How Lance Armstrong’s Lies & Doping are Just like Climate Change Denial & CO2

Juan Cole 01/18/2013

Understanding how performance-enhancing drugs raise the odds of success in sports helps us understand how dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere raises the chances of heat waves:

It is the same form of reasoning in both cases.

This analogy also helps us understand how the lies of Big Oil-backed outfits like the Heartland Institute about climate change are very similar to Armstrong’s pattern of lies. In both instances, tactics used include smearing critics and threatening whistle-blowers. Likewise, Big Oil has its minions lie about the performance of the climate and smears climate scientists.

(Video by Kirk Westphal, Westphal Associates LLC. Sponsored by Graham Sustainability Institute, University of Michigan. )

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page