorally and ideologically
with a social group, a tribe--

"Our tribe doubts climate change.
That's what we do."

Whether you care or not,
your tribe believes a bunch...

...of other things that you also believe,
so you buy the package.

I am Michael Shermer,
director of The Skeptic Society.

We investigate the paranormal,
pseudoscience...

...and cults and claims
of all kinds between.

Some people call us debunkers...

...but there's a lot of bunk that needs
debunking and that's part of our job.

When I say, "Where's the spacecraft?"
You say, "They hid it."

Your whole case is based
on anecdotes.

You gotta have a piece of the spacecraft,
as I've always said.

Bring back one of those probes.

We did one on Holocaust deniers.

Vaccinations,
"Do Vaccines Cause Autism?"

We've done many issues
on climate change.

I became skeptical
of the environmental movement...

...when a lot of the predictions
they made in the '70s--

When I was in college
and taking classes in these subjects.

--it was clear they weren't coming true.
They exaggerated.

Sometime in the next 15 years,
the end will come.

An utter breakdown of the capacity
of the planet to support humanity.

And when civilization collapses
on this earth...

...as it will within this decade,
it's going to hit the U.S. first.

Rain forests would disappear
and we'd run out of oil, and all that.

Overpopulation will destroy the Earth.

And billions of people
would be starving to death...

...because we don't have food
to feed them.

None of that happened,
It didn't even remotely happen.

By the late '90s,
the global warming thing...

...it became kind of
a secular apocalypse...

...sort of a millenarianism for liberals.

It's not just a prediction,
it was like, "Oh, boy.

Disaster is coming, and we,
the chosen ones, well, we were right.

We'll come out the other side
and say, 'See, we were right."'

So I was a climate skeptic
for several decades, actually.

But data trumps politics.

In the end,
you have to follow the data.

I read, you know, all the leading books
and scientific papers.

I'm trained enough to realize
what the data actually show.

I thought,
"Oh, my God, this stuff is real."

Take all the politics out...

...the Earth is getting warmer...

...and we're the cause,
no question about it.

So this isn't the greatest hoax
ever sold to the American people?

No, climate change is not
the greatest hoax ever sold to us.

But people on the right,
they really think it is, even Libertarians.

I go to this Libertarian conference every
summer, Freedom Fest in Las Vegas.

The Cato Institute
is a Libertarian think tank.

We're dedicated to free markets
and individual liberty.

Freedom from government,
limited government.

The Heartland Institute believes
warming is not man-made.

This is our event today. James Taylor
is with The Heartland Institute.

-Okay.
-Who is he debating?

He is debating Mr. Shermer...

...who is--
He writes for Skeptic Magazine...

...but James Taylor
is doing the skeptic side today.

We'll see what happens at the debate.
Yeah, we'll go to that.

They think of me as some liberal crazy,
conspiracy-- Putting together this con--

This made-up story
about climate change.

I'm like, "I used to be on your side.
All I did was look at the data."

I've been Libertarian
my whole adult life.

Since I read Atlas Shrugged in college,
like everybody else here.

I prefer to read
The Wall Street Journal...

...and ignore The NY Times...

...because The Journal tells me
what I like to know is true.

So what flipped me
was just sort of looking at the data...

...and all the new data
that had come in the early 2000s.

Ninety-nine percent
of the world's glaciers are retreating.

Why don't people change their minds
when new data comes in about climate?

Because it isn't about the data.

It's about me being
a consistent tribal member...

...and showing to my fellow tribe
members that you can count on me.

The whole global warming debate
is based upon your team...

-...starting out--
-"My team."

Yeah, your team. Starting out
by making the declaration...

...that carbon dioxide
causes temperature change.

First, it's not fifty-fifty.

It's not like half of scientists say this
and the other half say that.

Almost none of them
say what my opponent says.

-That's a lie.
-No, none. I showed you the chart. No.

-Ninety-nine percent of scientists--
-That's a lie!

You can repeat it,
but it won't make it true.

Ninety-nine percent
have said that it's real.

-That is a bold-faced lie.
-No, it is not.

When I go into these debates,
it feels like I'm going...

...into a Twilight Zone episode.

You know, where black is white,
up is down...

...and everything is just the opposite
of what you think it is.

Two parallel worlds
that exist side by side.

And each of us
has a counterpart in this world.

Carbon dioxide increases
have followed--

Whenever I deal with climate deniers,
it's almost like a mirrored reality.

I put up the slide showing
the Earth getting warmer...

...and the other guys put up
the same slide:

"The Earth is getting cooler."

Temperatures now
are not abnormally warm.

They're abnormally cool.

Another dimension?
Another world parallel to ours?

You call that rational?

When you look
at climate scientists...

...we know who they are,
they work in science labs.

On the other side,
people are not scientists.

Global warming....

Or if they are scientists,
they're not climate scientists.

They're a political, ideological group...

...that just mines the data
that somebody else gets...

...and cherry-picks data that fits
what they already want to be true.

An international group of scientific
experts said in no uncertain terms...

...global warming is real...

