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How ExxonMobil Funded Global Warming Skeptics
Erik Moeller writes "According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, oil company 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.' The report compares the tactics employed by the oil giant to those used by the tobacco industry in previous decades, and identifies key individuals who have worked on both campaigns. Would a 'global warming controversy' exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?"
Big business lobbies to protect its interests!
All the flames that are about to be posted...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
ExxonMobil's Response to a Report by the Union of Concerned Scientists ExxonMobil believes the Union of Concerned Scientists' paper is deeply offensive and wrong. ExxonMobil engages in public policy discussions by encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of information and transparency. Our support of scientific research on climate change is made public on our web site and it includes more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists, and our participation on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous related scientific bodies. While there is more to learn on climate science, what is clear today is that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, and that the use of fossil fuels is a major source of these emissions. With regard to contributions that ExxonMobil provides to various public policy organizations, our support is transparent and appears on our web site. The support extends to a fairly broad array of organizations that research significant domestic and foreign policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company. These groups range from the Brookings Institution to the American Enterprise Institute and from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. As these organizations are independent of their corporate sponsors and are tax-exempt, we don't control their views and messages, and they do not speak on our behalf. In many cases and with respect to the full range of policy positions taken by these organizations, we find some of them persuasive and enlightening, and some not. We annually review our support of tax-exempt organizations and make appropriate adjustments. In addition, we publish the complete list of such organizations on our web site - and we update this list once per year. Supporting scientific and public policy research leads to better informed and more open discussion of options to address such a serious, global issue as climate change. http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Newsroom/NewsR eleases/corp_nr_mr_climate.asp
They provide me with an income. I'm happy with them. But this doesn't I agree with all their policies. I just fix their computers!
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
$16 million over a 7 year period is nothing, especially for a company that regularly posts profits in the $30 billion dollar range. And none of this matters unless someone actually reports on the "findings" and "analysis" of ExxonMobile's "specialists." If anything, the media is responsible for creating the image of some debate about global warming (even though a huge scientific consensus exists).
They have. Slowdown of the North Atlantic Current, increases in global average temperatures, melting of glaciers, raising of ocean levels (and no, they were not expected to be in the multiple yard levels) have all been inline with the median models.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I agree that UCS is heavily biased and is just a political front group that has abandoned scientific reporting and married itself to marketing. Read their FAQ about global warming. They certainty about topics that are still heavily debated by legit scientists.
That said... Exxon has every right to honestly defend itself, but if they have indeed created front groups or are knowingly spreading misinformation they should be properly scorned.
It's too bad that you got a mod or two as "troll" instead of "funny", but that itself should have been expected because you're absolutely correct with respect to what's about to happen. The inflammatory (no pun intended) nature of the article summary itself just begs for the whole damned thing to be marked as "troll" or "flamebait".
Look, the whole idea that any company or organization would attempt to skew any studies to their own viewpoint is universal. Enviornmentalists are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Corporations are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Skeptics are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Conspiracy theorists are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Anyone with any kind of agenda is always looking to make surveys/studies support his viewpoint. But in this case it's "big oil" { insert doom-and-gloom music here }, so therefore their attempts to skew results are somehow more evil than other groups doing it? What a complete and utter crock.
The question of "Would a 'global warming controversy' exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?" is infuriating by itself. Hell, yes there would be a controversy for numerous reasons that have been stated time and time and time again, not the least of which is that without indisputable proof, which I still don't believe we have, there will always be room for skepticism. Honestly, the whole notion that skepticism is unhealthy, as that last line suggests, is an abhorrent idea in itself.
Yeah, yeah, mod me down for actually contesting a Slashdot article and for being somewhat of a global warming skeptic. I have karma to burn, but that doesn't make what I've said any less valid.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The average American is confused enough as it is.
Look, it's simple: all of the authorities and powers-that-be could have been in total agreement for the last 2 decades, warning people about global warming in every available media outlet and it wouldn't have mattered because Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit. And politicians won't force people to do the right thing, because that doesn't get you elected.
