Tea Party found to be creation of tobacco industry

Rather than being a purely grassroots movement that spontaneously developed in 2009, the Tea Party has developed over time, in part through decades of work by the tobacco industry and other corporate interests. It is important for tobacco control advocates in the USA and internationally, to anticipate and counter Tea Party opposition to tobacco control policies and ensure that policymakers, the media and the public understand the longstanding connection between the tobacco industry, the Tea Party and its associated organisations.




Unnamed billionaires spent $120 million to discredit climate science
Anonymous billionaires donated $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit climate change science
Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change. The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.




Exmo, Koch funded ALEC pushes teaching of climate skepticism to children
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — known by its critics as a "corporate bill mill" — has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing "models bills" mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems. ALEC has already planted its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act," which mandates a "balanced" teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms, in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year.  ALEC's major funders include Koch Industries and ExxonMobil.



IRS grants tax exemption for Koch-funded skeptic groups: The Independent
A British newspaper claims to have discovered the convoluted way oil billionaires in the United States can funnel huge amounts of cash toward climate change-denial campaigns, while reaping tremendous tax advantages in the process. A shadowy group called the Donors Trust is largely funded by billionaire Charles Koch and his wife Liz. The trust indirectly receives millions of dollars in funding from a third-party group called the Knowledge and Progress Fund, which the Koch family operates, the paper claims.The IRS recognizes the Donors Trust as a charitable organization due to its status as a "donor-advised trust." These trusts "are individual accounts administered by tax-exempt organizations, such as community foundations and national charities," according to the Wall Street Journal.



Scientists expose dishonest IPCC skeptic
An attempt by climate sceptics to hijack the latest UN report on global warming by selectively leaking claims that it is caused by sunspots rather than man-made emissions of carbon dioxide has backfired.




Science papers affirming man-made global warming: 13,926 -- denying: 24

Twenty four of the 13,950 articles, 0.17% or 1 in 581, clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming. The 24 articles have been cited a total of 113 times over the nearly 21-year period, for an average of close to 5 citations each. That compares to an average of about 19 citations for articles answering to "global warming," for example. Four of the rejecting articles have never been cited; four have citations in the double-digits. The most-cited has 17.




Kochs, Exxon move to gut state renewable efforts
The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank skeptical of climate change science, has joined with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to write model legislation aimed at reversing  state renewable energy mandates across the country. The Electricity Freedom Act, adopted by the council’s board of directors in October, would repeal state standards requiring utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable power, calling it “essentially a tax on consumers of electricity.” Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have binding renewable standards; in the absence of federal climate legislation, these initiatives have become the subject of intense political battles.




Cato Prepares Fraudulent Climate Report
A new "addendum" to be released as soon as this week purports to update with the latest science a 2009 federal assessment on the impacts to the United States of climate change. But the new report comes from the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute. And its findings – that science is questionable, the impacts negligible and the potential policy solutions ineffective – are more a rebuke than a revision of the original report and of accepted science both then and today.




US newspapers lead the world in climate denial
According to a new analysis of data released last year, American newspapers are far more likely to publish uncontested claims from climate deniers, many of whom challenge whether the planet is warming at all and are "almost exclusively found" in the U.S. media. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.  The researchers were trying to answer three important questions: Is climate denial and disinformation as prevalent in the newspapers outside America? Is it mostly right-wing papers publishing these pieces? And what types of skeptics are being published in different countries?  In all three categories, the U.S. emerged as a unique leader in promoting climate denial in the press.




Study: Fox News, WSJ Falsify Climate Coverage

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is calling on News Corporation to improve the representation of climate science on two of its prominent media holdings, Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section, after an analysis showed both heavily distort the facts on the issue. UCS examined representations of climate science from both Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section. In its analysis, UCS found: Over a recent six-month period, Fox News Channel representations of climate science were misleading 93 percent of the time (37 out of 40 citations). Over the past year, the Wall Street Journal opinion section’s representations of climate science were misleading 81 percent of the time (39 out of 48 citations).




Climate skepticism trumps heatwave, drought in US corn belt
Scientists have long warned of more frequent floods and droughts as the world’s climate changes. But for many farmers in the US  global warming is bogus. Climate scepticism among farmers helps explain why carbon emissions are off the US legislative agenda despite the hottest temperatures on record.




New carbon credit scam games the system but not the atmosphere

When the United Nations wanted to help slow climate change, it established what seemed a sensible system. Greenhouse gases were rated based on their power to warm the atmosphere. The more dangerous the gas, the more that manufacturers in developing nations would be compensated as they reduced their emissions. But where the United Nations envisioned environmental reform, some manufacturers of gases used in air-conditioning and refrigeration saw a lucrative business opportunity. They quickly figured out that they could earn one carbon credit by eliminating one ton of carbon dioxide, but could earn more than 11,000 credits by simply destroying a ton of an obscure waste gas normally released in the manufacturing of a widely used coolant gas. That is because that byproduct has a huge global warming effect. The credits could be sold on international markets, earning tens of millions of dollars a year.




ExMo CEO: We can "engineer" our way out of climate chaos

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said efforts to address climate change should focus on engineering methods to adapt to shifting weather patterns and rising sea levels rather than trying to eliminate use of fossil fuels.  Tillerson said humans have long adapted to change, and governments should create policies to cope with the Earth's rising temperatures.




Geoengineering May Cut Rainfall by Five Percent

Large-scale engineering projects aimed at fighting global warming could radically reduce rainfall in Europe and North America, a team of scientists from four European countries have warned. Geoengineering projects are controversial, even though they are largely theoretical at this point. They range from mimicking the effects of large volcanic eruptions by releasing sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, to deploying giant mirrors in space to deflect the sun's rays. Proponents say they could be a rapid response to rising global temperatures but environmentalists argue they are a distraction from the need to reduce man-made carbon emissions.




N.C. Senate: Nature may not interfere with economic development

With virtually no debate, the state Senate Tuesday nixed global warming restrictions on the state’s coast.  Lawmakers passed a bill that restricts local planning agencies’ abilities to use climate change science to predict sea-level rise in 20 coastal counties. The bill’s supporters said that relying on climate change forecasts would stifle economic development and depress property values in eastern North Carolina. 




Sponsors Flee Heartland Institute
Heartland Institute was cut off by three more corporate donors, further isolating the ultra-conservative thinktank from the mainstream business world. The defections reinforce the sense of Heartland's isolation, ahead of its major climate contrarian conference in Chicago next week. A number of prominent speakers also pulled out of the conference after Heartland put up a billboard on a Chicago expressway  suggesting believers in climate change were akin to serial killers. In statements to advocacy groups, pharmaceutical giant Eli Llily, BB&T bank and PepsiCo confirmed they would not fund Heartland in 2012 – dealing a blow to the thinktank's plans of building long-term relationships with major corporations.




Conservative Funders Aim to Build National Anti-Windpower Movement
A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy. A confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using "subversion" to build a national movement of wind farm protesters. 




Heartland Ad Likens Climate Advocates to Notorious Terrorists
In an ad, the Heartland Institute compared global warming advocates to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson and possibly Osama bin Laden.



GM Ditches Heartland Institute
General Motors, the world's largest carmaker, has confirmed that it is pulling funding from the Heartland Institute, an ultra-conservative thinktank known for its scepticism about climate change. In the past GM has itself been associated with efforts to discredit climate change science, but in recent years it has been investing heavily in green technologies and cars including the electric/petrol hybrid, the Chevy Volt. In a statement, GM said that it now runs its business "as if climate change is real and believe we have a role to play in developing new cars, trucks and technologies that can make a difference".




GM Foundation Supports Heartland Institute: Documents
General Motors, a company that has made strides to lower the carbon footprint of driving, is taking heat from 10,000 of its customers for a donation its charitable foundation made to an institute that casts doubt on climate science. GM vehicle buyers have posted online comments objecting to the GM Foundation's gifts of $30,000 in the past two years to the Heartland Institute, a free-market advocacy organization that publicizes its disagreement with prevailing scientific views about evidence of climate change.





Peter Gleick's Tragic Lapse
Peter Gleick's extraordinary contributions over the years have been invaluable. But no amount of righteous gloating over the disclosure of the Heartland documents should be allowed to obscure the indelible tainting of his legacy. My sorrow for Peter far outweighs my delight at the exposure of the scummy practices of the Heartland Institute. Given all his years of service, Peter's lapse in judgment has, ever so sadly, turned him into a truly tragic casualty of the climate war.
 
                            

  



Environmentalist Lied to Obtain Heartland Documents
A prominent environmental activist admitted Monday night that he had deceitfully obtained and distributed confidential internal materials from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian group based in Chicago devoted in part to questioning the reality of global warming. Peter H. Gleick, founder and president of the  Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, wrote in a statement that he had posed as someone else to get the materials, which include fund-raising and strategy documents intended only for the board and top executives of the group. The documents' release, which lit up the Internet last week, was cast by some bloggers as the work of a whistle-blowing Heartland employee or ex-employee who had access to internal papers, when it was in fact orchestrated by Dr. Gleick, a Yale- and Berkeley-trained scientist and environmental activist who says that he was frustrated with Heartland’s anti-climate-change programs.



Mann Details His Life Under Siege from the Carbon Lobby
The carbon lobby sees "scientists like me who are trying to communicate the potential dangers of continued fossil fuel burning to the public as a threat. That means we are subject to attacks, some of them quite personal, some of them dishonest" said Michael Mann.