...and it's almost certainly caused
by what we humans do to this planet.

The IPCC is the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change...

...and it literally consists of thousands
of professional climate scientists...

...from all over the world.

And then we have the NIPCC.

You can say "Not IPCC."
We call it "nip-ick."

We reached the opposite conclusion.

I want to-- I want to stress that
we didn't add any new scientific work.

They present themselves
as scientific.

They use graphics to make them
look like the scientific reports...

...they're trying to discredit.

This is a report produced by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And here is the mirror of that
produced by the Cato Institute.

They've adopted the exact
same page layout and design.

If you're a congressman, how do you tell
the difference between this and this one?

And that's the point of this deception.

This is kind of an extended summary.

-It's called a synthesis report.
-Yeah.

The actual IPCC report
is about so thick.

And how thick is your NIPCC report?

Same.

-It's same.
-You're as thick as they are?

We strictly use the same thickness.

So it's 97 percent of them
and one of you.

There's hundreds of us,
hundreds, thousands of us.

Look, 31,000 scientists
and engineers...

...signed a statement to the contrary
to what you just read.

-The Oregon Petition?
-Yes.

The Oregon Petition claims
to be signed by climate scientists...

...who disagree with the mainstream
view of the scientific community.

If you actually look at it,
what you find is in many cases...

...they aren't scientists at all.

Somebody put on there
the Spice Girls.

Somebody else put on there
Michael J. Fox.

Even Charles Darwin made the list.

And in fact the claim
was so obviously false...

...the National Academy
took the unprecedented step...

...of publicly disavowing this petition.

More than 31,000 scientists
signed a petition....

And yet, it gets cited
and it gets repeated.

More than 31,000 scientists....

More than 31,000 American scientists
rejecting global warming alarmism.

They give the impression that it's a very
big network with lots of scientists.

But if you look closely...

...you see it's a small number of people,
really just a handful.

Hey, Fred.

It's kind of an amazing accomplishment
when you think of it...

...that such a small group of people have
an enormous impact on public opinion.

So that more than half the American
people think that the science isn't settled.

Reach out and touch another one.
This one here? Okay.

Jason's card. Take a look at that.
Try and remember it.

Don't tell me what it is.
I just want you to tell me when you see it.

As a magician I work hard to prevent my
audience from seeing through the trick.

A lot of people think
the hand is quicker than the eye.

It's not really true. It's just the eye sees
a lot of things the mind never notices.

Having trouble, I can tell.

What card are you looking for,
maybe I can help. What?

The four of--? Really?
Was it really the four of hearts?

-It's under my cocktail. Show it to them.
-No, it's not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And now maybe if you watch it enough
times with the benefit of a recording...

...maybe you figure out the trick.

I don't want you to tell me what it is,
I want you to tell me when you see it.

But if you actually see the method,
once you see that, you won't un-see it.

Then you can see me
put it there time and time again.

Once revealed, never concealed.

It sort of comes back
to that idea of a playbook, right?

What shape is it gonna take next?

But look at this, see? See, there's this.

As science started catching up
to the flame-retardant chemical makers...

...their tactics got even bolder.

Senate Bill 1-4-7.

In 2011, a bill was up
that would have changed the rule...

...so companies didn't have to add
pounds of flame retardants to furniture.

Firefighters get cancer
at alarming rates.

There were firefighters
arguing that the rule didn't work.

There were breast-feeding mothers
arguing they don't want it in babies' milk.

Public health officials saying this isn't
good for us. I wanted to see...

...what does the other side say?

Hi, I'm Dr. David Heimbach.

The real star-witness
was the burn surgeon.

And I've actually gotten
a Compassion Award...

...from the Dalai Lama last year.

He told this sad and dramatic story.

A 7-week-old baby was in a crib...

...laying on a fire-retardant mattress...

...on a non-fire retardant pillow.

Mom put a candle in the crib...

...candle fell over,
the baby sustained a 50-percent burn.

The entire upper half
of her body was burned.

Now, this is a tiny, little person, no bigger
than my Italian greyhound at home.

She ultimately died...

...after about three weeks
of pain and misery in the hospital.

I literally heard a gasp
when he told the story about this baby.

He had the room in his hand.

-Price?
-No.

Price, no. Emerson?

When David Heimbach finished
speaking, you knew the bill would fail.

Okay, can I tuck you in?

Okay, can I tuck you in?

I remember flying back to Chicago and
seeing my boys sleeping in their cribs...

...and I'm thinking,
"Why would any mother...

...put a candle in her baby's crib?"

I got back to the newsroom,
what I talked to Sam about:

"So, what have they argued
in the past?

When have these bills come up before?
Did Dr. Heimbach show up?"

Last month I won a...

...Unsung Heroes of Compassion
Award from the Dalai Lama.

Sure enough,
Heimbach had testified...

...and he told different stories
about babies...

...who burned to death in candle fires.

Tell you about a child
I took care of in April...

...about a 9-week-old baby,
about the size of a teddy bear....

And that's when Sam and I
sat down, we're like:

"We got three babies
who died in candle fires...