Unless it unavoidably and directly impacts the price of beer or his ability to watch his favorite TV show, Joe wouldn't care if his SUV ran on mulched babies. "Scrubs" has it right: people are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. And global warming is Somebody Else's Problem.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Global warming shouldn't even enter into it. The whole "global warming debate" is a smokescreen blown from both sides to avoid asking the really tricky, really pertinent questions, namely: "Global warming aside, is spewing fossil fuel byproducts into the atmosphere bad for the environment in general?" (Yes.) "Is a complete and total reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels and pigheadedly refusing to look into alternative energy sources because they aren't where the money is a bad plan?" (Yes.) "What are our next steps?" (We don't know.) So people bitch and moan about global warming because it's a nice, round cornered, warm and fuzzy topic that any idiot can get his head around, as opposed to the intricate economic and political machinations behind the energy (read: fossil fuel) trade as a whole. It's just like hippies whining about recycling saving trees when the real issue is so much more complex than that. They just ignore the rest of it because it doesn't make a good tagline and it's harder for the average public-school-educated-Joe to understand. And things that the average public-school-educated-Joe has a hard time understanding make him change the channel, which is bad for support and bad for business.
Because the scientific communty would still shun any scientist that questions the present assumptions. Now take away funding from those voices that dare to question and we would has even less understanding than we have today.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
I think this is a report that is trying to link some sort of monies to conspiracies and agendas. $15M spread across 42 (to remove the one high example they use) organizations over 8 years = $45K a year on average. Its a lot to an individual but hardly enough to fund "access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming".
Further, I see froth but no substance - no irrefutible proof saying that Exxon doesnt mind global warning or that it doesnt exist, or even that they dont care. The best I can see is that a group that recieved money "touted a book". Incidently, they use this as "an example" because the group recieved $600K - far above the average amount given, so its hardly a typical example.
This is clearly a biased report hoping to use allegations and bend them into truth. I am a sceptic but in the sense that I dont think anyone has a grasp on whats really going on, whats normal, and how much us humans have played a part in any change that has happened. I'm a skeptic when anyone tells me they have all the answers.
Hear hear. I'm sick and tired of hearing what scientists think about global warming: it's about time that we heard from the oil companies.
So much money! That $16 million, over 7 years, divided by 43 groups, comes to the amazingly huge sum of $53,000 per year per group. Why, with that king of money, they could probably pay the salary of 1 person!
My God! They could take over the world with an army like that!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist
But apparently it takes a bored IT guy on slashdot to correct an international consortium of climatologists.
Maybe you ought to take a course in the statistical analysis of experimental data, and when you have a grasp of how scientists analyze data to construct theories that explain observations, they often take many things into account, you can rejoin the discussion.
Or, the short version: THE FACT THAT THE SOLAR RADIATION HAS INCREASED HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR.
Good day!
Except that environmentalists interests are for the general welfare of the planet and its inhabitants, not for the increased wealth of acorporation and its stockholders. A rather significant difference, wouldn't you agree?
The Royal Society recently issued a fairly unprecedented public warning to Exxon to stop perverting science in the name of $$$. I'm sure the UCS are a very worthy body, but the Royal Society are somewhat more prestigious and authoritative (what with having been founded by Newton, Boyle and Hooke, amongst others, being the oldest such learned body in the world, and still representing the elite (in a good way) of UK science. Exxon ("Esso" here in the UK) are still, as the Greenpeace campaign from 5 years ago pointed out, "#1 Global Warming Villain".
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
This is the best treatment of Hansen's 1998 predictions that I have seen. It discusses Hansen's forecasts of emissions and temperature back in '88 (this was testimony before Congress; Pat Michaels and Michael Crichton have since lied quite bluntly about this testimony only by talking about scenario A, which is not relevant given actual CO2 emissions).
The verdict: Not perfect, but pretty damn good.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Where's the article about the tree huggers funding pro global warming research? Since it's functionaly identical everyone should be up in arms about that too.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Woah, hold on there a minute.
