Main Anti Science Global Warming Denial Group Is Beholden To Exxon, Not The Truth
Obleadoo
Stupid pig ignorant Redneck Science Haters Fall For Another Scam.
Group promoting climate skepticism has extensive ties to Exxon-Mobil
By Sahil Kapur
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 -- 10:22 am
WASHINGTON -- earthblueflamewarmingclimate Group promoting climate skepticism
has extensive ties to Exxon MobilA group promoting skepticism over widely-
accredited climate change science has a web of connections to influential oil
giant Exxon-Mobil, Raw Story has found.
The organization is called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate
Change (NIPCC), apparently named after the UN coalition International Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). An investigation into the group reveals its numerous
links to Exxon-Mobil, a vehement opponent of climate legislation and notorious
among scientists for funding global warming skeptics.
"Exxon-Mobil essentially funds people to lie," Joseph Romm, lauded climate
expert and author of the blog Climate Progress, told Raw Story. "It's
important for people to understand that they pay off the overwhelming majority
of groups in the area of junk science."
The NIPCC's signature report, "Climate Change Reconsidered," disputes the
notion that global warming is human-caused, insisting in its policy summary
that "Nature, not human activity, rules the planet." Many of its assertions
have been challenged by, among others, the scientists' blog RealClimate.
The report was released and promoted this summer by the Heartland Institute, a
think tank that claims to support "common-sense environmentalism" as opposed
to "more extreme environmental activism." It alleges that "Global warming is a
prime example of the alarmism that characterizes much of the environmental
movement."
Story continues below...
"To call global warming a hoax is to question every scientific journal, every
scientific academy, and buy into the most extreme conspiracy theories," Romm
said.
Heartland has received at least $676,500 from Exxon-Mobil since 1998, the year
Exxon launched a campaign to oppose the Kyoto Treaty, according to official
documents of the two groups that have been compiled and reproduced by the
website ExxonSecrets.org. Also, the institute's self-described Government
Relations Adviser Walter F. Buchholtz has been a lobbyist for Exxon-Mobil, the
Washington Post reported in 2004.
The study's two principal authors and NIPCC leaders S Fred Singer and Craig D
Idso are both associated with various organizations that have gotten generous
funding from Exxon-Mobil.
Singer has researched and published for the Cato Institute, which has accepted
$125,000 in grants from Exxon-Mobil since 1998. Other professional
affiliations include the National Center for Policy Analysis, Frontiers of
Freedom, and American Council on Science and Health -- which have accepted
contributions of $540,000, $1.27 million and $150,000, respectively, from
Exxon.
Although some praise him as a hero, Singer has been slammed by many fellow
climate scientists as "a fraud, a charlatan and a showman" for his unorthodox
views and research.
His co-author Idso is founder, board chairman and former president of the
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, whose mission
statement is to "separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged
debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change."
The organization has taken $100,000 in funding from Exxon since 1998,
according to the oil company's reports.
Idso is also affiliated with the George Marshall Institute, which has
reportedly won $840,000 from Exxon.
Exxon-Mobil has spent more money lobbying Congress in the last two years than
any enterprise other than the Chamber of Commerce, dishing out $29 million in
2008 and over $20 million so far in 2009 to legislators. It's among the top 10
biggest spenders of lobbying cash since 1998, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.
"Exxon has waged certainly the biggest, most concerted, and most extreme
disinformation campaign on this issue," Romm told Raw Story. "The trouble is
they don't have to win the argument -- all they have to do is blow smoke and
cast doubt, and they've accomplished their end."
In a recent incident, hackers exposed private emails exchanged between climate
scientists. Some said the revealed information didn't add up to a conspiracy,
while others declared it definitive proof that anthropogenic global warming is
made-up.
The Senate will soon take up the mantle on climate bill that the House
narrowly passed this summer, and a heated debate is likely to occur in
Congress over the nature of the threat and the type of action that needs to be
taken.
"I think we're going to pass it, but it's going to be an epic struggle," Romm
said.
Republican Sen. Orrin Harch has referenced the NIPCC report, calling it a
"Comprehensive scientific answer to the IPCC [sic] Reports." Various blogs,
such the conservative Free Republic, have touted this report as evidence that
"global warming is not a crisis, and never was."