...all treated at Dr. Heimbach's hospital.
We gotta find those babies."

So I called
the medical examiner's office.

Asked them to run a computer program of
18 years of deaths of babies or toddlers...

...where Dr. Heimbach
had his hospital and practice.

There was not any death of any child...

...that matched
Dr. Heimbach's description.

I thought the best thing to do
was just to call him at home.

I said, "Those kids you talked about,
did they all die in your hospital?"

And he said,
"It wasn't factual, it was anecdotal."

And he said, "Listen, the details
don't matter. The principle matters."

I go, "What's the principle?"
He says, "The principle...

...is flame retardants work." I said,
"That's not what you testified."

And he said,
"Well, I wasn't under oath."

Were either one of you paid for your
time here in opposition to the bill?

Citizens for Fire Safety.

Okay, thank you.

Citizens for Fire Safety
are paying for my trip here, yes.

Records showed that they paid
Dr. Heimbach $2 40,000.

So who is
Citizens for Fire Safety, right?

What they were claiming was,
they were a broad coalition.

Their website had this picture
of five smiling kids holding...

...a hand-drawn banner
with the words "Fire Safety" on it...

...and there was a heart dotting the I.

Turns out, that in California, that if
you have fewer than 50 members...

...in your trade group, you have
to disclose who your members are.

Who were the members? The members
were the three largest makers...

...of flame retardants in the world.
All that was in that group.

So there was no question...

...Citizens for Fire Safety
was a front group.

The story came out,
and Citizens for Fire Safety folded.

And the law changed.
So now companies can make furniture...

...without flame retardants.

But that took two years
of investigating.

Citizens for Fire Safety was pretending
to be looking out for consumers...

...when in reality it was looking out
for the interests of its funders.

How many other groups are out there
doing the same thing?

In the 1980s, after I had testified,
I decided to...

...bail out of the public aspect
of this problem...

...because I was very uncomfortable
in that role.

And I thought,
as the story becomes clearer...

...we will then take the actions
that are needed.

By the year 2000, it had become so clear
that we were not doing anything.

The science has become so clear.

The things that we predicted
are actually happening...

...and some of them are even
happening faster than we thought.

The ice cap has shrunk 23 percent.

The ice is already 50 percent smaller.

-Every state in the U.S. set a heat record.
-Driest year in half a century.

Massive Arizona wildfire....

This storm may be the strongest
tropical cyclone on Earth...

-...to make landfall.
-A category five...

...and that is only because
there are no categories above five.

We know as much about
how the climate works...

...as doctors know about
how your body works.

The scientific method is, you have to
continually reassess your conclusions.

As soon as there's new data, you ask,
"How does that affect my interpretation?"

And you're open-minded.

What we're up against is people
who have a preferred answer...

...and so then they take
the position of a lawyer.

They're going to defend their client,
and they will only present you...

...with the data that favors their client.

As the scientific community
coalesces around believing...

...climate change is underway, it's at that
moment that we see the think tanks...

...moving into the media environment
and trying to argue the opposite.

In the missile age, it is vital
to try to picture in advance...

...how crises might develop.

So the idea behind a think tank
is to think.

One early example of a think tank
is the RAND Corporation...

...which was set up to give advice...

...about how to solve problems
that the military faced.

I find it difficult to see how we could
say it was an air-dropped weapon.

What is of use is if you have
an independent group who can...

...look at data,
work through the issue of...

...what would solutions
to that problem look like.

Is there a capability of tracking them?
I don't know.

It devolves into something
that's highly partisan...

...and has made up its mind
in advance what the answer is.

So what we begin to see is think tanks
taking up climate change as an issue...

...but not from the point of view of science
but from the point of view of the politics.

And one of the first groups to do that
is the George C. Marshall Institute.

I work on motorcycles.

Either the bike starts and runs right,
or it doesn't.

And if it doesn't, there's no weaseling
your way out of the fact.

And I like that about it.
You might say the BS quotient is low.

Unless you're working on Harleys, in
which case it can actually be pretty high.

I got myself
into a PhD program at Chicago.

So when I finished, I got a phone call
from a former teacher...

...who informed me about this job...

...at the Marshall Institute.

And, you know, the salary was huge.

At Marshall Institute, coming into it
knowing that they were sort of...

...on the skeptical side
of the global warming stuff...

...you know, I was more or less
down with that.

At the same time that I started,
there was a new president.

O'Keefe was a different kind
of animal.

He had come
from sort of the business world...

...so he had a different mentality.

He liked to mention
that he knew Karl Rove.

So in other words, he's plugged-in
and he's an operator.

It's an incredibly complex subject,
and it's really about politics...

...and political control...

...and control of economic means
of production.

Climate is just a mechanism.

I'm pleased to be part
of your program...

...and you're in the offices
of the George C. Marshall Institute.

A small science-policy think tank.

Is Marshall actually doing science?

No, we're not doing science.

What I try to do is make sure
our work reaches decision makers...

...reaches people in the media...

...so that we are part of shaping
the public policy debate.

