Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Urge American Geophysical Union To Cut Ties With Exxon (insideclimatenews.org)
mdsolar writes: More than 100 geoscientists are calling on the American Geophysical Union to drop ExxonMobil as a sponsor of its annual earth science conference in response to the company's years of spreading climate denial views. The call appeared in an open letter posted Monday morning on a science website called The Natural History Museum. The oil giant Exxon has a history of funding organizations that perpetuate climate misinformation and try to thwart policies that address climate change (in direct conflict with the earth science association's mission and funding policies), the scientists said in their letter to Margaret Leinen, president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). "AGU has established a long history of scientific excellence with its peer-reviewed publications and conferences, as well as a strong position statement on the urgency of climate action," the letter said. "But by allowing Exxon to appropriate AGU's institutional social license to help legitimize the company's climate misinformation, AGU is undermining its stated values as well as the work of its own members," it added.
It's not like Exxon is trying to stifle the American Geophysical Union by sponsoring their event.
The geoscientists are really making themselves look bad by doing this.
They are attempting to have some principles regarding where they get funding - if they can't demonstrate their ability to function without Exxon funding, it calls into question whether or not Exxon has influence over their publications.
It's a political statement - since they have no problem calling out climate change as real, it's kind of ridiculous to say that Exxon is making them take a biased stand on that, but what other important issues (fracking, for instance) might be better investigated without corporate funding pressures?
Better to do good science with "clean" funding than questionable science with twice as much money.
well that sonofabitch should stick to making overpriced vacuum cleaners
At some point, you have to look at the motivations that each party has for their "speech." ExxonMobil has a huge vested interest in downplaying the role that burning oil has in accelerating climate change.
Suppressing their speech? When they have billions at their disposal to continue lying to the public? That's a laugh.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Same mentality. Disagree with someone? Do whatever you can to suppress their speech.
Except it's the opposite: this is more like Disagree with someone? Stop taking their money.
Do keep in mind that the groups Exxon had been funding weren't doing climate science-- those groups, as it turns out, actually were agreeing with the consensus on global warming (until Exxon stopped funding them). The groups the geoscientists are complaining about Exxon spending a hundred million dollars to support were ones that were making political points by calling climate scientists "frauds", saying climate science is a "scam", the conclusions were "a hoax," and climate scientists "need to be sent to prison."
"Stop accepting money from an organization that pays people to denigrate your work" seems like a reasonable decision to me.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
ExxonMobile has rights. Stop trying to lock them out.
Exxon Mobil has the right to offer money to the AGU.
And the AGU has the right to say no.
The End.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Freeman Dyson doesn't believe human activity is causing global climate change...
This is incorrect. Here's Wikipedia summary, but here are some choice quotes
'One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas.' (Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society, by Freeman Dyson)
'In 2008, he endorsed the now common usage of "global warming" as synonymous with global anthropogenic climate change, referring to "measurements that transformed global warming from a vague theoretical speculation into a precise observational science.' (from the above linked Wikipedia article)
If Freeman Dyson says your maths are rubbish -- They are.
He doesn't appear to be making any claims about the math.
My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have. I think that’s what upsets me. (Freeman Dyson Takes on the Climate Establishment)
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.