"both sides have lied", so the truth must be "somewhere in the middle?"
That's the logical fallacy that Fox News uses all the time.
A quick example should illustrate the fallacy:
Billy: There's a cake here!
Bobby: I want it!
Billy: Why don't we split it 50/50?
Bobby: No! mine!
Their Mom: I've heard both of your extreme viewpoints, so we'll need to compromise. Bobby gets 75%, Billy gets 25%.
Saying that both sides "have lied" and so "the truth is somewhere in between" somehow puts paid industry propagandists on the same credibility level as professional climate research scientists. (And does a great disservice to science, I think.) There is a fair amount of difference in the professional opinion of a corporate shill who is paid to spout the company line, and someone who has spent the majority of their life studying something.
Should read:
The fact that the solar radiation has increased has been accounted for and blamed on Americans driving SUVs and George Bush.
And blame the Chinese pollution problem on America too because they should all be in cold, damp, and dark huts with no jobs and no food to feed themselves. That is until they find that fish that grants wishes then we can all have rainbows and Skittles.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
If there were skeptics, on ANY topic, who is going to FUND them except if you have a stake in it? For any viewpoint in any issue, ONLY the people that stand to lose if the issue goes the other way will fund research supporting them. Thus saying that big oil is funding most of the research that contradicts "prevailing opinion" makes 100% sense. Do you actually expect the Sierra Club to fund a study who's goal is skepticism?
This comes from confusing cause & effect. The studies don't come out a certain way because the group funding them dictates that it should, but only because the only ones LOOKING for an opposite outcome are those with something to lose. A very slight difference, but it's still critical to understanding it. The first is straight-out lying. The 2nd can happen with the most honest of intentions. I'm not saying that's the case here, but to dismiss it automatically as the 1st just means your mind is made up without even looking at what evidence may exist.
The word "skeptic" comes from a Greek work, "skepsis", which refers to looking at something and examining it. Skepticism is that the person from Missouri does when they say "show me".
A skeptic isn't a denier. A denier says the scientests are making it all up to curry favor with government grant issuers, you know, the rabid environmentalist Bush administration. A skeptic asks how big the error bars are on the temperature measurements and finds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record. A skeptic asks how a huge computer model of a system which is incompletely defined can ever be validated (and finds annoyingly little in the popular literature). A skeptic asks whether increased solar output could account for the changes and finds out that nights are getting warmer and the upper atmosphere is getting colder, both of which point to heat getting trapped in the lower atmosphere.
A skeptic refuses to be rushed into policy choices. A skeptic asks the question Bjorn Lomborg has been exploring, whether it's better to mitigate the results of climate change than to uproot the foundations of the world economy trying to prevent it.
Skepticism clarifies issues, astroturf campaigns and phony think tanks obscure issues.
Except that environmentalists interests are for the general welfare of the planet and its inhabitants, not for the increased wealth of acorporation and its stockholders. A rather significant difference, wouldn't you agree?
I would not agree.
That is a very charitable evaluation, but your conclusion doesn't make much sense. The Spanish Inquisition (bet you didn't expect that) would have claimed, quite sincerely, that their goal was the general welfare and spiritual well being of the planet and its inhabitants. All they required was absolute obedience and license to do pretty much anything they wanted. By your logic they would rank as one of the most trustworthy and wonderful organizations in history. Most of their victims would not agree. Good intentions do not automatically bring about good results.
So sre environmentalists the Spanish Inquisition, blessed with absolute knowledge of right and wrong and empowered to change the world and crush all dissent? No, of course not. But some of them sure seem to wish they were.
Is science done by people with alleged good intentions always right, and science paid for by people with a profit motive always suspect? No, obviously not. I don't care who pays for what. All that matters is whether the science is sound enough to stand up to scrutiny. A lot of climate science is really, really slipshod stuff rigged up to support foregone ideological conclusion. Regardless of whether you agree with the conclusions or not, that's not science.