I think a lot of people who get into that
think tank world start out as intellectuals...

...but, you know,
in the mixing pot of Washington...

...arguments become weapons.

Part of this was gathering arguments
that were already out there...

...they weren't always compatible
with one another.

Sometimes the argument was that,
"The Earth is not warming."

We don't see a warming
of the atmosphere in the last 50 years.

At another time the argument would be,
"Well, yes, the Earth is warming...

...but it's not due to human activities."

The fact that glaciers are melting
does not mean that the cause is human.

It only means that it's getting warmer.

At another time the argument would be,
"Yes, it is warming...

...and it's due to human activities, but
the cost of doing something about it...

...would be ruinous for society."

Of course there is a human influence
on climate.

We've known it for a decade or more.

If they go ahead
and regulate CO2 as a pollutant...

...it will basically stop economic growth
in the United States.

And this is what many
of the enviros want.

The occasion for me finally quitting...

...was that I got a call
from somebody...

...who was updating
a directory of lobbyists...

...and they wanted to know
if Bill O'Keefe...

...was indeed the president
of the George C. Marshall Institute.

I said, "Yeah, but why are you asking?

Why--? Is he part of this directory?"
And they said, "Yes."

I confronted O'Keefe and said,
"Are you a registered lobbyist?"

And he got extremely angry.

I tried to get him to tell me, if he was,
who his clients were. He wouldn't tell me.

And when you went to Marshall...

...were you still connected in any way
to the petroleum business?

I think I had--
Yes, I had an oil company as a client.

So were you a lobbyist
when you went to work for Marshall?

I was still registered as a lobbyist.

That seemed
utterly preposterous to me...

...that you would have...

...as the president of a think tank
a guy who's a registered lobbyist.

It's just the whole pretense of the place
goes out the window at that point.

And so we had sort of a blowup
and I quit.

So for me, at least, there's more
real thinking going on in a bike shop...

...than there was in the think tank.

If you were hired by
a Greenpeace organization to figure out...

...how to present climate as a problem,
what would you--?

-What would you suggest to them?
-They couldn't afford me.

At the same time
O'Keefe is a lobbyist for ExxonMobil....

When I was at Greenpeace, we looked
into who was funding these think tanks.

And you started to find ExxonMobil...

...and the Koch brothers
and the Southern Company.

...and the Koch brothers
and the Southern Company.

ExxonMobil has been a major funder
of climate change disinformation.

They funded
over 30 different organizations...

...that promoted disinformation...

...or misleading information
about climate change.

Nobody's gonna believe ExxonMobil.

But if they can say it through somebody
else who seems independent...

...there's power in that for them.

Myron Ebell is Director of Energy
and Global Warming Policy...

...for Competitive Enterprise
Institute.

Senior fellow and science director
of Heartland Institute.

-The idea that cooling....
-It creates a new cast of characters.

These people who become well-known
for casting doubt on global warming.

-Dr. Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow....
-What these institutes do...

...is they promote their own "experts"
as contrary experts...

...who give you the "other side"
of the issue, and journalists fall for it.

-Fall for it lock, stock, and barrel.
-Let's talk to a couple of experts.

-Joining us....
-Scientists will be invited...

...to explain the science
and then against the scientist...

...they will have a so-called expert
from a think tank.

And so the public is presented
with dueling experts.

Steven Zebiak is General Director
of International Research Institute...

...and Climate and Society at Columbia.

James Taylor is a senior fellow
at the Heartland Institute.

If you actually ask
what are their credentials...

...the answer's often very little,
sometimes none.

In college, I majored in government.
I also took atmospheric science courses.

That makes me well-positioned
to bring together...

...all the aspects of this debate because
it's scientific, it's economic, it's political.

There are think tanks that do nothing
but crank out op-ed pieces every day.

If you start tracking them, you'll see
it's the same handful of people...

...that just keep pumping out
this material.

Some of these so-called experts,
they become go-to people.

A handful of them turn out
to be very, very good at it.

The global warming alarm spread
by Al Gore and the United Nations...

...is in utter scientific collapse.

We've gone 18 years without global
warming according to data.

Akin to medieval witchcraft where we
blame witches for controlling weather.

You were described as the godfather
of climate change denying.

-The mastermind of the whole-- Yes.
-Yeah. Yeah.

What do you call yourself?
Are you...?

What do I call myself?

I guess I'm an environmental journalist
on some level.

After the Greens out there finish puking
after hearing me say that...

...I will say, that's how I started.

And will, to the best of my ability--

I was a volunteer for Ronald Reagan
in 1980, at age 12.

When you were growing up...

-...you were a door-to-door salesman?
-Yeah.

I learned so much
from door-to-door sales.

I did gutter cleaning.

You learn then
what communication tactics worked...

...and what didn't.

How did you meet Rush Limbaugh?

Rush Limbaugh I met in 1991.

Our man in Washington...

...an ever more and more
popular part of this show.

There he is sneaking in.

I used to hang out at the men's room
at these events...

...so I'd guarantee
I'd get just about every big name.

As the night went on,
they'd be drinking more...

