Public Policy Groups Getting $ From ExxonMobil

[Guest guest]

Thursday, 05 January 2006

Some Like It Hot: " Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek

to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to

overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil....There is overwhelming

scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are

causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative think tanks are

trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing

'reports' designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies,

skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism.... "

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by

human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative

think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation

campaign employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to

peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and

events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed. The think tanks

provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science

currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like

Senator Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chair of the Environment and Public

Works Committee, who calls global warming “a hoax.”

This concerted effort reflects the shared convictions of free-market, and

thus antiregulatory, conservatives. But there’s another factor at play. In

addition to being supported by like-minded individuals and ideologically

sympathetic foundations, these groups are funded by ExxonMobil, the world’s

largest oil company. Mother has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded

organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific

findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a

small group of “skeptic” scientists who continue to do so.

Beyond think tanks, the count also includes quasi-journalistic outlets like

Tech CentralStation.com (a website providing “news, analysis, research, and

commentary” that received $95,000 from ExxonMobil in 2003), a FoxNews.com

columnist, and even religious and civil rights groups. In total, these

organizations received more than $8 million between 2000 and 2003 (the last

year for which records are available; all figures below are for that range

unless otherwise noted).

ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Lee serves as vice chairman of the board

of trustees for the AEI, which received $960,000 in funding from ExxonMobil.

The AEI-Brookings Institution Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, which

officially hosted Crichton, received another $55,000. When asked about the

event, the center’s executive director, Hahn—who’s a fellow with the

AEI—defended it, saying, “Climate science is a field in which reasonable

experts can disagree.” (By contrast, on the day of the event, the Brookings

Institution posted a scathing critique of Crichton’s book.)

During the question-and-answer period following his speech, Crichton drew an

analogy between believers in global warming and Nazi eugenicists. “Auschwitz

exists because of politicized science,” Crichton asserted, to gasps from

some in the crowd. There was no acknowledgment that the AEI event was part

of an attempt to do just that: politicize science. The audience at hand was

certainly full of partisans. Listening attentively was Myron Ebell, a man

recently censured by the British House of Commons for “unfounded and

insulting criticism of Sir King, the Government’s Chief Scientist.”

Ebell is the global warming and international policy director of the

Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which has received a whopping

$1,380,000 from ExxonMobil. Sitting in the back of the room was

Horner, the silver-haired counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition who’s also a

CEI senior fellow. Present also was Driessen, a senior fellow with the

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow ($252,000) and the Center for the

Defense of Free Enterprise ($40,000 in 2003). Saying he’s “heartened that

ExxonMobil and a couple of other groups have stood up and said, ‘this is not

science,’” Driessen, who is white, has made it his mission to portray

Kyoto-style emissions regulations as an attack on people of color—his recent

book is entitled Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (see “Black

Gold?”).

Driessen has also written about the role that think tanks can play in

helping corporations achieve their objectives. Such outlets “can provide

research, present credible independent voices on a host of issues,

indirectly influence opinion and political leaders, and promote responsible

social and economic agendas,” he advised companies in a 2001 essay published

in Capital PR News. “They have extensive networks among scholars, academics,

scientists, journalists, community leaders and politicians…. You will be

amazed at how much they do with so little.”

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