Can you please offer some real-life experience that backs up any of those assertions? Note: what you read on Free Republic does not count as experience.
I have a degree in physical oceanography, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are wrong on this as the deniers i the lies bought from them. The whole time I was in graduate school, I held the point of view that anthropogenic effects could not be separated from natural variability. While people didn't agree with me, I was never disparaged, and nobody even thought of trying to link my work to that. At the time, there were a lot of challenges to be made to important conclusions like Mann's, and modelling was much less well developed. There are still important uncertainties, but the open scientific process has worked, and it has confirmed the findings about anthropogenic climate change. I have been obligated to change my point of view by the increasing body of evidence here.
There is no controversy. There is no doubt. There are some claims which are not fully supported - e.g., how exactly anthropenic warming will affect hurricane formation is not clear, but the most of the basic physical mechanisms are pretty well undertand (if not the second order problems like interaction between wind shear and sea surface temperature), but when they are made and answered within the context of scientific debate (e.g. Kerry Emmanuel's paper), they have tended to confirm the magnitude of risks. Part of the reason scientists are pissed and have begun publishing reports like this is that they resent the endless meddling in the process by these oil-funded "think tanks".
The problem the denialists have is not bias, it is that they are trying to challenge an increasingly established body of science with loopier and loopier ideas. This is similiar to the small but active community of denialists who claim that cold fusion is being suppressed - they more evidence thatemerges against it, the more they turn to whiny claims of bias of crazy counterarguments. Trying to make improbable criticisms stick is never a good strategy for funding. Any responsible grant administrator will consider the question of, say, the meaning of correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature as an approximately closed question. There are of course caveats and valid criticisms to any particular paper using those correlations, but the basic science is considered fairly well established. It might be nice if there was so much funding just lying around that the correlation could be subjected to nearly endless testing, but it can't. It's had its day in scientific debate, and barring some truly innovative method or a new framework that raises new concerns, the question is settled. The denialists have provided none of this (barring Lindzen's loony IRIS theory), yet they continue to whine and moan about how their lack of good ideas and unwillingness to accepted results of good work is not in fact petty obstinacy (or more likely outright bought loyalty), but is some kind of noble keeper of the flame movement. That's self-flattering bullshit, and an insult to serious scientists everywhere. Climate science has a healthy scientific process - like anything else, it could probably use improvement in some areas. But to suggest that the whole field of climate science is fundamentally unsound is breathtakingly arrogant and small-minded.
So until you have something real to the conversation, do us the favor of keeping your unfounded slander in your mom's basement next to your teddy bear and anime girlfriend.
A lot of climate science is really, really slipshod stuff rigged up to support foregone ideological conclusion.
And you are qualified enough to make that judgement, how, exactly? Could you please cite some specific examples of peer reviewed literature that demonstrate your point and explain why you think they are slipshod stuff? Otherwise, you are just engaging in a logical fallacy known as wishful thinking.
FreeSpeech.org
Kevin Vranes from the University of Colorado at Bolder has this to say
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archi ves/climate_change/001030so_what_happened_at_.html
"..."
"I will grant that talking to the people I did at AGU represents a small fraction of all the attendees. I will grant that there is no way to know whether my averaging of attitudes in the climsci world, as sensed by talking with a few people over a few days, scales up to represent the true feelings of the collective. But I will tell you what I found, and what I felt, and whether you think it might represent the current attitude of climsci world is up to you."
"To sum the state of climsci world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension."
"..."