...so you'd always get
much better interviews.

Women should deny sex...

...until we clean up this planet.
Not all women.

You decided to go to work
for Senator James Inhofe.

-Wow, you're jumping. Okay.
-Your energy--

I thought this was Marc Morano, my life.
No. Oh, okay.

-Catastrophic global warming is a hoax.
-I got a call from Inhofe's office...

...to be the new communications
director. It was the lowest point...

...when I started, in June 2008,
for global warming skeptics.

If you look at the 10 hottest years
ever measured...

...they've all occurred
in the last 14 years...

...and the hottest of all was 2005.

Al Gore's film--
I'd just watched the movie.

I watched it the week
before I started the job.

It was poised to win awards.
Later, he won the Nobel Prize for it.

So we decided for Inhofe
to go on the offensive.

NASA scientist
and alarmist James Hansen--

He's NASA's vocal man-made-
global-warming-fear soothsayer--

He'd say almost anything
you asked him to say.

On some levels, it was not so much
directly talking about science...

...but it was going after
the scientists themselves?

I mean, that was a change
that you brought to Inhofe.

Yes, in fact we went after...

...James Hansen
and Michael Oppenheimer...

...and had a lot of fun with it.

We mocked and ridiculed Hansen.

I couldn't believe they let me do this.

I did a two-part, 10,000-word,
scathing critique on Hansen.

I'm not gonna question his scientific work,
but in terms of his influencing the public.

And actually his scientific work
isn't really in question...

...it's more of his public claims
and publicity and interviews.

I still felt restrained,
so I started doing what I call...

... "the underground newsletters"...

...which went much further
than anything else, had more fun...

...more humor, wit, sarcasm,
and sometimes nastiness.

That went out and became
the basis for Climate Depot.

This is the new media's new world.

This is an office where you rent it
as you need it, but we all know...

...most of the work happens
on the road or in your home office.

They find no evidence
of a human fingerprint in that drought.

A lot of it's done in a taxicab
heading to, you know...

...Fox News or CNN studio,
or even on the runway in an airplane.

James Hansen,
I call him NASA's resident ex-con...

...is inspiring these people
to potential acts of eco-terrorism.

Communication is about sales.
Keep it simple.

People will fill in the blank with their own,
I hate to say biases...

...but with their own perspective.

A global environmental organization
that'll police the world.

Think of the-- Our own EPA,
that speaks French.

I'm not a scientist, although I do
play one on TV occasionally.

Okay, hell, more than occasionally.

Joining me, Bill Nye the Science Guy
and Marc Morano.

You go up against a scientist,
most of them...

...are gonna be in their own little,
policy-wonk world or area of expertise.

So you look in the ice
and you find bubbles of trapped gas--

Very arcane, very hard to understand,
hard to explain...

...and very boring.

Bottom line, new study
in Nature, peer-reviewed...

...no change in U.S. drought
in the last 80 years.

Bottom line,
a new study out shows--

You can't be afraid of the absolute
hand-to-hand combat, metaphorically.

You've gotta name names,
you gotta go after individuals.

You can't just go after a system.
I think that's what I enjoy the most...

...is going after the individuals,
where something lives or dies.

As a scientist, you're trained to defend
the science that you do.

What you don't expect
is to have people...

...threaten you with all kinds
of dire consequences...

...for continuing to do the research
that you do.

I was contacted by the IPCC
to act as convening lead author...

...for one chapter
of the second assessment report.

That final sentence,
"The balance of evidence suggests...

...a discernible human influence
on global climate"...

...was finalized
at the end of November, 1995.

I had no idea that my life
would be so dramatically changed...

...by that one sentence.

These are a few e-mails...

...from a large number of e-mails
that I received.

"Yeah, you-- You arrogant,
fucking piece-of-crap con man.

I hope you are hung
by your pathetic, little neck.

I'd love nothing more than
to beat you with a large stick...

...you shit-eating Yank. Go die."

It's possible I posted Santer's e-mail
in the early days of Climate Depot.

He's far from the only one
I've done that to.

"You're an effing terrorist,
you and your colleagues...

...ought to be fed to the pigs,
along with your whole families."

"How come no one has beat
the living piss out of you yet?

I was hoping I would see the news
and you committed suicide."

"You stupid bitch. I would like
to see you convicted and beheaded.

If you have a child, then women
in the future will be even more leery...

...of lying to get ahead when they see
your baby crying next to the guillotine."

Sometimes it's one a week.
When your e-mail address...

...gets posted online at Morano's website,
it's 200 or more in a day.

Well, I think the most disturbing e-mails
and letters were ones that...

...suggest there will be harm to you...

...direct physical harm to you
and your family.

I don't know what his complaint is--

-I'll give you the philosophy behind it.
-Yeah, that's more important.

Is he ready?
This is one of my favorite topics.

In fact, I got on ABC Nightly News
just because I posted e-mails.

I did a whole segment.

The public is appropriately angry
at these scientists.

No one's advocating violence,
but it is refreshing to see...

...these scientists hear from the public.