Climate Denial Curriculum Funded by Altria, Koch Industries and Others
Internal documents have been leaked from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago nonprofit think tank, showing its funding of leading skeptics of global warming and a plan to teach climate change skepticism in schools. An anonymous person leaked the documents to several publications and activists supporting the science of climate change.  "The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses, including Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more," reports the  DesmogBlog, which published the documents on Tuesday. The blog opposes what it calls the "climate denial machine."



Internal Documents Show Fraudulent Heartland Anti-Science Campaign

The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.  DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said it had received the confidential documents from an "insider"  at the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago. The blog monitors industry efforts to discredit climate science. The scheme includes spending $100,000 on commissioning an alternative curriculum for schoolchildren that will cast doubt on global warming.  "It's a rare glimpse behind the wall of a key climate denial organisation," Kert Davies, director of research for Greenpeace, said in a telephone interview. "It's more than just a gotcha to have these documents. It shows there is a co-ordinated effort to have an alternative reality on the climate science in order to have an impact on the policy."




Sierra Club Took $26 Million in Gas Industry Contributions
According to a blog post from Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, the environmentalist organization accepted millions of donated dollars from the natural gas industry to fight against coal-fired plants nationwide. Here are the details. Brune stated he became aware of the $26 million in donations from individuals and subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest natural gas companies in the U.S., shortly after he became executive director in 2010. The funding began in 2007, he said.




Tea Party: Sustainability is a UN Plot

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities. In Maine, the Tea Party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to ease congestion along Route 1 after protesters complained it was part of the United Nations plot. Similar opposition helped doom a high-speed train line in Florida. And more than a dozen cities, towns and counties, under new pressure, have cut off financing for a program that offers expertise on how to measure and cut carbon emissions.





Half the authors of Wall Street Journal climate slam are on the take from carbon industry
Half of the 16 scientists who penned a controversial Wall Street Journal opinion piece proclaiming there is "no need to panic" about global warming have ties to either the oil and gas industry or groups dedicated to debunking climate science, a DailyClimate.org investigation has found.
 




Climate Skepticism Taught in Several State Curricula
A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools.  Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms. Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.



Report: Small Group of Multinationals Block Government Action on Climate
A handful of multinational corporations are "exerting undue influence" on the political process in Canada, the U.S. and other key nations to delay international action on climate change, a report released by Greenpeace International says. The report documents a series of alleged lobbying and marketing efforts led by major corporations and industry associations, representing oil and gas companies in Canada, the U.S., Europe and South Africa.  Industry stakeholders are investing about $3.5 billion a year to lobby the U.S. government and finance American politicians who "deny" scientific evidence linking human activity to dangerous changes in the atmosphere



Desperate Skeptics Behind a New Batch of Emails on the Eve of Durban Talks
The university said the emails appeared to have been stolen two years ago and held back until now "to cause maximum disruption" to the imminent U.N. climate talks next week in Durban, South Africa. If that is confirmed, the timing and nature of the leak would follow the pattern set by the so-called "Climategate" emails. Those hostile to mainstream climate science claimed the exchanges proved that the threat of global warming was being hyped, and their publication helped destabilize the failed U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, which followed several weeks later.




Kochs Spend Billions to Undermine Global Warming Consensus
The Kochs have poured millions into think tanks and academia to influence the battle over ideas. According to Kert Davies, the director of research for Greenpeace in the US, the Kochs have spent more than $50m since 1998 on "various front groups and think tanks who ... oppose the consensus view that climate change is real, urgent and we have to do something about it". As operators of oil pipelines and refineries, the Kochs have opposed all efforts to encourage alternative sources of energy by imposing a tax on fossil fuels.




Oceanographer Accuses Texas officials of Censorship

A Rice University oceanographer says the state's environmental agency is refusing to publish his research article on a Texas bay unless he agrees to delete key references to rising sea levels and human involvement in climate change. Professor John Anderson has declined the proposed edits by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, calling the changes to a report on Galveston Bay "censorship" and an attempt to mislead the public.  Consequently, the state agency said it will remove Anderson's article, which deals with long-term sea level rise and mentions manmade climate change, which commissioners have publicly questioned in the past.




Danish Government to Eliminate Lomborg's Funding
The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is set to have his funding scrapped. Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and bête noire of climate change activists around the world, has been told that the incoming Danish government will cut off his £1m a year funding. Lomborg, whose 2001 book suggested the planet should adapt to global warming rather than wasting resources trying to prevent it, has made his name by accusing scientists and others of exaggerating the extent and effects of climate change.




Journal Editor Resigns over "Flawed" Paper by Skeptic Roy Spenser
The editor-in-chief of a climate science journal has resigned in response to an academic controversy triggered by his publication of a paper co-authored by a leading climate sceptic. The editor of "Remote Sensing" said that he felt obliged to resign because it was now apparent to him that a paper by Roy Spenser and Danny Braswell, was "fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal". 




Pawlenty Abandons Belief in "Man-Made" Warming

Tim Pawlenty said in an interview this week that the science of global warming remains unclear and that Earth's shifting climate is more likely due to natural causes.  The interview with the Miami Herald marked the most recent example of Pawlenty’s evolution on the issue. Once an advocate of cap-and-trade policies to reduce carbon admissions, the former Minnesota governor has since recanted his support for such proposals.




ALEC's Casualties: From Kyoto to the EPA
As the U.S. suffers through catastrophic tornadoes, heat waves, and other climate extremes - no doubt just a small taste of what the climate crisis will bring in the future - ALEC (a coalition of polluting industries) and the politicians that serve them wants to convince you that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually a good  thing. ALEC's campaign against any regulation of greenhouse gases began long ago, when the U.S. was in the midst of debating the Kyoto Protocol, an international effort to rein in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to control the climate crisis. In the spring of 1998, ALEC ratified a model resolution for states to pass calling on the U.S. to reject the Kyoto Protocol and banning states from regulating greenhouse gases in any way.

 




Koch, Exxon Pay States to Gut Climate Bills
According to tax records and other materials acquired by Bloomberg News, Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, and numerous other corporations paid tens of thousands of dollars to write legislation for lawmakers that would repeal carbon pollution reduction programs in various states around the U.S. These companies working to dismantle environmental programs are members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which allows private-sector parties to “pay-to-play” – charging thousands of dollars to sit at the table with legislators and craft bills.
 




Koch Brothers Sue New York State to Jettison RGGI

A group tied to conservative Kansas billionaires who fund campaigns to deny man-made climate change is pushing a lawsuit to kill New York's participation in a program to cut greenhouse gases.The lawsuit seeks to bounce New York out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,  a 10-state program applied to electric power plants in the Northeast. The suit's lead plaintiff is a Buffalo leader of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political action group supported by oilmen David and Charles Koch that is linked to the tea party movement. RGGI is the nation's first state-level greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program, in which power plants must buy enough state-issued permits to cover emissions of carbon dioxide, which an international scientific consensus blames as the cause of man-made climate change.




Skeptic Willie Soon Bankrolled by Carbon Lobby: Report

Willie Soon, a U.S. climate change skeptic who has also discounted the health risks of mercury emissions from coal, has received more than $1 million in funding in recent years from large energy companies and an oil industry group, according to Greenpeace. Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has also gotten funding from scientific sources including NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But starting early in the last decade, Soon began receiving more funding from the energy companies, Greenpeace reported.





GOP Hopefuls Forced To Recant Their Positions on Warming

For Republican presidential contenders who once supported combatting global warming, the race is heating up. Faced with an activist right wing that questions the science linking pollution to changes in the Earth's climate and also disdains big government, most of the GOP contenders have stepped back from their previous positions on global warming. Some have apologized outright for past support of proposals to reduce heat-trapping pollution. And those who haven't fully recanted are under pressure to do so.




Cancun Pact Creates Loophole for Industrial Countries
A provision ensuring that industrialized countries can wiggle out of the Kyoto Protocol after 2012 is hidden in plain view of a new climate change agreement established in Cancun, Mexico, last week.  "It's kind of hidden in the document, but it's there," said Paul Bledsoe, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center. "It's a loophole for the parties not to have to enter the second commitment period."




Fox News Exec Ordered Staff to Push Climate Skepticism

Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon sent an e-mail to staff last December offering guidance on how to handle the climate debate, three weeks after the Climategate scandal broke and in the midst of the Copenhagen climate summit. “Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data,” Sammon wrote, “we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."




Cancun's REDD Agreement Seen as Land Grab by Big Polluters
As climate change negotiations come to a close in Cancun, Birginia Suarez-Pinlac is seeing red. The environmental lawyer from the Philippines is worried that a plan for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) constitutes a land grab, transferring natural wealth from the poor to the rich under the auspices of saving the planet.




God Will Protect Us from Global Warming: US Congressman
U.S. Representative John Shimkus, possible future chairman of the Congressional committee that deals with energy and its attendant environmental concerns, believes that climate change should not concern us since God has already promised not to destroy the Earth.



Big Firms Fight EPA to Keep Emission Amounts Secret

Some of the country's largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, including businesses that publicly support efforts to curb global warming, don't want the public knowing exactly how much they pollute. Oil producers and refiners, along with manufacturers of steel, aluminum and even home appliances, are fighting a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that would make the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that companies release — and the underlying data businesses use to calculate the amounts — available online.




Tea Party Deniers Funded by BP, Other Polluters
BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama's energy agenda, the Guardian has learned.  An analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (Cane) found nearly 80% of campaign donations from a number of major European firms were directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. These included incumbents who have been embraced by the Tea Party such as Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and the notorious climate change denier James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.




Tea Party Creed: No Man-Made Global Warming
Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy.




