{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221043723/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/time-to-wake-up-the-deniers-playbook-", "Time to Wake Up: The Denier's Playbook", "2013-11-06", "2013", "2013-11", "Democrat", "House", "RI", "Sheldon Whitehouse", "W000802", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "As delivered on the Senate floor\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, November 6, 2013\n            \n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tI\u2019m here today, for what is now the forty-ninth straight week in which the Senate has been in session, to urge that we wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth\u2019s oceans and climate; to sweep away the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this issue, and to get serious about the threat that we face from climate change.\nWhen I come to the floor I often have a specialized subject. \u00a0I talk about the oceans and how they\u2019re affected by carbon pollution.\u00a0 Or I talk about the economics around carbon pollution.\u00a0 Or I talk about the faith community\u2019s interest in carbon pollution.\u00a0 Today I want to talk about the role of the media in all of this. We count in America on the press to report faithfully and accurately on our changing world, and to awaken the public to apparent mounting threats. Our Constitution gives the press special, vital rights, so that they can perform this special, vital role.\u00a0\u00a0\nBut what happens when the press fails in this role?\u00a0 What happens when the press stops being independent, when it becomes the bedfellow of special interests?\u00a0 The Latin phrase, \u201cQuis custodiet ipsos custodes?\u201d, who will watch the watchmen themselves, becomes then the question.\u00a0 The press are supposed to scrutinize all of us. Who watches them when they fail at their independent role?\nI want to speak about a very specific example: the editorial page of one of our nation\u2019s leading publications, the Wall Street Journal.\u00a0 The Wall Street Journal is one of America\u2019s great newspapers, and there is probably none better when it comes to news coverage and to reporting.\u00a0 It is a paragon in journalism\u2026until you turn to the editorial page, and then you step into a chasm of polluter sludge when the issue is harmful industrial pollutants.\u00a0 When that is the issue, harmful industrial pollutants, this editorial page will mislead its readers, will deny the scientific consensus, it will ignore its excellent news pages\u2019 actual reporting, all to help the industry; to help the campaign to manufacture doubt and delay action.\n[Show Denier\u2019s Playbook Chart]\nAs I\u2019ve said before, there is a deniers playbook around these issues.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen the pattern repeat itself in the pages of the Wall Street Journal\u2019s on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and now\u2014most pronouncedly\u2014on climate change.\u00a0 And the pattern is a simple one: deny the science; question the motives; exaggerate the costs.\u00a0 Call it the Polluting Industry 1-2-3.\nLet\u2019s start in the 1970s, when scientists\u00a0first warned\u00a0that chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, which were commonly used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants, could break down the Earth\u2019s stratospheric ozone layer, which would increase human exposure to ultraviolet rays and cause cancer.\u00a0 As outlined in a report by Media Matters, this is the Wall Street Journal\u2019s editorial page embarked upon what would become a persistent and familiar pattern.\u00a0\nFor more than twenty-five years, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page doggedly printed editorials devaluing science and attacking any regulation of CFCs:\n \nJanuary 1976: an editorial proclaimed the connection between CFCs and ozone depletion \u201cis only a theory and will remain only that until further efforts are made to test its validity in the atmosphere itself.\u201d\nMay 1979: an editorial said that scientists \u201cstill don\u2019t know to what extent, if any, mankind\u2019s activities have altered the ozone barrier or whether the possibly harmful effects of these activities aren\u2019t offset by natural processes. . . . Thus, it now appears--the editorial page continued\u2014all the excitement over the threat to the ozone layer was founded on scanty scientific evidence.\u201d\nMarch 1984: we read on the editorial page that concerns about ozone depletion were based on \u201cpremature scientific evidence.\u201d Rather, they said, \u201cnew evidence shows that the ozone layer isn\u2019t vanishing after all; it may even be increasing.\u201d\nMarch 1989: an editorial called for more research on the \u201cquestionable theory that CFCs cause depletion of the ozone layer,\u201d and implored scientists to \u201ccontinue to study the sky until we know enough to make a sound decision regarding the phasing out of our best refrigerants.