I think people should be thanking me.
I was doing a service.

People go, "Oh, your death threats."
I get death threats. I enjoy them.

It was one of the healthiest things
that could have happened...

...in the climate debate.

I make no apologies.
I still do it. I enjoy doing it.

Every time we see the world
beginning to act on the science...

...we see some kind of attack
designed to undermine it.

1995, the IPCC comes out with its
second assessment report that says...

...yes, there's climate change.
What do we get?

Massive attack on Ben Santer,
who's the lead author of the key chapter.

In the second case, before the run-up
to the Kyoto negotiations...

...when it looked like the world
was going to agree...

...we had the Oregon Petition.

It's a completely discredited document...

...nevertheless, it did a lot of damage.

Third time, Copenhagen.
Finally, we're gonna get an agreement.

The U.S. is on board.
Obama has gone to Copenhagen.

What do we get? Climategate.

A new scandal
that's burning up the Net these days...

...that began with e-mails
that were stolen--

Suddenly, we see this release
of stolen e-mails.

Lines taken out of context
to make it seem as if...

...scientists were involved
in nefarious activities.

People started saying,
"What's going on in Copenhagen?"

This is the upper echelon
of the U.N. It's been exposed...

...as the best science that politics
and activists can manufacture.

My initial reaction with the Climategate,
I thought, "Okay...

...gosh, I hope I didn't flip
at the wrong point there.

Maybe this is all baloney."

When you actually read the e-mails
in context, you go, "Okay...

...he's not actually saying what
Rush Limbaugh said he was saying."

There's been three investigations
into Climategate, where they had...

...independent committees go through
every e-mail. There was nothing.

They were trying
to find yet new ways to weaken...

...this growing international accord.

All they have to do is slow down action.

Gridlock is the greatest friend
a global warming skeptic has.

That's all you really want.
There's no legislation we're championing.

We're the negative force,
just trying to stop stuff.

It's all about distraction,
it's all about confusion.

It's about preventing you from looking
where the action really is...

...which is in the science.

Misdirection is the use
of the little lie to sell the big lie.

The big lie and the floating lady,
the classic levitation illusion...

...is the mechanism that's used
to make the woman rise.

The little lie is the passing of the hoop.

The floating raises your skepticism.

There must be a wire.
There must be threads.

There must be something.

And then the hoop is used
to specifically undo that. Cancel that.

So, really, misdirection is about focus.

It's not so much about directing away
or misdirecting...

...it's about direction.

It's about bringing your attention
to something that engages you.

And then, you don't see
anything else in the frame.

The tobacco companies knew
they have to appeal to something more...

...basic than this intellectual pursuit
of science.

How do you do it?
Do it with freedom.

That's the way freedom dies.
Today it's smoking.

But what will they try to regulate next?

What will they try to regulate next?
What we can say? What we can read?

I don't want Big Brother breathing
down my neck telling me what to do.

Not just for smokers
but for nonsmokers...

...and all others
who want to live their lives...

...making their own decisions,
not having them made for them...

...by the benevolent bureaucracy
of Washington wisdom or these other--

By turning it into an abstract issue
of freedom...

...and moving it away
from their corporate interests...

...they can get people behind it.
Who can possibly be against freedom?

What happened was,
these other companies...

...and other industries realized, like:
"Hey, this is a pretty good idea."

Everywhere you turn, somebody
is telling us what we can't eat.

Do you ever feel like you're
always being told what not to do?

These people tell us where to work...

...how many children to have,
how much energy to use...

...how much water we can--

On global warming,
you see the same thing happening.

For literally decades, David Koch
has been just a tireless defender...

...of our economic
and individual freedoms.

I'd like to introduce
to you David Koch...

...our chairman
at the Americans for Prosperity.

Koch Industries is heavily invested
in coal, oil, tar sands.

They are some of the biggest polluters
in the country...

...received the largest fines.

They needed an army of people
to fight against regulation...

...in the name of freedom.

Good afternoon,
fellow freedom fighters!

The group, Americans for Prosperity,
is holding a nationwide...

...hot-air balloon tour.

They're spreading a message
of global warming alarmism...

...lost jobs, higher taxes,
and less freedom.

Over eight years ago,
we launched Americans for Prosperity...

...and the goal behind it
was to provide grassroots support...

...at the local and state level...

...to push free-market policies.

And we have just over two million
people who've taken action.

We now have an army too.

Do you try to figure out
if the science is real or not?

-Or you don't even think of that?
-No. We're on the economic side.

Howdy.

We study what they'll do to American
people in the name of global warming.

They won't drill for oil.
Guys, let's get moving here.

Come on, it's not a really hard--
Not a really hard decision. Let's--

For a long time it was just,
hey, An Inconvenient Truth...

...and all these polar bears that seemed
to be drowning and horrible things...

...that seemed to be happening.
A lot of Americans said:

"Gosh. That seems like a bad thing."

But then, through the education efforts
of a lot of groups...

...like Americans for Prosperity
and others...

...Americans began going,
"Wait, I'll pay more for everything.

It means a little bit less freedom."