47 of 48 GOP Midterm Candidates Deny Climate Change
All but one of the 48 Republican hopefuls for the Senate mid-term elections in November deny the existence of climate change or oppose action on global warming, according to a report released today. The strong Republican front against established science includes entrenched Senate leaders as well as the new wave of radical conservatives endorsed by the Tea Party activists, says a report by the Center for American Progress. As election season gets under way, Tea Party favourites such as Joe Miller, who caused the biggest upset of the primaries when he defeated the Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski in Alaska last month, have been upfront about their doubts on climate science. "We haven't heard there's manmade global warming," Miller told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. But the challenge to science goes beyond Tea Party favourites to corporate titans such as Carly Fiorina, who was the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, and is running for the Senate in California. Fiorina has said on repeated occasions that she is "not sure" climate change is real.



Big Oil Spent Record $175 Million to Kill Climate Bills
Clients in the oil and gas industry unleashed a fury of lobbying expenditures in 2009, spending $175 million -- easily an industry record -- and outpacing the pro-environmental groups by nearly eight-fold, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis. 




Carbon Lobby Launches "CO2 is Green" Campaign
A group with ties to the fossil fuel industry launched a new ad campaign today pushing the idea that carbon dioxide isn't an environmental pollutant. The organization "C02 is Green" funded a half-page advertisement in The Washington Post urging people to call their senators and seek a vote against "the president's cap-and-trade bill that will increase your cost of living and not change the climate.  "The bill is based on the false premise that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change," the ad says. "Real, empirical evidence indicates it is not."





PSU Clears Michael Mann of Fraud Allegation
The climate scientist Michael Mann, who has been under relentless attack from sceptics since the exposure of emails at East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, was cleared of research misconduct by a university investigation yesterday.
The four-month internal investigation by Pennsylvania State University found no evidence for charges made by climate sceptics that Mann had violated university ethics. The committee cleared Mann of the much more serious charges of falsifying and manipulating data last February.




Doubts About Man-Made Climate Change Soar
A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier.





NAS Scientists: End Harrassment By Climate Skeptics
We call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.




Scientists Counter "Inaccurate" Amazon Press Release by Boston University

Recently, Boston University issued a press release on a scientific study regarding the Amazon’s resilience to drought. The press release claimed that the study had debunked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) theory that climate change could turn approximately 40 percent of the Amazon into savannah due to declining rainfall. The story was picked up by mass media, environmental news sites (including mongabay.com) and climate deniers’ blogs. However, nineteen of the world’s top Amazonian experts have issued a written response stating that the press release from Boston University was “misleading and inaccurate.”




Koch Family Spends Millions to Undermine Climate Science
The Koch brothers have undermined climate science and policy through their foundations, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the  David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation. According to the report Axis of Ideology: Conservative Foundations and Public Policy, from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, "most of their contributions go to support organizations and groups advancing libertarian theory, privatization, entrepreneurship and free enterprise." Koch has out-spent ExxonMobil in funding climate-denial  groups in recent years. From 2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent $8.9 million while the Koch Industries controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the ‘climate denial machine’.




Canadian Scientists Claim Government Muzzles Them

A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists, says a newly released federal document.  "Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high profile media, who often have same-day deadlines," said the Environment Canada document. "Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 per cent." 





Oil Consultant Briefed Parliament on "Climategate"
Evidence from a respected scientific body to a parliamentary inquiry examining the behaviour of climate-change  scientists, was drawn from an energy industry consultant who argues that global warming is a religion, the Guardian can reveal. The submission, from the Institute of Physics (IOP) suggested that scientists at the University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to support conclusions and that key reconstructions of past temperature could not be relied upon.The evidence was given to the select committee on science and technology, which is investigating emails from climate experts at the University of East Anglia that were released online last year.




Creationists Take Aim at Climate Science as well as Evolution
Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools. The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general. They are also capitalizing on rising public resistance in some quarters to accepting the science of global warming, particularly among political conservatives who oppose efforts to rein in emissions of greenhouse gases.




Inhofe Calls for Criminal Investigation of Climate Scientists
The US Congress's most ardent global warming sceptic is being accused of turning the row over climate science into a McCarthyite witch-hunt by calling for a criminal investigation of scientists.  Climate scientists say Sen. James Inhofe’s call for a criminal investigation into American as well as British scientists who worked on the UN climate body's report or had communications with East Anglia's climate research unit represents an attempt to silence debate on the eve of new proposals for a climate change law.




The New York Times Provides a Sounding Board for Climate Skeptics
Just over two years ago, Rajendra K. Pachauri seemed destined for a scientist’s version of sainthood.  But Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists.



UK Sees Rise in Climate Skepticism
There has been an increase in the number of British people who are sceptical about climate change, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested. It showed that 25% of those questioned did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75%.
 




ExxonMobil Launches New Blitz by Climate Skeptics
An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed. The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December. Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.




Cyberthieves Steal Millions By Selling Bogus Carbon Credits
Sneaky cyber-thieves have made millions by fraudulently obtaining European greenhouse gas emissions allowances and reselling them. The scam has hampered trading of the credits, which are seen as an important tool in curbing climate change, in several European countries.



Poll: Public Concern About Warming Fades

A new national survey on public responses to climate change finds that  public concern about global warming has dropped sharply since the fall of 2008. The percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening has declined 14 points, to 57 percent. The percentage of Americans who think global warming is caused mostly by human activities has dropped 10 points, to 47 percent. Only 50 percent of Americans now say they are “somewhat” or “very worried” about global warming, a 13-point decrease.




Did Russia Hack the Scientists' E-Mails?

The computer hack, said a senior member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, was not an amateur job, but a highly sophisticated, politically motivated operation. The guiding hand behind the leaks, according to allegations,  was that of the Russian secret services. Much of Russia's vast oil and gas reserves lie in difficult-to-access areas of the far North. One school of thought is that Russia, unlike most countries, would have little to fear from global warming, because these deposits would suddenly become much easier and cheaper to access.

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De Boer: E-mails Undermine Copenhagen Hopes
Yvo de Boer worried that e-mails pilfered from a British university would fuel skepticism among those who believe that scientists exaggerate global warming. "I think a lot of people are skeptical about this issue in any case," de Boer said. "And then when they have the feeling ... that scientists are manipulating information in a certain direction then of course it causes concern in a number of people to say 'you see I told you so, this is not a real issue.'"




IPCC Affirms Reality of Man-Made Warming

The UN's official panel on climate change has hit back at sceptics' claims that the case for human influence on global warming has been exaggerated. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was "firmly" standing by findings that a rise in the use of greenhouse gases was a factor. Professor Thomas Stocker, co-chairman of the IPCC's working group 1, stated:  "The warming in the climate system is unequivocal. [It] is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth."





Nature: The E-Mails Do Not Change the Reality of Human-Induced Warming

Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy.To the denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe. This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill.




Jones Steps Down Amidst Charges Of Scientific Censorship

Phil Jones, the head of the British research unit at the center of a controversy over the disclosure of thousands of e-mail messages among climate-change scientists has stepped down pending the outcome of an investigation. Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England, said that he would leave his post while the university conducted a review of the release of the e-mail messages.




Fox News Touts New Film Attacking "Inconvenient Truth"

Two Irish journalists released a documentary in which they gather evidence outlining the damage of global warming hysteria. In "Not Evil Just Wrong," they challenge the claims made in Al Gore's film and conclude that the film is not worth screening in schools because it is shown there as "an article of science, not faith."




Hacked E-Mails Reveal Scientists' Contempt for Skeptics

Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.




Investigative Reporters Track Carbon Lobby Attacks on Copenhagen Meeting

Global attempts to craft a pivotal new climate treaty in Copenhagen this December are being stymied by a far-reaching, multinational backlash led by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters, according to The Global Climate Change Lobby, a new project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Employing thousands of lobbyists, millions in political contributions, and widespread fear tactics, entrenched interests worldwide are thwarting the steps that scientists say are needed to stave off a looming environmental calamity, the investigation found.




Chamber of Commerce Head Refuses to Accept Reality of Climate Change

U.S Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue refused to say if he believes the science behind global warming. “Is the science right? Is science not right? I don’t know,” he told a  political web site.




US Concerns About Warming Drop Sharply: Poll

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who see solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. According to the survey, conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, fewer respondents also see global warming as a very serious problem; 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.




Fossil Fuel Subsidies Dwarf Those for Renewables: Study

The U.S. government delivered more than twice as many federal dollars to research initiatives, tax incentives and other programs benefiting fossil fuels than it supplied to renewable energy from 2002 to 2008.




World Bank Ignoring Its Own Warnings, Pushes Coal Plants in Poor Countries

The World Bank is spending billions of pounds subsidising new coal-fired power stations in developing countries while acknowledging that burning fossil fuels exposes the poor to catastrophic climate change.

 




Police Arrest Nine in "Cap-and-Fraud" Scheme

Customs agents this week arrested nine people in the London area suspected of a multimillion dollar fraud in trading carbon permits, bringing attention to a rich new field for crime sprung from the fight against climate change.




Carbon Lobby Barrages Congress with "Fake Letters" Opposing Climate Bill

A US congressional inquiry has found more than a dozen forged letters to members of Congress purportedly from voters opposed to a climate change bill -- including a number from old people's homes.




API Plans Bogus "Citizen" Rallies to Fight Climate Legislation

The challenge faced by the Obama administration as it seeks to secure support for the Waxman-Markey Climate Change bill was again underlined when it emerged oil and gas industry lobbyists are planning a nationwide campaign designed to create the impression of widespread grassroots opposition to the legislation.




Most Americans Believe Climate Change is Natural: Poll

A majority of Americans remain unconvinced that humans are responsible for climate change, or that there is an urgent need to act.




