Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers

[kpete]

Source: The Independent UK


Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers

ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warming

By Jonathan Owen and Paul Bignell

Sunday, 7 February 2010


An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

Many of these critics have broadcast material from the leaked UEA emails to undermine climate change predictions and to highlight errors in claims that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Professor Phil Jones, who has temporarily stood down as director of UEA's climactic research unit, is reported in today's Sunday Times to have "several times" considered suicide. He also drew parallels between his case and that of Dr David Kelly, found dead in the wake of the row over the alleged "sexing up" of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Professor Jones said he was taking sleeping pills and beta-blockers and had received two death threats in the past week alone.


Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fund-climate-deniers-1891747.html

[thunder rising]

1. And in other news ...

[NecklyTyler]

2. Heartland Institute

Anthony Watts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcxVwEfq4bM

[DissedByBush]

3. What's the problem?

The environmentalists through their governments, plus companies betting on global warming for their profits, pour millions into promoting global warming. How much was just spent on Copenhagen? Other companies put money into research on the other side.

As far as ol' Jones, poor baby. Maybe you shouldn't have shamed your institution and brought discredit to your science.

[Lorien]

4. Governments work for the corporations

they don't listen to environmentalists, peer reviewed scientists, or facts. They sell our futures for a fist full of gold today.

[DissedByBush]

5. If governments worked for corporations

Then why are most of them pushing global warming?

Governments work for special interests.

Environmentalists and corporations hoping to profit off global warming are special interests.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. This isn't about greenwashing, opportunist corporations.

This is about the difference between the researchers and scientists out there in the field, who need the funds to set up expeditions to ridiculously remote and hostile locations, to be able to take measurements and ice cores and photographic footage proving that there is a definite change occurring with the planet's climate; versus a bunch of ignorant characters such as television weathermen with degrees in journalism, or right-wing politicians who haven't done a day's honest work in their pampered lives, or people who try and pass off scientifically illiterate gibberish as peer-reviewed work and who put petitions online to gain signatures of "scientists" who refute global warming which are then "signed" by Santa Claus and Ginger Spice, all attempting to pass themselves off as "experts" on Climate Change, with the express ulterior motive of confusing the masses so that corporate bottom lines can continue to grow with minimal protest from the public.

Longest fucking sentence ever, but I think you get my point.

The university researchers and professors need grant money to pay for equipment, plane flights and sea expeditions to Bumfuck, Nowhere, and all of the other expenses related to travel and the measuring and gathering of raw data. The deniers get all kinds of money too, but the vast majority of it just goes straight into someone's pocket as a reward for misinformation done right.

:eyes:

[DissedByBush]

7. If Exxon funded this

I mean plane flights to remote areas, equipment, etc., to measure and gather data, would you consider the results to be genuine?

And I wasn't just talking about greenwashing corporations. I was talking about companies set up specifically for exploiting the global warming trend (carbon traders immediately come to mind), especially to make money off of any legislation coming down.

[Systematic Chaos]

8. Well, let's see here:

Since Exxon isn't in the business of wasting potential profit dollars on the drilling of ice cores or Arctic ice surveys as evidence that Climate Change is indeed happening, I don't think we even need to worry about it.

As for the whole cap and trade issue, it doesn't even belong in the discussion either. The issue isn't about how much money is being made because the planet doesn't give a fuck about that. The issue is really about the science, which is true and real (a few bad sentences in a report thousands of pages long nonwithstanding), and how money is being spent to try and make a position which runs counter to that science appear valid when in fact it's nothing more than a bunch of bullshit.

That's what I love about the deniers. They can't argue for diddly shit against the science, so all they do is spend their time trying to make stuff up to appear that they have a valid position. Thank goodness at least a handful of people in this country are intelligent enough to see through that. Sadly, the population at large just keeps getting more stupid and incapable of critical thought, so we end up with all this "debate" which is really a total non-starter.

[DissedByBush]

14. Your terms are telling

"Deniers." It's like you're referring to Holocaust deniers. You are only one step away from labeling people as heretics. I have debates with "intelligent design" advocates over evolution, and I've never called any one of them a "denier" even though compared to global warming, Natural Selection is a far more mature scientific theory with a lot more evidence and over a century of solid research behind it. "Denier" has no place in scientific discussion, yet those such as you purporting to back science consistently use it. You are using a theory as gospel in your new religion.

The run for damage control when the letters were exposed didn't help either. No honesty, just damage control.

You take the words of your lords as gospel, only to find your IPCC bible includes pure conjecture.

I'm on the fence for global warming, and bullshit like this doesn't help win me over.

I'm perfectly willing to admit we're fucking up the environment in this way.

It's been proven that we've done it in countless other ways, why not this one?

Yet I'm a skeptic. Why?

I don't like religion.

I don't like cults.

I don't like this cult either.

The politicians awaiting to pounce on this chance for greater power, and countries and corporations awaiting a gold rush don't help much either.

Global warming as a scientific theory is tainted.

Possibly beyond repair.

[Systematic Chaos]

15. Desperate troll is desperate.

My terms are telling?

