Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

[w1z4rd]

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Article continues
Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2004399,00.html

 

[Syndyre]

Subtle

 

[neio]

As compared to the billions of dollars that scientists who ascribe to global warming get from the EPA, Greenpeace and others?

Yeah... I suppose this is news, a bit bored tonight are we?

 

[Syndyre]

Yeah everybody tries to buy people's opinion, its not limited to one side.

 

[mancombseepgood]

Yeah

Money or no money, people have had their blinkers on for a long time. It's all about me and my life and when I die it's not my problem anymore.

 

[icyrus]

Does anyone have some interesting links on this subject: specifically the reasons for the climate change that they attribute to humans?

 

[fivelza]

Pity that so much effort is being expended on finding out who to blame instead of trying to figure out what to do

 

[mancombseepgood]

Personally I think the earth has been through this before fairly recently... with much of it being wiped out in the process... wondering if it's not far off again.
As an amateur herpetologist, I studied the influx of velvet tropical house geckos to our shores, particularly Natal and Eastern Cape at around the early Ninety's / late eighties... it's incredible how a species that had never been found south of Mozambique could breed and spread so prolifically. At one point I remember just one neighbourhood in town that had them - their distribution was very specific. Within a decade, there wasn't a place in town that didn't have these pachydactylus spp.
Another telling sign is the almost total disappearance of so many dwarf chameleon species in SA. When last did anyone see a dwarf chameleon (not the flap necked or Namaqua)? They are still there, but extremely rare these days. There are some species that have been identified as a unique spp, but are only found (or have only been documented) in a small part of a suburb in town... nowhere else in the country. I'm sure there are other factors at work here, but you just look at a google earth map of madagascar today - it's a desert all except for the east coast - compare that with an older pic - it's incredible the difference. I remember Gerald Durell and co when younger... Madagascar was one of my fav places on earth... it's sad.
Of course deforestation is a huge factor in these places...
Check it out:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ite_image_of_Madagascar_in_September_2003.jpg

 

[icyrus]

Pity that so much effort is being expended on finding out who to blame instead of trying to figure out what to do

Understanding the reasons is the beginning of finding the solution.

 

[fivelza]

Understanding the reasons is the beginning of finding the solution.

Agreed, the reasons are intertwined with who is responsible...my point was rather that once the reasons are established then we should expend the energy on resolving the problem not pointing fingers.

 

[mancombseepgood]

Yeah

Agreed, the reasons are intertwined with who is responsible...my point was rather that once the reasons are established then we should expend the energy on resolving the problem not pointing fingers.

Money does the talking...
Short term benefits all round...
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

 

[Natas]

I'd take the cash and move somewhere nice..as a scientician I would know which parts of the world will stay relatively warm when the ice age hits.....I would use half my money to buy lots of cans of beans and build an underground fort with the othe half of the funds!!!

 

[fivelza]

I'd take the cash and move somewhere nice..as a scientician I would know which parts of the world will stay relatively warm when the ice age hits.....I would use half my money to buy lots of cans of beans and build an underground fort with the othe half of the funds!!!

Beans = gas = power....self contained I like it

 

[mark777]

These scientists get alot of funding for global warming, just like the hole in the ozone layer, bird flu and other things, people fund what fears them. No or little funding goes into research proving otherwise.

 

[w1z4rd]

People want the truth. There is climate change happening. We need to find out all the variables involved though. Playing politics and buying results will most likely just mean more global suffering. Why do I have the feeling mark777 is Rikus?:>

 

[andres101]

i've seen two documentaries recently, each stating a different case. my conclusion was that humans do contribute, but not as much as they would like us to believe. scientists get paid to say there is a problem. if they deny it, they loose their jobs. how can we trust them?

 

[BandwidthAddict]

This is The Guardian people, I would take what they say with a serious pinch of salt. They are a tabloid paper, like The Sun - they would print anything to sell copies, truth means nothing to them.