"What I see is something that I am having a hard time labeling, but that I might call either a "hangover" or a "sophomore slump" or "buyers remorse." None fit perfectly, but perhaps the combination does. I speak for (my interpretation) of the collective: {We tried for years - decades - to get them to listen to us about climate change. To do that we had to ramp up our rhetoric. We had to figure out ways to tone down our natural skepticism (we are scientists, after all) in order to put on a united face. We knew it would mean pushing the science harder than it should be. We knew it would mean allowing the boundary-pushers on the "it's happening" side free reign while stifling the boundary-pushers on the other side. But knowing the science, we knew the stakes to humanity were high and that the opposition to the truth would be fierce, so we knew we had to dig in. But now they are listening. Now they do believe us. Now they say they're ready to take action. And now we're wondering if we didn't create a monster. We're wondering if they realize how uncertain our projections of future climate are. We wonder if we've oversold the science. We're wondering what happened to our community, that individuals caveat even the most minor questionings of barely-proven climate change evidence, lest they be tagged as "skeptics." We're wondering if we've let our alarm at the problem trickle to the public sphere, missing all the caveats in translation that we have internalized. And we're wondering if we've let some of our scientists take the science too far, promise too much knowledge, and promote more certainty in ourselves than is warranted.}"
"..."
"None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it's not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we've created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say "climate change is right here!" It is to say that a number of climsci people I heard from are not comfortable enough with the science to want our community to push to outsiders an idea that we have fully or even adequately bounded the risk. I heard from a few people a sentiment that we need to stop making assumptions and decisions for decision-makers; that we need to give decision-makers only the unvarnished truth with realistic bounds on our uncertainty, and trust that the decision-makers will know what to do with it. These feelings came of frustration that many of us are downplaying uncertainties for fear of not being listened to."
"..."
"I realize that many of you will disagree with the notion that we are overplaying our hand, or are not giving full voice to our uncertainties. I'm not sure the answer to this question myself. But I write all this because I sense a sea change in attitudes amongst climsci people that I know as good scientists without agendas. These are solid scientists, and some told me in no uncertain terms that we are not giving full voice to uncertainties; others implied as much. Therein lies the tension. Where we go from here
This is the best part of the debate. Someone like me (a liberal, as it turns out, but that really doesn't matter) announces that they think the politics of science have gotten out of hand, and we're immediately told, "what you read on Free Republic does not count as experience" (as if I read any such publication, but hey it makes for a great straw-man) and the vauge "loopier and loopier ideas" concept, which isn't even a refutation.
As for real-world examples... it began long ago. For example, the primary author of "Sun, Weather, And Climate" (1978 NASA special publication), John R. Herman was subsequently shunned by his peers as, during the early 80s, the data from that book was used as a counter-point in the greenhouse gas debate.
Any solar observatory these days sees this. They either talk about other topics, or only publish data that fails to contradict the "facts" as accepted by the current consensus. Violating that has one observatory mentioned in the congressional floor debate record as, "an enemy of the planet," I kid you not.
There's also a great article about the modern implications of the "climate of fear" surrounding climate research, but of course, you can't listen to Richard Lindzen because he takes money from those people... but of course, that's self-perpetuating because anyone who speaks up in Lindzen's defense is branded with the same iron, and must seek funding elsewhere... which further invalidates their voice.
I'm not saying that CO2 doesn't cause babies to cry and angels to lose their wings, I'm just saying that there's no way to extract meaningful information from the "consensus" of a community that's scared for their jobs about saying the wrong thing. I would consider Bill Gates a national, even international hero if he invested a large chunk of the Gates Foundation money in funding the best research that tried to assail current climate theory on all fronts. Not because that theory is bad, but because I want to see the research done and done well, so that we really get to find out what the hell is going on on planet Earth.
Let me ask you this: if you did research that suggested that, for example, ground-cover water vapor from irrigation had a strong hand to play in surface warming (that's arm-waving, but it's an example for sake of argument), do you think that you would continue to get funding? Would you be called an "enemy of the planet?" Would you have to go looking to oil companies to support further research and pretty much guarantee that no one listened to you? What if some republican picked up your work and started waving it around, taking it out of context and saying that fossile fuel is as safe as houses because of what you said? Would the community circle around you and defend your reputation from such gross misuse of your work, or would you just find yourself too "controvercial" to continue to work in the field?
We know the answer to these questions because it's been played out for nearly 30 years. You would be asking Slashdot, "what's a good tech job?"