Posted on 01/05/2007 2:20:57 PM PST by presidio9
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.
"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."
Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has
raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming ExxonMobil-funded organizations consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups.
Baliunas is best known for a 2003 paper alleging the climate had not changed significantly in the past millennia that was rebutted by 13 scientists who stated she had misrepresented their work in her paper. This renunciation did not stop ExxonMobil-funded groups from continuing to promote the paper. Through methods such as these, ExxonMobil has been able to amplify and prop up work that has been discredited by reputable climate scientists.
"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."
The burning of oil and other fossil fuels results in additional atmospheric carbon dioxide that blankets the Earth and traps heat. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased greatly over the last century and global temperatures are rising as a result. Though solutions are available now that will cut global warming emissions while creating jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security, ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change.
"ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer. "Consumers, shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear that its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."
For general media inquiries, please call our press office at 202-331-5420.
Press Contacts:
EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 erobinson@ucsusa.org
AARON HUERTAS Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-5458 ahuertas@ucsusa.org
ExxonMobile: Obscuring the facts that moonbats made up!
Perhaps the 'Union of Concerned Scientists' could organize 'book burnings'? Never mind that it was done in the 30's...they could say it was wrong then, but correct now.
This is how the liberal's always attact those that don't agree with them. While they are putting out there dis-imformation via federal dollars...Then just how do they suppose that the other side is going to do their studies without someone funding them? I trust the results of the privately funded studies more than I do the results comming from the government funded side. The Liberals started out already knowing the results they wanted. They always manipulate the data that they get accordingly. They have been caught red-handed at it more than once.
Now that they have the Congress, they're coming for you car.
Have a nice day.
All these studies, releases, etc. are paid for by carbon trading interests. Goldman Sachs has invested $3 billion, yes billion, in setting up and promoting these markets, how much has gone into corrupting climate "scientists" with their doohickey modelings and into relations firms whipping up sound bites like "tipping point" and "consensus?"
They're getting shrill. Even a Harvard professor here is getting nasty. They fear the debunkers.
On the other hand the traders smell victories. California is backing into carbon trading scams, the National Democrats have made noise about it.
Where we, the liberals, want to spend millions of your dollars to combat our lies to America and the world.
Hmmmmm.... my money's on Exxon!
Oh horse puckey.
More of the same.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762008/posts?page=10#10
...nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.There is no such science. Speaking of funnelling money (in this case tax dollars) to advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public...
[pp 208-216] "On June 23, 1988, climatologist James Hansen testified before a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a day when the temperature in Washington D.C. reached a sweltering 38C... Hansen had impressive data from 2,000 weather stations... which documented not only a century-long warming trend but a sharp resumption of warming after the early 1970s... Hansen flatly proclaimed that the earth was warming on a permanent basis because of humanity's promiscuous use of fossil fuels [sic]... Recently, James Hansen and a group of his colleagues have argued that the rapid warming of recent decades has in fact been driven by non-CO2 gases such as chlorofluorocarbons. Fossil fuel [sic] burning CO2 and aerosols have both positive and negative climatic forcing effects, which tend to cancel each other out. Hansen and his team point out that the growth rate of non-CO2 gases has declined over the past decade and could be reduced even further. This, combined with a slowing of black carbon and CO2 emissions, could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming. Much more research is needed to confirm this hypothesis."In other words, in 1988 Hansen warned Congress that CO2 would raise world temperatures. About ten years went by, after which Hansen claimed that CO2 doesn't have any net impact at all. So much for his data. Mind you, this came from the book shown below, which is egregiously in advocacy of the notion of "global warming".
The Little Ice Age:
How Climate Made History 1300-1850
by Brian M. Fagan
Paperback
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