It was called to our attention that, in its May 2007 Green Issue special section, Vanity Fair magazine presents a “Dante’s Inferno: Green Edition” graphic in which a number of global warming denialists are consigned to the Eighth Circle of Hell. The Eighth Circle is reserved for “The Fraudulent.” There we find, among others, James Connaughton of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Phil Cooney.
This modernized Dante’s Inferno piece doesn’t seem to be included in the on-line version of the magazine. You can find it on pages 264-265 of the hard copy.
Proceeding down through the circles into the Inferno,Vanity Fair’s rogue’s gallery of “environmental sinners” passes through layers of indifferent voters, dirty power plants, Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Agriculture, Big Chemical, and Big Defense, down ever deeper, until we reach the “Eighth Circle: The Fraudulent.” There, amidst “Dirty Dozen” current and former Members of Congress (sub-category “Simonists and Grafters”), we find, among others, the likes of Michael Crichton and Rush Limbaugh (“Panderers and Seducers”), James Connaughton and Richard Lindzen (“False Counselors”), Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas (“Soothsayers”), and Philip Cooney (“Counterfeiters and Falsifiers”).
We need to re-visit a few of these individuals, especially considering some the misrepresentations in Congressional testimony before the House Oversight Committee earlier this year.
We’re not sure how global warming denialist Myron Ebell escaped from this circle, but he does have a lengthy feature article in the magazine, titled “A Convenient Untruth,” devoted to him, with counterpoint by non-ideologue scientists with actual expertise in understanding human-induced climate and ecosystem change, including Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Tom Wigley, Jim Hansen, and others. That one is available on-line. (Perhaps he is so sincere that he doesn’t qualify as “fraudulent,” merely harmful?)
Below this, there is only the Ninth Circle (“The Traitors”), and Hell itself….
Take a look.