One action the film suggests, repeatedly, is to think for yourself and not accept anything other people tell you without checking it for yourself.

They’re betting that by the end of the film, you are so impressed that you will do any further research not with an open mind, but with a mind hungry to hear more of the same.

They’re betting that you won’t take the time to research the topics the film brings up. Those lists at the end of the film are so long, and research doesn’t sound exactly fun when you’re all riled up and angry and righteous.

Or, you will do some research, but only using the sources they list, not even seeking out what other websites and books have to say about it.

Emotionally, they used this film to recruit you to their own secret society, and it is very hard to suddenly change your mind and turn your back on your brothers. That’s one of the classic techniques of propaganda.

And if nothing else, they’re betting that you just won’t have the time.

(By the way, if you are doing your own research, I’m willing to bet that every person who is preaching about the New World Order, anywhere, is using the same tactics of fear, anger, confusion, and suggestions for action lead to isolation. Check it out and see if I’m right.)

As just one example, let’s look at the Oregon Petition.

If you read what the filmmakers suggest you read about this petition, do you discover these facts?

Frederick Seitz, the premier scientist to put his stamp of approval on the petition, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and ran a research center for Rockefeller University. Esoteric Agenda previously stated that the Council and the Rockefellers are part of the pagan conspiracy. Seitz also worked as a research physicist at GE, whose logo is used throughout the film as supposedly a symbol of evil. And Seitz was very much a favorite of the government, serving on both the National Defense Research Committee and the National Academy of Science (which, by the way, has stated they had nothing at all to do with the Oregon Petition).

So is Seitz a poster boy for the good guys who see through the “lie” of global warming, or is he a poster boy for the bad guys who are helping to plan the New World Order? That’s a big inconsistency in the film’s logic.

And of the other major scientists who crafted the Oregon Petition, one of them isn’t a climate scientist at all (Arthur B. Robinson), and the other (Willie Soon) works at the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, which is partially funded by Exxon.

I kept seeing these new items popup…

• Frederick Seitz, physicist, global warming skeptic (Charlotte Observer)
• Frederick Seitz, physicist who led skeptics of global warming, dies at 96 (New York Times)
• Frederick Seitz, 96; Physicist cast doubt on global warming (Washington Post)

…and never quite connected the dots. When I took a moment to actually read one of the articles I realized now why that name seemed familiar. He was the guy who conned rounded up a number of other global warming skeptics and got them to sign a petition stating that global warming was not only not caused by man but that it isn’t even happening.

I remember looking into this guy a number of years back and found out that he was employed by RJ Reynolds to dispute that smoking does not cause 80-90% of all lung cancers. Oops he picked the wrong side of that debate. But it’s interesting that a doctor would be so misinformed. What’s that? Oh he wasn’t a doctor he was a physicist? Okay that seems a bit of an odd choice of an expert to pick for your medical review committee.

Actually that seems a bit odd that your leading scientist in your list of scientists who deny global warming isn’t even a climatologist or related field. I distinctly remember something smelling fishy about that whole publicity stunt.

Mr. Seitz’s obituary was notable to me not for his role as a denier per se, but his work for big tobacco and reminded me yet again of tobacco’s role in the whole “denial industry”. And why John Tierney isn’t really a serious journalist, or perhaps he just thinks we’re all a bit slow.

First, from the obituary:

Seitz, a physicist, headed the National Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1969 and led Rockefeller University, a New York-based research institution, from 1969 to 1978.

Seitz won the 1973 National Medal of Science for his earlier contributions to the modern quantum theory of the solid state of matter. He also wrote a number of books, including “The Modern Theory of Solids” (1940), an influential text on the development of solid-state physics and of transistors.

Sounds okay so far, but then:

Seitz became known later in life for his skepticism about the existence of global warming. In 1998 he solicited thousands of scientists to sign a petition against the Kyoto protocol on global warming.

From 1978 to 1988, Seitz was a member of the medical research committee of the tobacco company R.J. Reynolds.

Global warming deniers and tobacco deniers not-so-seperated-at-birth? As goes the tobacco debate, so goes the climate change debate? Clearly not a coincidence. You see, in fact, it’s big tobacco that started the damn world of global warming denial. For a great blow-by-blow read Chapter 2, in the book Heat, How to Stop the Planet From Burning by George Monbiot, 2006.

The germination went something like this: In 1993, Philip Morris, getting hammered in public opinion over second-hand smoke after the release of an EPA report, hired the PR firm APCO. APCO designed a campaign to fight a ban on passive smoking by creating the impression of a grassroots movement to fight over-regulation and to portray tobacco fears as just one of many unfounded fears. What are some of the other unfounded fears you may ask? According to big tobacco, one is global warming. Interesting.

Then big tobacco forms the Advancement for Sound Science Coalition, TASSC and among other things finances www.junkscience.com. The tobacco companies and ExxonMobil dance the same dance again and again, in dim light perhaps, where few care to look.

A Brown and Williamson memo sounds like a recurring nightmare:

Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.

Does Mr. Tierney address tobacco money? Of course not. Mr. Tierney, perhaps some reporting is in order?