Exxon Violates Earlier Promise to Stop Funding Climate Skeptics

The world's largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows. Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008.




Australian Firms Seen Cheating on Carbon Compensation
Some of Australia's biggest corporate names, including resource giants Rio Tinto and Woodside, may be investigated by consumer regulators over complaints they have been deceptive on climate change.


Interpol Prepares For Wave of Carbon Fraud

Carbon fraud is the white-collar crime of the future - and it could cost taxpayers millions. As Australian companies prepare to trade in what is effectively thin air, climate criminals are cashing in on similar schemes overseas. Interpol has warned companies to beware of bogus "carbon credits" that fail to lower emissions.




UN's Ban to Business: Stop Obstructing Climate Protection

Industry should play its part in the fight against climate change by persuading governments to aid carbon cuts rather than lobbying against them, the UN secretary-general told a business conference on Sunday.




"Clean Coal" Lobby Spends $45 million to Influence Policy

The coal industry is spending some $45 million to ensure the federal government keeps coal as a major part of the nation's energy mix.




Morano Emerges as ExxonMobil's Newest Mouthpiece
As a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mark  Morano was for years a ceaseless purveyor of the dissenting view on climate change, sending out a blizzard of e-mail to journalists covering the issue. Now, with Congress debating legislation to curb carbon dioxide emissions, Mr. Morano is hoping to have an even greater impact.


Big Oil Obstructs Administration Push for Renewables

While the Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions, the world's oil giants are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.




OPEC: Oil Plays No Role in Climate Change
OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change, adding that consuming countries should pay to fight the threat. The group of oil producers opposes plans to reduce oil consumption and advocates adaptation to climate change. 


Hungry Plankton Scuttle "Iron Fertilization" Scheme

A controversial experiment has "dampened hopes" that dumping hundreds of tonnes of dissolved iron in the Southern Ocean can lessen global warming. Scientists did not count on the phytoplankton, stimulated by the dumped iron, being eaten by tiny crustacean zooplankton.




Climate Crisis Spawns More than 2,000 Lobbyists

With carbon cap-and-trade legislation now on Washington's agenda, companies and interest groups have been hiring lobbyists at a feverish pace. For every member of Congress, there are now four climate lobbyists, many of them hoping to derail or water down the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.




Shell Abandons Renewable Energy Development

Royal Dutch Shell provoked a furious backlash from campaigners  yesterday when it announced plans to scale back its renewable energy business and focus purely on oil, gas and biofuels. Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive, said that Shell, the world's second-largest non-state-controlled oil company, was planning to drop all new investment in wind, solar and hydrogen energy.




ExMo Posts Record $45.2 Billion Profit in 2008
Exxon Mobil reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008 Friday, breaking its own record for full-year earnings by a public U.S. company, but fourth-quarter profits tumbled 33 percent.

 




EPA: No CO2 Reduction Requirement for New Power Plants

The Environmental Protection Agency ruled that new power plants are not required to install technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, rejecting an argument from environmental groups.




Scientists Alarmed by Military Skepticism on Warming Causes
A new US military report has come under scrutiny for asserting that the scientific data on what is causing global warming is "contradictory" - a position one leading specialist said indicates the government still hasn't fully embraced the urgency of climate change.


Mendelsohn to Canada: Global Warming Is Good For You!

A group of economists and anthropologists, is pushing the notion that global warming might not be an unmitigated disaster, especially for certain northerly regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia. Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada - from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage - will outweigh the negative effects.




Skeptics Regroup to Fight Obama Climate Initiatives
Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation. 



Maryland Climate Activists on State Police "Terrorist" List
A handful of professional environmental advocates were placed on a Maryland State Police list of suspected terrorists, activists charged. Three staffers for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network have learned they were on a list compiled by the state police, which also included nonviolent peace activists and anti-death penalty advocates.


Palin Polar Bear Assessment Based on Exxon-funded Skeptics

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin drew on the work of at least six climate skeptics, most funded by ExxonMobil, to try to stop polar bears being protected as an endangered species, the Guardian can disclose.




Carbon Lobby Spent $427 Million on Public Policy in First Half of 2008

We estimate that the coal and oil industries spent an astounding $427.2 million over the first six months of 2008 to influence public opinion and public policy.




Bush Administration Kills Climate Program for Developing Countries

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, an important hub for work on the causes and consequences of climate change, has shut down a program focused on strengthening poor countries' ability to forecast and withstand droughts, floods and other climate-related hazards.

 

 




EPA Official: Cheney Censored CDC Over Health Impacts of Warming

Members of Vice President Cheney's  staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official about health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency  official said yesterday.




Bush Administration Slaps Two-Year Freeze On Big Solar Developments
Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.


ExxonMobil Cuts Funding to Nine Skeptic Groups

Exxon Mobil Corp is pulling contributions to several groups that have downplayed the risks that greenhouse gas-emissions could lead to global warming. The company will not fund nine groups in 2008 that it funded in 2007 because their positions on climate change "could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner." Despite those cuts, Exxon continues to fund 28 other climate-denial groups, according to the public interest group, Exxon Secrets.




Is the World Bank Profiteering on Bogus Carbon Credits?
The Bank finances a fossil fuel project, involving oil, natural gas, or coal, in Poor Country A. Rich Country B asks the Bank to help arrange carbon credits so Country B can tell its carbon counters it's taking serious action on climate change. The World Bank kindly obliges, offering carbon credits for a price far lower than Country B would have to pay if Country B made those cuts at home. Country A gets a share of the cash to invest in equipment to make fossil fuel project slightly more efficient, the World Bank takes its 13% cut, and everyone is happy. 


Bush's EPA Chief Shelves Agency's GHG Findings
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson has shelved his agency's findings that greenhouse gases are a danger to the public, and told Congress that he will initiate a lengthy public comment period about whether such emissions are a risk before responding to a U.S. Supreme Court order. The move means there is virtually no chance the Bush administration will act to regulate greenhouse gases in response to the high court's decision in the time left in office.



Alaska Villagers Sue Coal, Oil Giants for "Conspiracy" to Mislead on Warming
Lawyers for the Alaska Native coastal village of Kivalina, which is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic climate, filed suit in federal court here Tuesday arguing that 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country's largest coal company were responsible for the village's woes. In an unusual move, the suit also accuses BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy,the Southern Company, Exxon Mobil, American Electric Power and the Conoco Phillips Company of conspiracy to mislead the public about global warming.


GM Exec: Global warming is a "Crock"
General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has defended remarks he made dismissing global warming as a "total crock of shit," saying his views had no bearing on GM's commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles.


USCAP Firms Found Funding Skeptic Groups

When 10 of the largest U.S. corporations and four environmental groups joined forces last January to lobby for federal regulations to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions, it was seen as a watershed in corporate environmentalism. Behind the scenes, however, several companies that belong to USCAP are supporting efforts and organizations that oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.




Big Coal Mounts New Campaign To Head Off Climate Legislation
A group backed by the coal industry and its utility allies is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change


School Cancels IPCC Scientist's Talk Citing "Lack of Balance"
School authorities' cancellation of a talk that a Nobel laureate climate researcher was to have given to high school students has deeply divided this small farming and ranching town at the base of the east side of the Rocky Mountains.


Skeptics: "No Net Warming Since 1998"

"[D]espite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That current temperature plateau follows a late-20th century period of warming consistent with . . .natural multi-decadal or millenial climate warming."




House Committee: White House Manipulated Climate Science Findings

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Administration concluded that the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate  climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.




One Fifth of Carbon Credits Increase GHGs
One in five carbon credits issued by the United Nations are going to support clean energy projects that may in fact help to increase greenhouse gas emissions, environmental group WWF said.


Southern Company Buys Its Way Out of Pollution Controls

An American power company with close financial links to President George Bush has been named as one of the world's top producers of global warming pollution. The enormous carbon footprint of Southern Company -- among the largest financiers of Republican Party politicians -- has raised eyebrows. Southern's employees handed George Bush $217,047 to help him get elected, and they and the company have contributed an extraordinary $6.2m to Republican campaigns since 1990.




ExMo chief: Energy Independence is "Isolationist"

Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the biggest western oil company, has hit out at "isolationism" in energy policy, arguing that attempts to pursue energy independence are futile and counter-productive.




FEMA Shills Posed as Reporters At Wildfire Briefing

An internal investigation into a fake news conference staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency during last month's California wildfires found that the agency's press secretary directed aides to pose as reporters, secretly coached them during the briefing and ended the event after a final, scripted question was asked, according to a senior FEMA official.




Peabody Ads Call Kansas Governor a Tool of Chavez and Putin

Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal company, did not sway from its support (financial or otherwise) for the controversial ads it placed in Kansas newspapers that said Iraqi, Venezuelan, and Russian leaders were smiling because of the governor's recent rejection of two applications for coal-burning power plants.




Mining Magnate Funds Campaign to Black Out Gore FIlm in UK Schools

The school governor who challenged the screening of Al Gore's climate change documentary in secondary schools was funded by a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists' claims about global warming.




White House Touts Health Benefits of Global Warming
The White House on Thursday defended its prediction that climate change would bring some "health benefits" to humans, a forecast unlikely to endear it to critics of the US environmental record.


White House Censored CDC Chief on Climate-Health Impacts
The White House significantly edited testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on the impact of climate change on health, deleting key portions citing diseases that could flourish in a warmer climate. A draft of the testimony submitted for White House review shows that six pages of details about specific disease and other health problems that might flourish if the Earth warms were not delivered at the hearing.



