Abstract
This chapter systematically compares the two cases, analysing the way in which think tanks “fit in” their respective institutional and political environment and how they shape public debate and political decision-making on climate politics. The chapter shows that the respective knowledge regime influences opportunities for think tanks to accumulate “social capital” and in consequence affects the strategies that are available to them.
With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?
Senator James Inhofe “The Science of Climate Change”, Senate Floor Speech 28 July 2003
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- 1.
Already in 2009 a similar letter signed by 18 scientific societies was send to US senators reminding them of the scientific consensus (see https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/migrate/uploads/1021climate_letter1.pdf, accessed: 29 October 2017).
- 2.
For instance, the EPA’s decision to cancel the speaking appearances of agency scientists at a conference on climate change in October 2017 drew heavy criticism from the scientific community. ‘It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at E.P.A’ said John King professor of oceanography (Friedman 2017) expressing his concern over a biased EPA.
- 3.
The first assessment report was published as Climate Change. The IPCC Scientific Assessment in 1990 (see Houghton et al. 1990) and focused mainly on presenting the current state of scientific research on climate change.
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Ruser, A. (2018). German and US Think Tanks in Comparison. In: Climate Politics and the Impact of Think Tanks. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75750-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75750-6_6
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