"...purporting to back science...".

Look, the science is fucking real. You don't want to take my word for it? Go back over the past year's worth of threads started by Hatrack and tell me it's not real. It's real, and you're denying it. See how this works? :think:

"...take the words of your lords as gospel...".

LOLWTFBBQ? My lords? No, they're just the results from precise measuring instruments scattered about the planet and looking down from space. They're just the analysis of raw data and physical samples taken by people out in the field who dedicate their lives to making sense of changes which are already occurring, and are picking up speed.

"...IPCC bible...pure conjecture...".

So, two or three bad, short passages out of a report well into the thousands of pages long which is otherwise pretty much based upon decades of data from satellites and the aforementioned field researchers makes the entire IPCC report conjecture? Puhleeeeze.

"I don't like cults. I don't like this cult either."

There you go, trying to completely discount an overwhelming scientific consensus again.

"...pounce on this chance for greater power...corporations awaiting a gold rush...".

So just what the living fuck are the oil, gas and electric companies who back the deniers of science awaiting? You think they're just throwing millions of dollars around every year out of altruism? Windfall profits much?

"Global warming as a scientific theory is tainted."

Like that "petition" of over 30,000 "scientists" was "tainted" by the signatures of various Spice Girls and the likes of Santa Claus and such? Like that organization's attempt to pass off a bunch of contrived bullshit as a peer-reviewed study isn't an attempt to "taint" this issue?

Don't bother replying to me any more. Your bullshit isn't worth my time. Instead, go try and make friends with your pal the Shrub again. Get a few drinks in him and maybe you won't have to feel "dissed" any longer.

Jesus fucking H. Christ on a pogo stick.

[DissedByBush]

17. "Look, the science is fucking real."

So is the cult. So is the religious following, the money, the power, the non-scientific agendas.

"They're just the analysis of raw data and physical samples taken"

And, as we've seen, distorted. Especially telling is the admitted, and unadmitted, desire to discard data that doesn't fit the theory. So what did happen to that Medieval Warming Period I grew up hearing about? It seems to have disappeared.

"So just what the living fuck are the oil, gas and electric companies who back the deniers of science awaiting?"

They're trying to keep the status quo. I was thinking of other corporations, third-world countries and power-hungry politicians awaiting their paydays who are promoting this.

Back to the report, if you'll remember, it's conclusions said "most" of the warming is "very likely" caused by us.

I don't see any equivocal language such as that from the worshippers such as yourself. It's absolute. It's the Word Of God.

It's Politics.

"go try and make friends with your pal the Shrub again"

See what I mean? You equate skepticism with being a right winger. It's a political issue to you, not a scientific one.

You keep throwing the word "science" around, but it's political. It's an agenda. It's wrapped up with your politics.

Science shouldn't be political or religious. Yet it is for you.

[Lorien]

10. Lol! Are you serious? Stop with the GOP talking points. Take a look at the health care

bill; a prime example of corporations calling the shots. Exxon-mobile is more powerful in DC than ANY environmental "special interest group" (by the way; fossil fuel corporations ARE a "special interest group"). Exxon-Mobile has made more profit than ANY CORPORATION IN HISTORY by BLOCKING clean renewable energy. Don't you think they want to keep those billions in pure profit? They own our politicians. Deal with that.

[daleo]

11. Most governments have multiple interests

Among those is the public safety. Just as governments eventually wised up about tobacco, even in the face of a massive tobacco smoking industry lobby, many have now wised up about global warming.

But the fossil fuel industry will ever give up, just like the tobacco smoking industry. Thus scientists can expect to be slandered by the global warming denial propagandists, just as cancer researchers were by the tobacco smoking industry.

The special interest is the fossil fuel industry. Scientists go wherever the weight of the evidence takes them - they have no reason to make up anything. Indeed, how much easier their lives would be if they just told society what it wanted to hear, the way the fossil fuel industry propagandists do, and the way the tobacco smoking industry did.

[tinrobot]

12. So an environmentalist is going to outspend Exxon?

What planet are you from?

[Systematic Chaos]

16. Yeah, and don't forget that scrabbling for grant and research money = "T3h 3v1L",

but if you're a multi-billion dollar corporation and spread a few crumbs around to keep the sheeple confused, then you're just a "Corporate Citizen (tm)" out to protect your interests.

:eyes:

[fascisthunter]

9. We Knew this for Years

but I'm glad this story has been posted.

[ipaint]

13. They've been doing this for years.

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science

Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

..."When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an investigative journalist who wrote the UCS report. "The paper trail shows that, to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading disinformation about global warming."

ExxonMobil has used the laudable goal of improving scientific understanding of global warming—under the guise of "sound science"—for the pernicious ends of delaying action to reduce heat-trapping emissions indefinitely. ExxonMobil also exerted unprecedented influence over U.S. policy on global warming, from successfully recommending the appointment of key personnel in the Bush administration to funding climate change deniers in Congress.

"As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and they do eventually," said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on climate change impacts. "It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the coming years."

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html