Michaels Out As Virginia State Climatologist
Pat Michaels, whose utility industry funding, private research and controversial views on global warming made him a lightning rod on climate change issues, left the office too politicized, according to officials  at the University of Virgina. As a result, Michaels is not longer the state's climatologist.


Chevron Ad Spins A Green Vision

Chevron's new advertising campaign represents the oil giant's latest attempt to stake out a spot in the debate over future energy supplies. Although it touches on a topic the oil industry once hated to discuss, the ads never use the terms global warming or climate change.

 




Bush Administration Tries to Block California Auto Standards

The Bush administration has conducted a concerted, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to try to generate opposition to California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, according to documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.




Michaels Refuses to Disclose Funding In Court Case
Pat Michaels, one of the global warming skeptics most often interviewed by news media, withdrew as an expert witness in a high-profile Vermont court case rather than disclose his funding sources,

court documents show. Michaels told the court some funders gave him money on the condition that their identities remain secret -- and he is largely dependent for his livelihood on the money they give him.




Are We Outsourcing Our Own Devastation?
Residents of Turners Falls celebrated when workers began tearing down a shuttered coal-fired power plant this year. But the demolition is hardly a victory in the battle against manmade climate change.

Virtually every piece of the 2,600-ton plant is being shipped to Guatemala to be rebuilt. It could last continue to pollute for another 50 years.




Court to Bush: Release National Assessments

A federal court today issued a harsh rebuke of the Bush administration for its failure to issue long-delayed reports assessing the impacts and consequences of global warming in the United States. The judge in the case set a spring deadline for administration officials to comply. Plaintiffs say the Bush administration has been suppressing two reports intended to serve as a unifying guide for Congress and federal agencies on global warming threats.




Wolfowitz Cut "Climate Change" From Bank Reports
The Bush administration has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include global warming in its calculations, according to documents. On one occasion, the White House's pointman at the bank, the now disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, personally intervened to remove the words "climate change" from the title of a bank progress report and ordered changes to the text of the report to shift the focus away from global warming.



Newsweek Chronicles Relentless History of Climate Deniers

If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again.  The denial machine is running at full throttleand continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.




Rolling Stone Recaps Bush Administration's Denial Policies
A new investigation by Rolling Stone reveals that the Bush Administration's climate distortions were sanctioned at the highest levels of  government, in a policy formulated by the vice president, implemented by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and enforced by Karl Rove.


Big Coal Fights Back
U.S. coal mining companies, which for years have been branded the bad guys of global warming, are fighting back.  They are questioning not only the science but also the motives of some of the big-name corporations who have made well-publicized commitments to cleaning up their act.


Bush Tries to Sabotage California Clean Car Initiative
In a move denounced by state officials and others as improper lobbying on behalf of the auto industry, transportation officials in the Bush administration are making a pro-auto industry pitch to members of Congress, urging them to oppose California's efforts to enforce tough emissions standards on vehicles.


NASA Administrator: Warming No Big Deal

Contradicting chief NASA scientist James Hansen, the agency's administrator, Michael Griffinm is downplaying the need to combat global warming. In an interview, Griffin said: "I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told Inskeep. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."




Automakers Launch New Disinformation Ad Campaign

Despite rising gas prices and a growing concern about climate change, the auto industry is going on the offensive to convince Americans to oppose dramatically higher fuel economy requirements. Led by Detroit's Big Three and Toyota Motor Corp., the industry is launching print and radio ads this weekend warning consumers that fuel regulations  would lead to higher vehicle prices and smaller and less safe vehicles. The ads feature rural pickup owners and SUV-driving soccer moms to make the case that a Senate proposal would limit consumer choice and tie the hands of automakers.




Smithsonian Toned Down Climate Exhibit to Avoid Political Attacks
The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration.


ExxonMobil Continues to Fund Greenhouse Skeptics
Despite an earlier announcement that it was ceasing to fund the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Exxon Mobil Corp. gave over $2 million in 2006 to other global warming skeptics and institutions -- $23 million since 1998 -- even as the oil company campaigned to improve its climate-unfriendly image.


Hansen and Mann are "Fearmongers": Cockburn

"The cycle of alarmist predictions is now well established. Not long before some new UN moot, a prominent fearmonger like James Hansen or Michael Mann will make a tremulous statement about the accelerating tempo of the warming crisis. The cry is headlined by the New York Times, with exactly the same lack of critical evaluation as that newspaper's recycling of the government's lies about Saddam's WMDs."




Lindzen praises "principled" ExxonMobil

Exxon Mobil is "the only principled oil and gas company I know in the US." -- Richard S. Lindzen 




Wolfowitz Guts Bank's Estimate of Climate Impacts
One of Paul Wolfowitz's two handpicked deputies, Juan José Daboub, tried to water down references to climate change in one of the World Bank's main environmental strategy papers.


British Scientists Move to Block "Swindle" DVD

Dozens of climate scientists are trying to block the DVD release of a controversial Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming is nothing to do with human greenhouse gas emissions. Sir John Houghton, former head of the Met Office, and Bob May, former president of the Royal Society, are among 37 experts who have called for the DVD to be heavily edited or removed from sale. The film, the Great Global Warming Swindle, was criticised by scientists as distorted and misleading.




Skeptics Complain That Nobody's Listening
Skeptics of the seriousness of global warming complained  of not being heard by the public or policy makers while warning governments to take a second look at the scientific consensus on climate change.


Vanity Fair's Long Look at Myron Ebell
Myron Ebell is one of that rare breed, an elegant nerd. On television, facing interrogation by moderators who clearly feel he should be tarred and feathered for his views, he stays cool and fires back with withering zingers.  Ebell could easily star in Thank You for Warming.


The Real Censors are the "Skeptics" -- Monbiot

The story in the rightwing press is that the IPCC, in collusion with governments, is conspiring to exaggerate the science. No one explains why governments should seek to amplify their own failures. In the wacky world of the climate conspiracists no explanations are required.




CEI Does A U-Turn On Climate Science

The president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank based in Washington, has derided concern over global warming. But in February, when Fred Smith was called to testify before the Senate Committee on environment and public works, he sounded like a cornered man.




Congress Hears Of Administration Censorship of Scientists
A House committee released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.


Scientific Secrecy Seen Spreading Through Federal Government

The federal government suppresses or manipulates information about the environment, prescription drugs and public safety, making it increasingly hard for members of the public to learn about matters that could affect their lives. That was the assessment  of former government officials, librarians, scientists and others.




Exxon Ads Move Stanford Donor To Stop Giving

A major donor to Stanford University, who had already donated $22.5 million to the school, said he would give no morem citing prominent ads by ExxonMobil trumpeting its collaboration with the university.

 

 




Government Muzzles Wildlife Employees on Climate Statements

Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.




Cheney: "Big Debate" Needed to Find Cause of Climate Change

Vice President Dick Cheney today agreed the earth is warming but maintained there is debate over whether humans or natural cycles are the cause-- a position that puts the administration at odds with the vast majority of climate scientists.




State Forbids Legates From Using Title on Climate Statements

Delaware climatologist David Legates must stop using his title in any public statements on climate change, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) said last week.




Press Cites Softening of Skeptics' Position

With Democrats controlling the environmental agenda in Congress, a panel of international scientists saying there's a greater-than-90 percent chance that humans contribute to global warming, and former vice president Al Gore calling climate change a moral issue, many besieged global warming skeptics are starting to tone down their rhetoric.




CERES Blacklists 10 Climate Laggards

A group of US investors with more than $200 billion in assets have accused 10 companies, including the oil giant ExxonMobil, the financial services group Wells Fargo and the utility TXU, of not doing enough to respond to global warming and climate change, in a sign of increasing shareholder activism on environmental issues.




"Misunderstood" ExMo Seems to Change Its Tune

When it comes to the issue of climate change, Exxon Mobil says it has been misunderstood. The world's largest publicly traded oil company now contends "the appropriate debate isn't on whether the climate is changing but rather should be on what we should be doing about it."




ExMo Pays Scientists To Trash IPCC Report

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by ExxonMobil to undermine the IPCC's 2007 report on climate science.

 




Climate Scientists Under Widespred Pressure from White House

A survey of federal scientists that showed 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words "climate change," "global warming" or similar terms from communications about their work. They also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.




ExMo Aims Its Disinformation At Europe
ExxonMobil is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European groups that cast doubt global warming because Europe is the driving force behind action on climate change.


Did ExxonMobil Blink?

In one of the strongest signs yet that U.S. industry anticipates  government curbs on global-warming emissions, Exxon Mobil Corp., long a leading opponent of such rules, is starting to talk about how it would like them to be structured.




Chrysler Exec Blasts Climate "Chicken Littles"

Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched a fierce attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their "Chicken Little" attitudes to global warming.




ExMo To Change Rhetoric -- Not Policy

ExxonMobil Chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson told Wall Street  analysts that the company would not be changing its basic position on global warming - just explaining it better.




Bush Extends Censorship to USGS

The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.




NOAA Scientist Says "Censorship" Began About Four Years Ago

A federal climate scientist in Boulder says his boss told him never to utter the word Kyoto and tried to bar him from using the phrase "climate change at a conference". The allegations come as federal investigators probe whether Bush administration officials tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and attempted to censor their research.




Inhofe: Americans are "Brainwashed" About Global Warming

The US Senate's most vocal global warming skeptic, James Inhofe, on Thursday dismissed a UN meeting on climate change as a "brainwashing" session, putting him at odds with Sen. John McCain who noted "there's great urgency ... and the scientific evidence continues to accumulate."