\u201d\n \nAgain, deny the science.\nPredictably, they also attacked the motives of reformers:\n \n\u00a0A February 1992 editorial stated: \u201cIt is simply not clear to us that real science drives policy in this area.\u201d\n \nAnd, playbook 3, they warned that action to slow ozone depletion would be costly:\n \nA March 1984 editorial claimed that banning CFCs would \u201ccost the economy some $1.52 billion in forgone profits and product-change expenses\u201d as well as 8,700 jobs.\nAn August 1990 editorial warned that banning CFCs would lead to \u201ca dramatic increase in air-conditioning and refrigeration costs.\u201d It added: \u201cThe likely substitute for the most popular banned refrigerant costs 30 times as much and will itself be banned by the year 2015. The economy will have to shoulder at least $10 billion to $15 billion a year in added refrigeration costs by the year 2000.\u201d\nA February 1992 editorial warned that accelerating the phase-out of CFCs \u201calmost surely will translate into big price increases on many consumer products.\u201d\n \nWell, despite the protests of the Wall Street Journal\u2019s editorial page, we actually listened in America to the science.\u00a0 And we took action.\u00a0 We protected the ozone layer and we protected the public\u2019s health, and the economy prospered.\u00a0 What about all those costs that they claimed?\u00a0 Looking back, we can see that action to slow ozone depletion in fact saved money.\u00a0 According to the EPA\u2019s 1999 progress report on the Clean Air Act, \u201cEvery dollar invested in ozone protection provides $20 of societal health benefits in the United States.\u201d One dollar spent, twenty dollars saved.\nThe Journal\u2019s response?\u00a0 Silence.\u00a0 They just stopped talking about it.\nSo, on to acid rain.\u00a0 In the late 1970s, scientists began reporting that acid rain was falling on most of our Northeastern United States.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 Again, at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, out came the Playbook:\nFirst, they questioned the science behind the problem:\n \nA May 1980 editorial questioned the link between increased burning of coal and acid rain, concluding that existing \u201cdata are not conclusive and more studies are needed.\u201d\u00a0\nIn September 1982 the editors told us that \u201cScientific study, as opposed to political rhetoric, points more and more toward the theory that nature, not industry, is the primary source of acid rain.\u201d Nature is the primary source of acid rain.\nA September 1985 Journal editorial claimed, \u201cthe scientific case for acid rain is dying.\u201d\nIn June 1989, the editorial page argued that we needed to wait\u2014it\u2019s always needing to wait\u2014for science to understand, for example, to what extent acid rain is man-made before enacting regulations.\n \nDuring that same period, the Wall Street Journal editorial page also smeared the motives, declaring that the effort to address acid rain was driven by politics, not science:\u00a0\n \nIn July 1987, the editorial page wrote, consistent with number two there in the playbook: \u201cAs the acid-rain story continues to develop, it\u2019s becoming increasingly apparent that politics, not nature, is the primary force driving the theory\u2019s biggest boosters.\u201d\n \nWall Street Journal editors also consistently opposed plans to address acid rain because of cost concerns, number three in the playbook:\n \nA June 1982 editorial warned of the \u201cimmense cost of controlling sulfur emissions.\u201d\nA January 1984 editorial claimed a regulatory program for acid rain would cost \u201cupwards of $100 billion.\u201d\n \nThese claims were made even as the evidence mounted against their position; even as President Reagan\u2019s own scientific panel said that inaction would risk \u201cirreversible damage.\u201d And of course the cost equation of the Wall Street Journal editorial page was always totally one-sided: always the cost to clean up the pollution; never the cost of the harm that the pollution cased.\nThat\u2019s the industry playbook; faithfully spouted through the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal:\u00a0 1) deny the science; 2) question the motives; and 3) exaggerate the costs.\nBut, we made undeniable progress against acid rain, despite the efforts of the editorial page.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 The Journal editorial page suddenly reversed its tune.\u00a0 A July 2001 editorial called the cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide \u201cfabulously successful,\u201d fabulously successful, noting that the program \u201csaves about $700 million annually compared with the cost of traditional regulation and has been reducing emissions by four million tons annually.\u201d\nOn this occasion, when its effort had failed, the Journal changed its tune.