I think the American public
has moved our way.

The polls confirm that.

We want to make sure
that both parties know...

...we'll hold them accountable.
Republicans, too, absolutely.

Should I think of you as a liberal,
a conservative, or...?

Pretty conservative
is how you should think of me.

Ninety-three American Conservative
Union Rating...

...100 percent Christian Coalition,
National Right to Life.

With your help,
we can reclaim the Congress.

I represented the 4th District
of South Carolina...

...which is probably the reddest district
in the reddest state in the nation.

When I was first in Congress,
I was a complete denier.

I said, "That's hooey, absolute nonsense.
Al Gore's imagination."

I just that knew if it was coming from
the other team, it had to be wrong.

I got on the science committee...

...and had the opportunity to go
to Antarctica twice, actually.

I saw the evidence in the ice core.

You can pull it up
and examine the CO2 levels.

They were really stable.

And then coinciding with the
industrial revolution, there's an uptick.

The chemistry is real clear, that you're
changing the chemistry of the air.

So I decided,
really right then and there...

...I'm gonna go back
and I'm gonna do something.

Madam Speaker,
what I'd like to say tonight...

...is that there is a need to act--

And to come together
to find a solution...

...that breaks our addiction to oil,
that creates new energy jobs...

...and that cleans up the air.

That was to my great peril...

...with the Tea Party coming
and the Great Recession happening.

Tim Phillips is helping to organize
some protest parties.

It's a genuine grassroots uprising.

Groups like Americans For Prosperity,
we're organizing.

There's a tide of doubt that comes out
of the Great Recession...

...where we started to doubt
every institution, you know.

Along comes some people
that see the opportunity.

Coming up next is
a global warming tax.

It's a pretty cold night
in April here, right?

Americans For Prosperity has
been amazingly effective.

They're able to organize
that discontent.

In the name of Al Gore-ism.

And by the way, can we just talk
about Al Gore for a moment?

If you see Republicans
becoming sympathetic...

...to carbon tax, do you view it as
your job to knock those guys out?

Well, we hold both parties accountable.

We don't always see eye to eye,
do we, Newt?

No, but we do agree our country must
take action to address climate change.

The facts of global warming
demand our urgent attention.

We have had climate change.

Clearly, humans have something
to do with it.

I remember in the mid-2000s,
so many Republicans...

...they had a lot of the same tenets of faith
that Democrats still many have today.

Well, I think the risks
of climate change are real.

I think human activity
is contributing to it.

Those days are over.
Few Republicans play that game.

A lot of Democrats bailed too.

You have Newt Gingrich
at the beginning of '08...

...on the couch with Nancy Pelosi.

And by the end of 2008....

Do you believe
in man-made global warming?

I don't think we know.

My view is that we don't know what's
causing climate change on this planet.

George, the idea that carbon dioxide
is harmful to our environment...

...is almost comical.

We've run TV ads
in Republican states...

...with Republican senators,
like South Carolina.

Sit down!

What happened in your election?

Well, it wasn't even close.

Bob Inglis ran into a buzz saw
of voter frustration with incumbents.

Inglis lost every county in the district.

He is a seasoned congressman
going down to a huge defeat tonight.

Are we--? Is there not cell phone
reception? Where are we?

Can you hear me now?

Did Price brief you on the climate views
of this radio show?

No.

All right, well,
we better find that out, huh?

We can turn on the radio,
see what he's saying.

We're after-- The target audience
is red-state Republicans.

And so I think we found some...

-...in Mississippi.
-From SuperTalk Mississippi....

Eight-o-two. We go on at 8:08.

Paul Gallo, a shining example
of the Fairness Doctrine as it should be.

You think polar bears are in trouble?
No, they're not in trouble.

In some cases, we've got
more polar bears than we've ever had.

We got polar-bear problems out there
in some cases.

Former South Carolina GOP
Representative Bob Inglis...

...is urging conservatives
to stop denying...

...humans are contributing
to global warming.

I don't understand.
How do you come up with this?

Because to me, every fiber in my body
is saying you're a conservative.

You can't believe this,
that conservatives--

You're asking me, as a dyed-in-the-wool
native-born Mississippian...

...will die here and blessed to do so...

...to believe that humans are responsible
for global warming...

...and we must admit that.

Mic's yours, sir.

The challenge here is
it's a conversation started by liberals.

What we're used to, as conservatives,
is they gin up hysteria...

...and then they drive through regulations
and tax increases...

...and grow government.

And so it's natural that we respond
with, "No, we don't wanna do that."

But what if we had
a different conversation?

It's all about economics.

You're taxing something
you want more of, which is income...

...and you're not taxing something
you maybe want less of, which is CO2.

Why do we need to be talking
about the global-warming tax again?

Because if you believe in taking care
of this part of Eden that's left...

-...and if you believe in creation care--
-Now you're confusing me.

Now you're saying you do believe
that we are, as humans...

...creating global warming.

-We are part-and-parcel responsible.
-Yes.

I don't believe that humans
are creating this, because--

And neither do, apparently,
a vast majority of climatologists out there.

