A trio of myths perpetuated by climate change deniers

F

or years, oil companies and special interest groups have financed campaigns to make people doubt the reality and seriousness of climate change, funnelling money into conservative non-profits, think tanks, politicians, and climate-denial front groups. Let’s take the industrial businessmen and political moguls, the Koch brothers, who have invested tens of millions of dollars over the last fifteen years in efforts to deny climate change.

With the support of Big Oil companies and their allies, a small but vocal group of climate deniers has become as pesky as mosquitos on a summer night. The mystery is how. After all, the facts are clear and when you consider that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man-made climate change is real, it’s hard to believe that anyone could claim anything else with a straight face.

Read the Climate Reality Project story - “Three ways climate deniers cherry-pick facts about climate change,”

Clothing industry is the world's second largest polluter

“T

he clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world … second only to oil,” the recipient of an environmental award told a stunned Manhattan audience earlier this year. “It’s a really nasty business … it’s a mess.”

Eileen Fisher - she describes the clothing
 industry as a 'nasty business - it's a mess'.

While you’d never hear an oil tycoon malign his bonanza in such a way, the woman who stood at the podium, Eileen Fisher, is a clothing industry magnate.

On a warm spring night at a Chelsea Piers ballroom on the Hudson River, Fisher was honored by Riverkeeper for her commitment to environmental causes. She was self-deprecating and even apologetic when speaking about the ecological impact of clothing, including garments tagged with her own name. Fisher’s critique may have seemed hyperbolic, but she was spot-on.

When we think of pollution, we envision coal power plants, strip-mined mountaintops and raw sewage piped into our waterways. We don’t often think of the shirts on our backs. But the overall impact the apparel industry has on our planet is quite grim.

Read the EcoWatch story - “Fast Fashion Is the Second Dirtiest Industry in the World, Next to Big Oil.”