A major Alberta-based oil and gas company helped to kick-start an elaborate public relations project designed to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming with a $175,000 donation in 2004 channelled through the University of Calgary, a newly-released letter has revealed.Read More: Here
The donation from Talisman Energy was the largest single contribution to a pair of trust accounts at the university that received $507,975 in donations to produce a video and engage in public relations, advertising and lobbying activities against the Kyoto Protocol and government measures to restrict fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Some context from Wikipedia:
The August 2007 Newsweek cover story "The Truth About Denial" reported that "this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks, and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." "As soon as the scientific community began to come together on the science of climate change, the pushback began," according to University of California, San Diego historian Naomi Oreskes. The article went on to say that individual companies and industry associations—representing petroleum, steel, autos and utilities, among others—formed lobbying groups to enlist greenhouse doubters to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," and to sow doubt about climate research just as cigarette makers had about smoking research.
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4 comments:
Fascinating that you have the Voltaire quote at the top of your blog about judging someone by his questions.
Regarding that "reposition global warming" phrase from your Wikipedia quote: Does it not bother you in the least that you cannot find the full context of it - meaning a copy of the paper it comes from - in any book, magazine or newspaper article, or at any web site including Wikipedia, where the writer uses it as proof for the accusation that skeptic scientists are under some kind of directive to confuse the public about global warming? Wouldn't you prefer to read it in its entirety, in order to be certain it wasn't taken out of context?
@Anon -Fair enough. As far as I know those three words were taken from an internal memo coming from coal industry executives.
The thing is, however, beyond the doubt about this phrase, that there is ample evidence of industry-sponsored "skeptics" generating false doubt and confusion about the science of climate change. The money trail the Koch brothers leave is iconic in this regard.
For more specifics you can start here: http://www.desmogblog.com/about
James Hoggan also wrote a great book about the crusade of confusion against climate science in his book, "Climate Cover-up" - which NASA scientist and leading climatologist James Hansen has called, "an exposé of planetary scale.”
'As far as you know'.....
So you've never seen the memo? I've read the Hoggan book, he doesn't show it. Neither does Naomi Oreskes in her famous Powerpoint lecture from 2007, she quotes it, too. And if you didn't catch it in Hoggan's book, he quotes Oreskes for it.
Regarding the Koch money trail - is it a murky one, or were there receipts or other evidence showing an exchange of money caused a particular false report or opinion to be generated?
You seem to be trusting a narrative rather than ask tough questions about it. Why is that?
How much do you get paid to troll the net and create 'climate confusion'? Only a paid thug would come back a year later to add to the nonsense everyone can already read. How much, really? I have always wondered.
Anyone that publicly claims the Kochs' don't fund global warming denialism is OBVIOUSLY part of an insidious ethos of lies. The facts about the Kochs are indisputable.
When your children's children are burning they will know that YOU were among those who prevented needed ("radical") action from happening. That will be your shame. That is your legacy.
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