Senators to ExMo: Stop Funding Disinformation Groups

Weeks after Britain's Royal Society called on ExxonMobil to stop funding professional skeptics, two U.S. Senators, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.VA) wrote the company asking it to stop funding disinformation about climate change.

 

 




Administration Taps Lee Raymond to Chart US Energy Future

The Bush administration has appointed former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond and the National Petroleum Council to chart America's energy future. Raymond, chair of the NPC, is to provide the administration with policy recommendations for the long-term direction of the nation's energy policy. Raymond was granted the power to handpick the study's leadership.




Canadian Minister Misquotes Researcher to Ditch Kyoto

An academic from a progressive Washingon, DC think tank  is furious that Environment Minister Rona Ambrose used recent remarks by her to attack the Kyoto protocol on climate change. "I certainly don't want to see Canada pulling out, did not want to the U.S. pulling out." said the researcher, Daphne Wysham, who added: "We want to see Kyoto strengthened."




Skeptic Bill Gray's "Mind Block"

To Colorado State University meteorology professor emeritus William Gray, global warming is "a big scam." And the name of climate researcher Kevin Trenberth elicits a sputtered "opportunist." At the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where Trenberth works, Gray's name prompts dismay. "Bill Gray is completely unreasonable," Trenberth says. "He has a mind block on this."




NOAA Charged With Censoring Hurricane Report

Scientists at a world-renowned climate research lab in New Jersey say their discoveries are being hidden from public view because their conclusions on global warming differ from those in the Bush administration.




UK Skeptics Use Old Tobacco Playbook: Monbiot

The campaign of dissuasion funded by Exxon and the tobacco company Philip Morris has been devastatingly effective. By insisting that man-made global warming is either a "myth" or not worth tackling, it has given the media and politicians the excuses for inaction they wanted. Partly as a result, in the US at least, these companies have helped to delay attempts to tackle the world's most important problem by a decade or more.




Royal Society Forces Exxon To Review Funding

Exxon Mobil Corp., which has sparked criticism -- most recently from Britain's Royal Society -- for funding groups that challenge the scientific validity of concerns about global warming, is reviewing whether it will continue to fund some of those groups.




Researcher Claims NOAA Gagged Him On Hurricane Data

Commerce Department officials may have tried to stop a government scientist from speaking to reporters because of his views on global warming, a California congressman says. The officials "tried to suppress a federal scientist from discussing the link between global warming and hurricanes," according to a letter sent Tuesday from Rep. Henry Waxman to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

 




Royal Society Blasts ExxonMobil for Disinformation

Britain's national academy of science, the Royal Society, has accused US oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. of misleading the public into thinking that the role of humans in climate change is still open to doubt. Royal Society spokesman Bob Ward described Exxon's assessment of mankind's contribution to global warming as inaccurate and misleading on Wednesday.

 




Virginia Governor: Michaels Does Not Speak for the State

The governor's office has asked Virginia's climatologist to refrain from using his title when conducting non-state business because of fears his views on global warming will be perceived as an official state position.




ExxonMobil Gets Religion on Warming -- $2.3 Million Worth

A recent statement by evangelical Christians downplaying the potential problems of global climate change includes eight signers whose six organizations have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years.




Energy Magnate Koch Funds New Anti-Cape Wind Group

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a tax-exempt, nonprofit, charitable organization established in 2001 to block development of the Cape Wind offshore power generating project six to eleven miles off Cape Cod, has created a new lobbying arm. One of its directors is fossil fuel magnate William I. Koch who was identified in a recent coal industry memo as a source of revenue for a new disinformation campaign to discredit efforts to combat global warming.

 




Virginia Governor Disavows Michaels' State Role

It may be an inconvenient truth for some that Patrick J. Michaels, Virginia's state climatologist, is not subject to gubernatorial appointment - or political removal from office. Michaels, whose industry funding, holds an honorary position and does not speak for the state or the governor, according to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's office.




"Vampire Memo" Details New Propaganda Blitz by Energy Companies

Big coal -- in the form of the National Rural Electric Association, Koch    Industries, American Electric Power, the Southern Company, the National Association of Manufacturers and others are planning a major blitz against efforts to fight global warming. The plan is a retread of a similar campaign launched in the early 1990s by coal interests. The latest version is spelled out in what is dubbed a "Vampire Memo" because it resurrects an earlier campaign which was discredited and abandoned in the mid 1990s. Read the memo.




A Pathetic Attempt At Slander from Stephen Milloy

"I wonder whether Attorney-General Lockyer disclosed to the judge that Gelbspan is a rather dubious character -- for example, he misrepresented himself as a Pulitzer Prize winner on the jacket of The Heat Is On. Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer, nor was he ever even nominated." (Click here for a response to Milloy's slander.)




Michaels seen as "Compromised" by Virginia Newspaper

"Michaels' role as state climatologist -- a role that we feel ought to be completely neutral -- seems compromised by his other interests."




Pat Robertson "Converted" By Heat Wave

The Rev. Pat Robertson said he hasn't been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer's record-breaking heat is "making a convert out of me."

 




Frank Luntz Gets Religion -- But Not Ethics

Frank Luntz, the Washington-based public relations expert who counseled President George W. Bush to "keep the public confused" about climate science, has become a convert.  Luntz told the BBC he now believes in global warming. But, in the same interview, he abdicated all responsibility for his earlier actions, according to a report of the interview posted on Treehuggers.com. 

Asked by an interviewer about the fact that the Bush Administration is continuing to follow his advice, Luntz responded: "That's up to the administration. I'm not the administration. What they want to do is their business. It has nothing to do with what I write. It has nothing to do with what I believe."

 




Motavalli Deconstructs Skeptical Attack on AP Report on Gore Film

The field of global warming skeptics is thinning as rapidly as Greenland's glaciers, but it hasn't stopped them from rallying for a counterattack every now and then. The most recent target of their ire was an Associated Press report by Seth Borenstein, reprinted in the Washington Post among other outlets on June 27, entitled "Scientists

OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy." (By Jim Motavalli, editor of "E/the Environmental Magazine.")




NCAR Findings Shoot Down Skeptic Gray on Hurricane Strength

Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor, according to a new analysis from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).




EPA Gags Sea Level Rise Expert

James Titus, an Environmental Protection Agency project manager for sea level rise, wrote an essay for a law review in which he argued that the nation needed to make decisions on whether or how wetlands and beaches should be allowed to migrate inland.  Reached by telephone, Mr. Titus said he was no longer allowed to discuss such issues publicly and referred questions to the agency's press office, which would not allow him to speak about it on the record. Instead, requests for on-the-record information were referred to Bill Wehrum, the agency's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation.




Luntz Spins His Way Into Canadian Politics

Frank Luntz, the Republican  message massager, recently enjoyed a fruitful meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well as with a group of Canadian conservatives, advising them how to win  elections.




In the World Of The Skeptics: By Joel Aschenbach

The visibility of climate impacts  is part of the emerging, solidifying scientific consensus on global warming -- a consensus that raises the urgent political and economic issue of climate change. This isn't a theory anymore. This is happening now.  But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth. (An extensive article in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, May 28, 2006)




CERES: ExxonMobil Shareholders Relying on Fumes

ExxonMobil now admits global warming is real and poses risks but the company has not yet taken steps -- such as meaningful alternative energy investments -- that would demonstrate  that ExxonMobil is managing the risks to its shareholders.




Scientist Exposes Fraudulent CEI Ads

A senior scientist has condemned as a "deliberate effort to mislead" a series of television adverts produced by an oil industry-funded loyying group that seeks to portray concern over global warming as alarmism.




Longtime Skeptic Easterbrook Converts

"As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert."




Climate Scientists Shred Skeptical Hurricane Forecaster Gray

"I anticipate global temperature conditions will change as they have in the past. I expect to live to see the start of a global cooling pattern and the discrediting of most of the anthropogenic warming arguments. The world has more serious problems to worry about." -- hurricane forecaster William Gray.

 

 




Royal Society Sees New Wave of Skeptic Attacks

"It is clear that a number of well-funded and well-orchestrated media campaigns were carried out by groups that are opposed to the Kyoto protocol and measures to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. There are signs that these groups are preparing similar media and political offensives ahead of the publication of the IPCC fourth assessment report in 2007." -- British Royal Society




Lindzen on the WSJ Op-Ed Page: First Notes of a Swan Song?

"The scientific community did not complain when Al Gore tried to [start] a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists. They were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled [skeptical] scientists &as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry&.[and] when [a European skeptic] was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism."   -- Richard Lindzen




Canada's Harper Attacked By Swarm of Skeptics

As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol.




A Masterpiece of Will-ful Misinformation

"Perhaps the 'problem' is not big oil or big coal, both of which have discovered there is big money to be made from tax breaks and other subsidies justified in the name of combating carbon. Perhaps the problem is big crusading journalism," George Will, April 2, 2006 




White House Keeps Lid On Climate Scientists

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.




Taxpayers To Lose $20 billion in Royalties to Oil Companies

Incentives for oil and gas companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico will cost the federal government at least $20 billion over the next 25 years, according to the draft of a Congressional report.




NOAA's Muzzling of Scientists Finally Reaches the Public

MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel has charged the federal government's top science agency with ignoring the growing research linking global warming to stronger hurricanes. But instead of telling the public the truth, he said, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials are insisting that hurricanes are worse because of a natural cycle.

 

 




Bush, Crichton Put Their Heads Together

The president "avidly read" Michael Crichton's novel, "State of Fear,"  met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. Bush and Crichton "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement. The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more."




