After I read this interview with Jeremy Grantham, I understood why so many hedge fund managers have believed the claim that climate realists (“skeptics”) are liars paid off by fossil fuel industries. This is called projection. They are snake oil salesmen and propagandists who think others operate the same way they do. From the interview:
“The misinformation machine is brilliant. As a propagandist myself [he has previously described himself as GMO’s “chief of propaganda” in reference to his official title of “chief investment strategist”], I have nothing but admiration for their propaganda. [Laughs.]”
Also:
“There’s a professor at MIT who defended tobacco who now defends carbon dioxide saying it seems to have lost its greenhouse effect, or whatever.”
Every statement in the above sentence is a lie, and it ends in a casual “whatever.” Then:
“We can try to bypass them on one level and we try to contest the political power of the sceptics. They are using money as well as propaganda to influence the politicians, particularly in America. It almost doesn’t even exist in countries outside the US, UK and Australia. A cynic would say that the petrol-chemical industry also happens to be Anglo-Saxon.”
A cynic could say anything, but a realist would notice that climate skepticism “almost doesn’t exist” only in underdeveloped countries and parts of the European Union without long traditions of freedom of speech. In a 2011 NY Times interview, Jeremy Grantham defended Malthusianism and expressed worries about future shortages of phosphorus: “Phosphorus makes up 1 percent of your body weight.” In learning this, he couldn’t have missed that carbon makes up 19 percent of the body weight (when considering dehydrated mass, ratios become 3.6% and 67%, respectively).
What’s wrong with guys like him?