-I was tracking--
-That humans--

I was tracking with you until that last part.
You're wrong on that last part.

Good luck to you.
It was good meeting you.

-Good to talk with you.
-Lots to do...

...in the final two segments
coming up next.

Okay, lots to do
in the final two segments....

-We'll put you down as undecided.
-Sorry?

-We'll put you down as undecided.
-I don't think so.

Okay, Perez, we are ready to roll.

And as for climate change,
we're in the middle of it right now.

It's called winter into spring.

For him to say that we need
to change the conversation...

...is to cave in to these liberals
and their way of thinking.

When they're wrong, they're wrong.

I can't take this.
Can we get out of here?

It's so easy to fall back into the:
"The weather always changes."

Yeah.

It's a battleship, Bob.
It takes a while to turn around.

That's right.

I mean, it's not just a head thing.
This is very much a heart issue.

It's not the science that's affecting us.

I mean, the science is pretty clear.

It's something else
that's causing this rejection.

Many conservatives, I think,
see action on climate change...

...as really an attack on a way of life.

The reason that we need
the science to be wrong...

...is otherwise,
we realize that we need to change.

That's really a hard pill to swallow...

...that the whole way I've created my life
is wrong, you're saying?

That I shouldn't have this house
in the suburb?

I shouldn't be driving this car
that I take my kids to soccer?

And you're not gonna tell me
to live the way that you want me to live.

And along comes some people
sowing some doubt...

...and it's pretty effective
because I'm looking for that answer.

I want it to be
that the science is not real.

Top U.S. oil company ExxonMobil...

...and Russia's Rosneft
have signed a deal...

...to develop oil and gas reserves
in the Russian Arctic.

One of the reasons
this deal is now possible...

...is the human-induced global warming
that has rolled the ice back.

It's warmer in the Arctic
than it's been in at least 40,000 years.

And yet there's ExxonMobil
looking at that...

...thinking they can drill more.

The very thing they paid groups
to tell us wouldn't happen...

...has now benefited them.

We could be into the hundreds
of billions of dollars...

...over the life of developing
all of the potential prospects up there.

We now know
they were using climate change...

...as a source of insight
into exploration.

There's a point at which you realize
you are part of the losing end of a hustle.

And it can make you feel very sad.

And I know many environmentalists
who feel very sad.

Each of you solemnly swear that....

But at some point,
the public catches up with you.

The legal system catches up with you.

An extraordinary punishment for
the country's big cigarette companies.

A federal judge said they lied...

...and they have to take out ads
and admit it publicly.

Specifically, they have to say...

...they "deliberately deceived
the American public...

...about the dangers of cigarettes"
and they designed them to be addictive.

We know the truth
about the harms of tobacco.

And the tobacco industry has been
prosecuted for its illegal activities.

So that's the good news, right?
The truth has come out...

...and people who deserve
to be punished have been punished.

The bad news is that it took 50 years.

If we look at the case
of climate change...

...we can imagine that eventually...

...people will come to understand
the scientific evidence.

But the problem is,
we don't have 50 years.

Climate change is happening,
it's underway, and it's not reversible.

As sea level rises and hurricanes
become more intense, people get killed.

Their houses and communities
get destroyed.

Think about heat waves and droughts
that ruin agricultural communities.

These are problems that it will require
government intervention to address.

The great irony of the story to me...

...is that people who don't like big
government are going to get more of it.

And we're gonna see
more money being spent...

...on dealing with the aftermath
of these disasters.

There will be billions of dollars
in real-estate losses.

But more than that, people will die.

That's why it matters.

That's why this is meaningful for us...

...not just for polar bears
or people in Bangladesh.

That's why so many people
in the scientific community...

...are really starting to talk
in very worried tones.

There's a growing sense
in the scientific community...

...that we're running out of time
to prevent a train wreck.

Our parents did not know
the things they were doing...

...were going to have
major consequences for young people...

...and future generations.

But we cannot say that.
We can only pretend that we don't know.

If we warm up the planet
a few degrees...

...we're talking about eventual
sea-level rise of tens of meters...

...which would wipe out
all the coastal cities.

If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate...

...then by that time,
you've passed a tipping point...

...so that it's....

You're going to get consequences
that are out of our control.

I've been arrested, I think, four times.

We should be going
and beating on the president's desk...

...telling him, "We have a problem."

You don't have to accept things
the way they are.

There are things we can do to change.

The lie is that we can't do it,
that we can't innovate.

We gotta keep relying
on petroleum, coal....

We gotta have just those things.

Why?

To be in this situation...

...where those fossil fuels
are imperiling our future...

...and future generations...

...and we're not accountable for that...

...that really becomes a moral problem.

We're leaving our children
and grandchildren a legacy...

...of people who failed to lead.

People who, when it came their time
to be awakened...

...they slept.

We didn't have enough faith in the future
that could be brought about...

...so we just gave up.

We couldn't rise to higher things.

I don't wanna be a part of that.
I wanna be a part of saying:

"No, we did rise to it. You bet we did."