Carlyle Investment Move Follows on Heels of Bush Speech

Just days after President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would invest more in R&D for renewable energy technologies, one of  the  world's largest investment firms, the Carlyle Group, said it would substantially boost its stake in renewables. Coincidentally, former President George H. W. Bush was a special consultant to the Carlyle Group for 10 years before his retirement two years ago.




EPA Accused of Censoring Researchers

While administrators at NASA and NOAA claim they are relaxing media restrictions for their scientists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring prior headquarters approval for all communications by its scientists with journalists, according to an agency e-mail released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).




Censorship of Climate Scientists Spreads to Australia

A former CSIRO senior scientist in Australia and internationally recognised expert on climate change claims he was reprimanded and encouraged to resign after he spoke out on global warming. Graeme Pearman said he believed there was increasing pressure in Australia on researchers whose work or professional opinions were not in line with the Federal Government's ideology.




NASA "Censor" Resigns Amid Disclosures of Resume Fraud

George C. Deutsch, a Bush appointee to NASA who was involved in the alleged censorship of a leading climate scientist,  resigned in the wake of disclosures he had falsified his resume and never, as claimed, graduated from a Texas university.

 

 




Congress Orders New Review of "Hockey Stick" Chart

Seeking to resolve a scientific dispute that has taken on a rancorous political edge, the National Academy of Sciences said it had agreed to a request from Congress to assess how well researchers understand the history of temperatures on earth.




Hansen: NASA's Censorship is Spreading to NOAA

James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling researchers who study global warming.




NOAA Seen Muzzling Scientists on Hurricane-Warming Link

Many respected climate scientists believe NOAA's official line on the link between global warming and hurricanes is wrong. In the broader scientific community, there is grumbling that NOAA's top officials have suppressed dissenting views on this subject--contributing to the Bush administration's attempt to downplay the danger of climate change.




Hansen Charges Censorship by Bush Administration

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.




US Oil Lobby Sabotaging EU Kyoto Committments

A detailed and disturbing strategy document has revealed an extraordinary American plan to destroy Europe's support for the Kyoto treaty on climate change.

 




Harlan Watson ExxonMobil's Choice to Represent the U.S.

Environmentalists are unhappy with the job the lead U.S. climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, has been doing in the ongoing Montreal talks on how to combat global warming. Watson was hand-picked by ExxonMobil to represent the U.S. in the talks.




Wall Street Journal Cites Studies Exonerating "Hockey Stick" Findings

Two global-warming skeptics who questioned an influential climate study and prompted a congressional inquiry are now facing critics of their own. Two  new research papers, appearing this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, find that while there is a statistical snafu in the hockey-stick math, it may not strongly affect the graph's accuracy.




McCain, Likens Blast Political Attacks on "Hockey Stick" Scientists

"Scientists must be allowed to conduct their work unfettered by political or commercial pressures. . .When members of Congress recently began pressuring scientists who have offered evidence of global warming, they broke that crucial covenant."




Dissecting the Wall Street Journal's Mannhunt

Why do so many U.S business leaders and members of Congress doubt the scientific consensus on global warming? Consider the attack of Stephen McIntyre, a semiretired businessman,  on the "hockey stick" a study which is  cited to make the case for global warming. It plucked McIntyre from obscurity and got him featured on the front page of the February 14, 2005, Wall Street Journal.




The Independent: Lobbyists Thward Action on Climate

One reason why Western governments have been slow to respond to the climate crisis is that they are under constant pressure from lobbying groups that defend the interests of eco-unfriendly industry. The Independent identifies a selection of the most influential groups.




ExxonMobil Thumbs Its Nose at Climate Change

Openly and unapologetically, ExxonMobil, the world's No. 1 oil company disputes the notion that fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming. Along with the Bush administration, Exxon opposes the Kyoto accord and the very idea of capping global-warming emissions.




Piltz Memo Details Administration Tampering With Science

"Global climate change is a problem with great potential consequences for society. This administration has acted to impede honest communication of the state of climate science and the implications for society of global climate change. Politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest. The White House so successfully politicized the science program that I decided it was necessary to terminate my relationship with it."




Cooney Moves from White House to ExxonMobil

Philip A. Cooney, the White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for ExxonMobil in the fall, the oil company said today.




Cooney Resigns After Altering Science Report
Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff to President Bush's Council on Environmental Quality, has resigned, White House officials said. Mr. Cooney's resignation came two days after documents revealed that he had edited government climate reports in ways that cast doubt on the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and rising temperatures.


Former API Leader Altered White House Climate Science Report

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.




Documents: ExxonMobil Pressured Bush Against Kyoto

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers.

 




Researchers Find Mann's Reconstruction "highly Robust"

New reconstructions over 1400-1980 are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann et al. reconstruction of 1998 is highly robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed.




British Skeptic Debunked on Glacier Assertions

"Despite his scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are possible." He had cited data that was simply false, he had failed to provide references, he had completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world's glaciers are retreating."




Bush Uses Skeptic to Argue Legal Case

The U.S. government has enlisted an outspoken skeptic of global warming in a legal fight with environmental groups over U.S. funding for overseas energy projects. The move has angered several prominent climate researchers, however, who say the government's arguments fly in the face of scientific consensus about both the causes and possible consequences of global warming.




Bush Administration Fails to Document Climate Impacts

The Bush administration's program to study climate change lacks a major component required by law, according to Congressional investigators. The program fails to include periodic assessments of how rising temperatures may affect people and the environment.




Scientists Refute "Skeptical" Soon-Baliunas Study

A group of leading climate scientists has reaffirmed the "robust consensus view" emerging from the peer reviewed literature that the warmth experienced on at least a hemispheric scale in the late 20th century was an anomaly in the previous millennium and that human activity likely played an important role in causing it. In so doing, they refuted recent claims that the warmth of recent decades was not unprecedented in the context of the past thousand years.




US Skeptics Target Britain on Climate Change

Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.




US Opposes Mention of Climate in Disaster Talks

The United States, which opposes the Kyoto protocol on global warming, is trying to remove references to climate change in UN talks aimed at setting up a disaster early warning system. The US has voiced objections to "multiple" references to climate change in drafting documents for the global conference in Kobe, Japan on disaster reduction.




Inhofe Opens New Senate Session With Withering Attack on Climate Science

For environmentalists, the issue of catastrophic global warming is not just a favored fundraising tool. In truth, it's more fundamental than that. Put simply, man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith.




Big Oil Leads List of Bush Inauguration Donors

Drawing support from the energy industry, the Presidential Inaugural Committee has raised almost $8 million since it began gathering money this month. ExxonMobil, the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, ChevronTexaco and the Southern Company were among more than 20 donors to give the maximum $250,000, which entitles executives to attend the ceremonies, black-tie balls and events with the president.




ExxonMobil Funds New "Skeptic" Study in UK

Climate change is 'a myth', sea levels are not rising and Britain's chief scientist is 'an embarrassment' for believing catastrophe is inevitable. These are the controversial views of a new London-based think-tank that will publish a report tomorrow attacking the apocalyptic view that man-made greenhouse gases will destroy the planet. The International Policy Network, funded by  among others ExxonMobil, will publish its long-awaited study, claiming that the science warning of an environmental disaster caused by climate change is 'fatally flawed'.




Scientists Rebut Skeptics' "Urban Heat Island" Theory

A major argument used by sceptics of global warming is flawed, a UK Met Office study in Nature magazine says. This argument maintains that much recorded climate data is inherently unreliable because most weather instruments are in or near cities, which produce their own heat; so the rapid warming measured over the last century could be just a record of urbanisation. The Met Office believes its study shows this "urban heat island" idea is wrong.




Leaked Document Shows Coal Industry Plan to Gut Climate, Air Regulations

An industry group that represents coal producers and suppliers has been carrying out an ambitious strategy for defeating or scaling back a host of ongoing congressional and state initiatives to limit greenhouse gases, mercury and other air pollutants, according to a recent internal letter obtained by the newsletter Inside EPA. The letter, sent between governing officers of the Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED), boasts about the group's ties with Republican officials and provides an unusual window into CEED's strategy for opposing air pollution control initiatives, including behind-the-scenes efforts to defeat proposals by state groups like the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) and the National Governors' Association.




Wall Streeet Journal Airs Critique of "Hockey Stick" Graph

One of the pillars of the case for man-made global warming is a graph nicknamed the hockey stick. It's a reconstruction of temperatures over the past 1,000 years based on records captured in tree rings, corals and other markers. The stick's shaft shows temperatures oscillating slightly over the ages. Then comes the blade: The mercury swings sharply upward in the 20th century.  The eye-catching image has had a big impact. Since it was published four years ago in a United Nations report, hundreds of environmentalists, scientists and policy makers have used the hockey stick in presentations and brochures to make the case that human activity in the industrial era is causing dangerous global warming.




Fossil Fuel Firms Spent $440 Million Over 6 Years on Political Influence

The oil and gas industry  has lavished more than $440 million over the past six years on politicians, political parties and lobbyists in order to protect its interests in Washington, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity.




Scientific American: White House Science Not Unlike Lysenkoism

Starting in the 1930s, the Soviets spurned genetics in favor of Lysenkoism, a fraudulent theory of heredity inspired by Communist ideology. Doing so crippled agriculture in the U.S.S.R. for decades. You would think that bad precedent would have taught President George W. Bush something. But perhaps he is no better at history than at science.




Bush Campaign Message On Environment: "Everything's Rosy"

George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively. An e-mail sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advises them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy.