\u00a0 But up \u2018til then it was still the industry playbook:\u00a0 1) deny the science; 2) question the motives; and 3) exaggerate the costs.\nAnd now, with carbon pollution running us to 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, the Journal is using the same old polluter playbook against climate change.\nThe Journal has persistently published editorials against taking action to prevent manmade climate change.\u00a0 As usual, they question the science:\n \nIn June 1993 the editors wrote that there is \u201cgrowing evidence that global warming just isn\u2019t happening.\u201d\nIn September 1999 the page reported that \u201cserious scientists\u201d call global warming \u201cone of the greatest hoaxes of all time.\u201d\nIn June 2005 the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels and global warming had \u201cbecome even more doubtful.\u201d This is June 2005, and the Wall Street Journaleditorial page is questioning whether there is a link between fossil fuels and global warming.\nA December 2011 editorial said that the global warming debate requires \u201cmore definitive evidence.\u201d\n \nAs usual, back to the industry playbook, the motives of the scientists were smeared:\n \nA December 2009 editorial claimed that leading climate scientists were suspect because they: \u201chave been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.\u201d\n \nAnd as usual, we heard that tackling climate change, tackling carbon pollution, would cost us a lot of money:\n \nIn August 2009, the editorial page warned \u201cthat a high CO2 tax would reduce world GDP a staggering 12.9% in 2100\u2014the equivalent of $40 trillion a year.\u201d\u00a0\nAnd just last month, October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal warned that in the face of climate change, \u201cinterventions make the world poorer than it would otherwise be.\u201d\n \nThat same October 2013 editorial actually completed the full polluter playbook trifecta by also decrying the \u201cpolitical actors\u201d seeking to gain economic control; and by questioning the science, saying \u201cglobal surface temperatures have remained essentially flat.\u201d They covered them all in just the one editorial.\nIf only the editorial page writers at the Wall Street Journal would turn the page to the actual news their own paper reports on climate change:\n \nA March 2013 article reported, and I\u2019ll quote: \u201cNew research suggests average global temperatures were higher in the past decade than over most of the previous 11,300 years, a finding that offers a long-term context for assessing modern-day climate change.\u201d\nA piece from the Wall Street Journal news in August 2013 revealed, and I\u2019ll quote again:\u00a0 \u201cAverage global temperatures in 2012 were roughly in line with those of the past decade or so, but the year still ranked among the 10 warmest on record as melting arctic ice and warming oceans continued to boost sea levels\u2026\u201d\n \nWhich takes me to a particular fact about what carbon pollution is doing. And that is that our oceans are taking the brunt of the harm from carbon pollution, and it\u2019s time to stop looking the other way. But the Wall Street Journal editorial page doesn\u2019t often address the effects of carbon pollution on oceans, perhaps because the changes taking place in our oceans are not a matter where the complexity of computer modeling leaves room for phony doubt to be insinuated.\u00a0\nThe oceans\u2019 recent changes from our carbon pollution aren\u2019t projections.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t models.\u00a0 They are measurements.\u00a0 Simple, unyielding measurements.\u00a0 We measure sea-level rise with a ruler.\u00a0 It\u2019s not complicated.\u00a0 We measure ocean temperature with a thermometer.\u00a0 We measure ocean acidification on the pH scale. So, they don\u2019t talk about that much at the Wall Street Journal editorial pages.\u00a0 There\u2019s no room for phony doubt, so they look elsewhere.\nWell, we have the right to expect independent and honest media to teach the American public about the threats facing our oceans and our environment. \u00a0What a difference good reporting can make.\u00a0 Exemplary and compelling storytelling can and does influence our national conversation and inspire change.\nReporters fail when they give false equivalency to arguments on each side of the political spectrum even though they\u2019re not really equivalent.\u00a0 Editors fail when they look at the science, look at the measurements, look at the real threats posed to our world, and then fail to tell us the unvarnished truth.\u00a0\nThe story of climate change needs to be told.\u00a0 Our oceans need a voice.\u00a0 It seems the big polluters already have one.\nI yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221043723/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/time-to-wake-up-the-deniers-playbook-"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3789939694106579, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}