18 May 2007 - So. The
day of reckoning has come – when we get
to find out just how much of the climate
change denial industry ExxonMobil (aka Esso)
is still paying for.
This is the company which, apparently,
has been "misunderstood" on global
warming and has said it has dropped its
funding of the deniers.
The ExxonSecrets people have gone through
the documents, and found a clear answer:
last year Exxon spent $2.1 million last
year on 41 groups who are leading the climate
sceptic industry.
While the company has been forced to drop
the hottest potato of them all, the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI) and another particularly
vocal denier, Steve "Junk Science"
Milloy, the rest of them are still on the
payroll.
Like who? The Heartland Institute, the
Heritage Foundation, the George C Marshall
Institute, the American Enterprise Institute...
all the groups who've been at the heart
of the climate change denial industry for
more than a decade.
These include the groups who were listed
in a 1998 American Petroleum Institute memo
outlining a communications strategy for
taking down the Kyoto Protocol.
So despite its protestations, the company
is still running the sceptic industry. What
else is Exxon not telling us?
ExxonSecrets has obtained the company's
Exxon Foundation 2005 report to the IRS.
Exxon told the IRS that that it funded 14
groups specifically for their climate change
work. But somehow the company didn’t mention
this in public.
Exxon has always been quick to point out
that it just gives these groups general
funding and doesn’t tell them what to do
or how to spend the money.
But giving money to the Frontiers of Freedom
for their "climate change efforts"
seems pretty specific. Especially when those
"efforts" included an eight-page
report dedicated entirely to questioning
global warming science, policy and attacking
Al Gore.
"The truth is, there is no conclusive
or reliable scientific proof that the sky
is falling or that Earth's climate is experiencing
cataclysmic warming caused by man's activities,"
says Frontiers for Freedom. Last year Exxon
rewarded these efforts with a $180,000 grant,
up from $80,000 the year before.
Another is the George C Marshall Institute,
whose CEO William O'Keefe (former American
Petroleum Institute officer and registered
ExxonMobil lobbyist) recently referred to
the April 2007 ruling by the US Supreme
Court (that the EPA has the authority to
regulate carbon dioxide) as "a triumph
of judicial activism…ideology… political
science" by a court that "may
have been too influenced by political correctness
and climate orthodoxy." The institute
got $85,000 from Exxon in 2006.
This company has now funded the climate
change denial industry to the tune of $22
million since 1998. Last year the UK's prestigious
scientific body, the Royal Society, wrote
to Exxon asking them to stop funding the
groups who were "misinforming the public
about the science of climate change".
Exxon indicated to the Royal Society that
they had - and they would. In February this
year Exxon did a big public relations round
of the media, saying it had been "misunderstood"
on climate change and gave the clear indication
that it had dropped its funding of the climate
sceptic industry.
"Exxon softens its stance on climate
change" screamed the headlines. But
very little has changed, except Exxon's
PR machine. It's been business as usual
at the Dallas HQ, no matter what they said
in public.