Inhofe Declares Climate Change A Great "Hoax"

Sen. Jame Inhofe, the leading "denier" of climate change in the U.S. Senate and recipient of thousands in oil, coal and natural gas contibutions, cites "sound science" and "natural variability" to denounce human-induced climate change as a "hoax."




Scientists: Bush Administration Overrides Findings

John H. Marburger III, the White House science adviser, is on the hot seat. Nearly 2 1/2 years after leaving the directorship of Brookhaven National Laboratory to take the policy job, Marburger finds himself defending the Bush administration against charges it has distorted and misused science.




UCS Accuses White House of Distorting Science (Feb, 18 2004)

The Union of Concerned Scientists accused the Bush administration of suppressing and distorting scientific findings on the environment, public health and safety that run counter to its own policies. The UCS report charged the administration with suppressing research on global warming, air quality, sexual health, cancer and other issues. It said there had been a wide-ranging effort to manipulate the government's supposedly independent scientific advisory system "to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda."




White House, Right-Wing Group Sabotage Science (Sept. 2003)

White House officials have undermined government scientists' research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming. E-mails and internal government documents show that officials have sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack the science.




AGs: White House, Right Wing Group Conspired to Stifle Science (Aug. 2003)

Two Attorneys General charged that the Bush White House conspired with a private right-wing group to have it sue the government to withdraw a major, scientifically peer-reviewed document on climate impacts in the United States.




National Assessment Targeted By Skeptics (Aug. 2003)

A conservative group sued the Bush administration in an effort to force the government to stop distributing a report on the dangers of climate change. The suit was filed in Federal Court  by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded group that contends global warming poses no significant risks.




Three Journal Editors Resign Over Flawed Skeptic Paper (July, 2003)

The editor of a science journal editor which recently published an article questioning whether industrial emissions are driving up the earth's temperature has resigned, saying he was not allowed to publish an editorial repudiating the article. The article was written by researchers with support from the petroleum industry. Two other editors of the journal resigned as well.




Sen. Inhofe Cites API-Funded Study (July, 2003)

Some Senate Republicans say there is considerable doubt that the climate is warming and if it is, humans are not responsible. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe told  the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the science shows natural variability, not human activity, is the "overwhelming factor" influencing climate change.




Inhofe, following Bush, declares: The Warming Is All Natural (July, 2003)

..."After studying the issue over the last several years, I believe that the balance of the evidence offers strong proof that natural variability is the overwhelming factor influencing climate."

 




Bush To Scientists: Study Natural Causes of Warming

The Bush administration today released a 10 year research strategy for developing knowledge of climate change and its potential impacts on the environment and human lives. But critics say the comprehensive study should not replace action to curb U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases. And many scientists complain it focuses on natural causes of climate change.




White House Guts EPA Report on Warming

The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs.




Industry-Paid Skeptics Trash Climate Reconstruction (June, 2003)

Nonprofit organizations with ties to energy interests are promoting a controversial climate study as proof that prevailing views of global warming are wrong. The scientists who authored the new study contend that the global warming of recent decades is not without precedent during the past 1,000 years, as other scientists have claimed. The paper has touched off a worldwide storm of e-mail among climate scientists, some of whom have proposed organizing a research boycott of two journals that published the study.




ExxonMobil: Kinder, Gentler Funder of Skeptic Groups (May, 2003)

ExxonMobil now gives more than $1 million a year to organizations which oppose taking action against climate change -- including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation Center for Policy Research and the American Legislative Exchange Council.




Memo to Bush: "Keep The Public Confused About Climate Science" (March, 2003)

GOP consultant tells President Bush to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty about climate change a primary issue.




Lomborg "Scientifically Dishonest": Danish Government (Jan. 2003)

A branch of the Danish Research Agency has concluded that Prof. Bjorn Lomborg, an author whose upbeat analysis of environmental trends has been embraced by conservatives, displayed "scientific dishonesty" in his popular book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist."




ExxonMobil Acknowledges Fact -- With Fingers Crossed Behind Its Back (Nov. 20020

ExxonMobil has finally acknowledged what has long been accepted by more than 2,000 scientists, some 160 nations and virtually every other oil company -- that humans are changing the climate. But despite its  softening its long-standing campaign of disinformation, ExxonMobil continues to mislead the public.




ExxonMobil Behind Bush Ouster of IPCC Chief (April, 2002)

The Bush administration this week moved to oust the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who had been targeted by ExxonMobil in a confidential memo to the White House. Papers released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reflects a brazen, behind-the-scenes effort by ExxonMobil and other energy giants to oust Dr. Robert Watson, head of the IPCC. The administration is opposing Watson's appointment to a second term as IPCC chair.




Industry to OMB: Yank National Assessment (Feb. 2002)

On February 11th, Center for Regulatory Effectiveness requested that the United States Global Change Research Program and the Office of Science and Technology withdraw the First National Assessment on Global Climate Change because it violates the objectivity, utility and reproducibility requirements of the Data Quality Act and OMB's guidelines implementing the Act. More specifically, the National Assessment violates the Act and OMB's guidelines.




Singer Lied About Oil Funding

 The most widely quoted skeptic, S. Fred Singer, denied receiving oil industry money in a February letter to The Washington Post, declaring he had received no oil industry money for at least 20 years. But in 1998 ExxonMobil gave $10,000 to Singer's institute, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, and $65,000 to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which shared building space with SEPP and declared on its website, "For those who believe public policy should be based on sound science, Dr. Singer offers a wealth of information, credibility and encouragement."

 




ExxonMobil Emerges As Chief Patron of Skeptics (Nov. 2001)

ExxonMobil has become a major funder of the most visible "greenhouse skeptics", most of whom who have traditionally been funded by the coal industry -- including S. Fred Singer, Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and Sherwood Idso. The company is using some of its $17 billion in annual profits to confuse the public discussion of global climate change. ExxonMobil is sabotaging the work of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries by funding the most visible "greenhouse skeptics" -- one of whom, S. Fred Singer, publicly denied receiving oil industry money as recently as February, 2001.




NASA researchers: Lindzen's Work Is Flawed (Nov. 2001)

In March, 2001, Lindzen published what he calls "potentially [his] most important" paper. He concludes that warming would decrease tropical cloud cover -- which would produce a marked cooling effect overall and thus serve as a stabilizing negative feedback.But three research teams say Lindzen's paper is flawed.




Playing Truth Squad with ExxonMobil's Op-Ad (March, 2000)

An ExxonMobil ad on the Op-Ed Page of the The New York Times, March 23, 2000 titled "Unsettled Science" grossly distorts the January report of the National Research Council. Below are assertions by the ad (in italics)-- and responses from the science (in boldface).




API Plans Major Disinformation Campaign (April, 1998)

Industry opponents of a treaty to fight global warming have drafted an ambitious proposal to spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the environmental accord is based on shaky science. The plan includes a campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry's views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince  the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify action.




Big Coal's Funding of Skeptics (1998)

The fossil fuel lobby's campaign to confuse the public and policy makers about climate change has made extensive use of a small number of "greenhouse skeptics" -- scientists who are skeptical about climate change. There are, perhaps, a dozen visible "skeptics" compared to more than 2,000 scientists reporting to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The use of this tiny group of "skeptics" became clear in the spring of 1995 when they were forced to disclose for the first time under oath how much funding they had received from industry sources. The disclosures came during a utility hearing in St. Paul, Minnesota.




The Coal Industry's "ICE" Campaign (1999)

The year before the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment in Rio, a coalition of coal and utility companies launched a disinformation campaign designed by a public relations firm to create the Information Council on the Environment (ICE). The plan specified the use of three so-called "greenhouse skeptics" in broadcast appearances, op-ed articles and newspaper interviews in selected markets. The goal of the campaign was to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact."




RIP: Global Climate Coalition (March, 2000)

In early March, the Global Climate Coalition, the main industry lobby group against meaningful climate action, announced it was restructuring in the wake of wholesale defections by auto and oil interests.




IPPC Chief Bolin accuses Singer of Falsifying Statements (1997)

In June, 1997, S. Fred Singer, arguably the most reckless of the U.S. "greenhouse skeptics", launched a blitz of news releases which declared that Dr. Bert Bolin, then-chair of the IPCC, was disavowing his previous statements about climate science. Bolin called Singer's misrepresentations "inaccurate and misleading."




Santer, MacArthur "Genius Award" Winner, Blindsided by Industry Character Assassination Blitz (1996)

When the coal and oil lobby could not disprove the findings by the IPCC that human-induced global warming is under way, it launched a second round of attacks -- this time on the reputations and integrity of Dr. Benjamin Santer and other unsuspecting scientists who have been blindsided by the personal nature of the assaults.




NAS Discredits Marshall Institute (1998)

NAS blasts Marshall Institute for using its format in disseminating a bogus study and claiming the endorsement of the prestigious science academy.




Big Coal: "Global Warming Is Good For Us" (1998)

In 1991, the Western Fuels Association spent $250,000 to produce a propaganda video which was shown extensively in the George Bush White House as well as in the capitals of OPEC. The film,  funded by the coal industry, promises a new age of agricultural abundance will result from the doubling of the atmosphere's concentration of carbon dioxide. It predicts increases of 30 to 60 percent in the yields of soybeans, cotton, wheat and other crops -- ignoring projections  to the contrary from plant and agricultural scientists




Cheney Among Members of 1998 COMPASS Group Opposing Climate Action (1998)

COMPASS lists several former Secretaries of Defense and other National Security officials in their organization. But in its ads,the organization which lists its address as 1002 King St., Alexandria, Virginia -- the same address of the public relations firm Kelley Swofford Roy Helmke -- fails to identify the fossil fuel affiliation of its leading members.