Over the last six years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have written the most authoritative study on Climate Change to date. It has been penned by over 800 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2500 from over 130 countries and represents the very best science we have on the subject. The Summary for Policymakers (pdf) is available online. In brief, the findings were:

1. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” (p.4)
2. There’s a 90% chance that humans have caused it. (p.3)
3. Emissions are so out-of-control that warming will “continue for centuries” even if they’re stabilized. (p.12)

I’ll let you take a moment to go through the fives stages of grief before we move on. By move on, I mean, introduce the other team. Yes, coming out on the other side—against the report—is a well-oiled machine of energy companies, PR hatchet men, and legislative puppets.

ExxonMobil (via one of their “unbiased third party” think tanks, American Enterprise Institute) has already gotten caught offering bribes to any scientist willing to dispute the report. No research required, just disagree. All they want is a climate of confusion (pun intended).

Next, PR hacks like self-appointed “Junkman” Steven Milloy (to whom I will not befoul myself by linking, but do read his profile on SourceWatch), have tried to deliberately misrepresent the report by accusing the media of deliberately misrepresenting it. Having long since given up trying to prove the contrary to any scientific findings, the best they can do is shed doubt on what knowledge real science has rendered. Nice try, but it turns out I can read.

Similarly, Senator James “At-least-I’m-not-Senator-Stevens” Inhofe (R-OK), has gone on record calling the report “a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain“. The statement is so ironic it attracts magnets.

I am not given to hyperbole. Phrases like “worst” and “best” I reserve for the actual “worst” and “best” subjects of a category. Similarly, if I say something like, “I love this movie,” I have often already considered marriage before someone taunts me with the suggestion. I note this because it will ground my following opinion as beyond a stereotypical enviro-exaggeration, but the truth as far as I am concerned. These people who would place their profits, their salary, or their kickbacks ahead of the health and safety of not only our natural world but the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet cannot be called anything nicer than traitor to the human race. They’ve been deceiving, deluding, or dragging their heels for far too long. I search my heart for some scrap of compassion for them to forgive the terrible crime they’ve committed against all of us and find none.

Let’s leave them to their petty machinations and meddling and pay them no more mind. In the meantime, the rest of us will Step It Up and try to get Earth back on the right track before things get even worse. Hesitation is over and done. Do all you can, as soon as you can. We meet this challenge and our great-great-great-grandkids will sing the victory in their songs. We fail and no songs will be sung.

Unfortunately, the bit of deception was noticed by a few Wall Street Journalists. The “amateur filmmaker” happened to have an email address that traced back to PR firm DCI, which is on the Exxon payroll. Just to make the conceit complete, he had even set up a MySpace account: http://myspace.com/goreiscrazy.

I’m honestly laughing aloud (LOL in the parlance of our times) at the whole thing, for two major reasons. First, the MySpace account as of this writing has 0 friends. Not even Tom thought this guy was worthy of an invite, and his “extended network” is fast approaching 100,000,000.

Also, the video, sad to say, is completely boring. Not even so bad it’s good (like those awesome ads for Carbon Dioxide produced by CEI). Here’s a sampling of the comments on YouTube:

This is sad. You’d think that a corporate sponsored video would actually be at least funny. Exxon–you need to rehire! This video sucks!

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I wouldn’t mind this oppossing view if it were funny or interesting. It’d be nice if they didn’t reference South Park, though. You know you’re sub-par when you do things like that. For example, you watch a lame movie and one character mentions Jaws. Then you start thinking, “Man, I’d really rather be watching Jaws right now.”

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$3.10 a gallon and they spend the profits on this kaka? Pity that the windfall apparently can’t buy you any “smart” or “interesting”.

In not completely unrelated news, my favorite favorite corporate shill, Steven Milloy is throwing a hissy about the State of California wanting to know if his constant doubting of climate change and his taking money from automakers and oil companies are in any way, y’know… maybe… related? I think he’s my favorite favorite because he gets pissy like this so often.

1. Hands Off the Internet, a “grassroots” website against network neutrality.
2. Tom Giovanetti’s OpEd in the Mercury News, “Network neutrality? Welcome to the stupid Internet.”
3. Sen. Ted Stevens’ already infamous “The Internet is a series of tubes” speech.

Let’s deal with these in order of hilarity.

First, there’s nothing “dirty” about poor Senator Stevens. He just clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. I don’t even know the dude’s party affiliation, and frankly it doesn’t matter. But it does show that the lobbyists are pulling out all the stops and not letting this one merely play out in the “Court of Public Opinion” (probably because they know they’d be found guilty) by rounding up all the Luddite, out-of-touch Senators they can in order to stop net neutrality in its tracks. Perhaps I’m being unfair to this elected official. Obviously, we can’t expect our duly-appointed representatives to be experts on every subject, like “what the internet is”.

Second, I’m unsure how to approach Tom Giovanetti’s piece, because I not only fundamentally disagree with him, but I also happen to know that he’s a hired gun PR guy that gets paid to polish turds. He’s the president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a conservative think-tank that muddies the waters around debates that should be open-and-shut if a sincere discussion were to take place. Consider his previous work for privatizing social security and against municipal wireless and open source software. So, he’s a dick.

But even beyond that, consider his argument against network neutrality: access to mainstream media, like television and telephones and even police radio, will plunge into chaos because of “extremely high demand” for something stupid. Where are the heroic telecoms flying to the rescue to prioritize content!? Their hands are tied by draconic legislation! Argh! Except, isn’t “extremely high demand” already prioritizing content? Who benefits from a system that prioritizes anything other than what people want? Perhaps whomever is paying Mr. Giovanetti?

Finally, the “grassroots” website. The most astute of you will notice the quotation marks I insist on putting around the word “grassroots”. This is perhaps because the “grassroots” website is produced in connection with PR group Public Strategies, Inc. and funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from telecoms and conservative lobby groups. So, if you consider AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular to be the ABCs of concerned regular folks like you and me, feel free to remove the quotation marks when you talk about it.

I don’t completely blame them. Just like record companies, oil companies, and certain government agencies, everyone’s trying to pay the rent and send their kids to college and so they work the system with whatever tools they have in their chest. The telecoms may have a lot of money and power but they should know that—after seeing the revolutionary promise of the printing press, radio, and television turned into celebrity spreads, pre-programmed rotations, and reality shows—we’re not going to let the internet go without a fight. It has finally pulled itself out of its pages-of-links-to-pages-of-links phase and started to make good on its promise to connect and empower people. We should let it.