This is a transcript of the short film “The Greening of Planet Earth Continues” released by the Greening Earth Society, as a follow-up to the 1992 film titled “The Greening of Planet Earth.” The Greening Earth Society was a non-profit front group created by the Western Fuels Association to advocate about the environmental impact of CO2 and fossil fuels on behalf of their membership, comprised of rural electric cooperatives, electric utilities, fuel suppliers, and individuals.
The film is populated with the regular group of industry-funded climate denialists, including Robert Balling, Patrick Michaels, Robert Davis, and Roy Spencer. True to its name, the film argues that thanks to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, the earth has gotten greener: “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient – a very important nutrient, perhaps the most important.” According to Balling, “[i]ncreased CO2 worldwide, with few exceptions, means plants grow better, period.”
Michaels and Balling also address the “scare stories in the media about the frightening ramifications of global warming.” Balling states, “[i]t becomes quite newsworthy to go out and tell people that we are about to have apocalyptic climate changes.” He continues: “The second you make that pronouncement, it’s easy to go around the world and find examples to support your viewpoint. But it would have always been easy. There would be no time in earth’s history when you would not have been able to go around the world and find damaging hurricanes and tornadoes and whatever. They are not linked to the build-up of greenhouse gases.”
Michaels concurred: “The evidence that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to cause a disaster is somewhere between slim and none. However, the evidence that it’s doing a good thing by lengthening the growing season and making plants grow better is somewhere between large and overwhelming.” Michaels went on to dismiss “the entire global climate-change hysteria” on the grounds that climate science uses computer models, rather than being “driven by reality.”
“When we strip away all the scare headlines and over-simplifications,” says the narrator, “a very different picture emerges: a picture of humanity and nature growing together, adapting to changes in the environment as we always have.” Tying back to their fossil fuel interests, the film concludes: “and a picture of the ongoing industrial evolution of humankind as the greening of planet earth continues.”
As a package of materials, the WFA bundled it’s 1992 film and 1998 sequel along with a GES report titled, “The CO2 Issue,” and an advertisement for the GES. These GES promotional materials were reportedly distributed to every congressional office on the hill in 1998.
WFA’s funding of the 1992 film was also featured in a 1994 news segment on ABC’s Nightline titled “Is Science for Sale?”
Key Quotes:
Narrator: “When we strip away all the scare headlines and over-simplifications, a very different picture emerges: a picture of humanity and nature growing together, adapting to changes in the environment as we always have. A picture of people enjoying the benefits that enriched levels of carbon dioxide bring to all growing things. And a picture of the on-going industrial evolution of humankind as the greening of planet earth continues.” (Annotation)
Robert C. Balling, Jr: “For whatever reason, right now, it becomes quite newsworthy to go out and tell people that we are about to have apocalyptic climate changes. The second you make that pronouncement, it’s easy to go around the world and find examples to support your viewpoint. But it would have always been easy. There would be no time in earth’s history when you would not have been able to go around the world and find damaging hurricanes and tornadoes and whatever. They are not linked to the build-up of greenhouse gases.” (Annotation)
Patrick J. Michaels: “The evidence that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to cause a disaster is somewhere between slim and none. However, the evidence that it’s doing a good thing by lengthening the growing season and making plants grow better is somewhere between large and overwhelming.” (Annotation)
Patrick J. Michaels: “People have to understand that the entire global climate-change hysteria is driven by computer models. It is not driven by reality. Reality is not warming up like those models said it would.” (Annotation)
Sylvan H. Wittwer: “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient- a very important nutrient, perhaps the most important.” (Annotation)
Sylvan H. Wittwer: “Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide do not frighten farmers. They do not frighten foresters. Forestry output is increased. Agricultural output is increased. And this applies to all the food crops. Food is the most important renewable resource we have.” (Annotation)
Narrator: “The reality here is that it’s very difficult to find any relationship between carbon dioxide and dramatic global warming. What we know for sure is that the climate change we can reliably expect is both modest and benign.” (Annotation)
The Greening of Planet Earth Continues:
Full Transcript: