anti-science

University of Calgary Prostitutes Itself To Big Oil & Gas

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Canadian journalist Mike DeSousa first wrote three years ago about the anti-science group with the Orwellian name “Friends of Science” funding a PR blitz meant to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Friends of Science paid for their ad campaign out of a University of Calgary research account controlled by Professor Barry Cooper, but the university and the Calgary Foundation (who also received donations and transferred them to the research account) refused to release details at the time that DeSousa broke the original story. DeSousa appealed that censorship, and won.

DeSousa wrote last week in the Ottawa Citizen:

A pair of “research” accounts at the University of Calgary, funded mainly by the oil and gas industry, were used for a sophisticated international political campaign that involved high-priced consultants, lobbying, wining, dining, and travel with the goal of casting doubt on climate change science, newly-released records have revealed.

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university.

All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

DeSousa has also revealed that an Alberta-based oil and gas company, Talisman Energy, helped to kick-start the elaborate public relations campaign with a donation of nearly $200,000.

The donation from Talisman Energy was the largest single contribution to a pair of trust accounts at the university that received $507,975 in donations to produce a video and engage in public relations, advertising and lobbying activities against the Kyoto Protocol and government measures to restrict fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

“Talisman is pleased to be a part of this exciting project and wish you success in the production of the video,” said the letter, dated Nov. 4, 2004, to university account administrator Chantal-Lee Watt, that accompanied a $175,000 cheque.

Something smells fishy around here, and it’s not just the leftover pickerel chowder in my fridge. Aren’t universities supposed to be bastions of learning and scientific inquiry? When did it become okay for a public university to accept private corporate funds to spread misinformation and lies? And then try to suppress the truth, only revealing it when forced to by access to information laws?

If you, like me, think something stinks about this, contact University of Calgary President Elizabeth Cannon by email at: president@ucalgary.ca.

In the meantime, Friends of Science is at it again, bringing in journalist (and now climate expert??) Rex Murphy to the University of Calgary on September 29th. Murphy has been spouting his uninformed  views on climate change for a while now, and I’m sure the FoS is happy to have him spread more doubt on the science. Like the tobacco lobby, who for years delayed action on tobacco regulation by confusing the general public about the science linking tobacco and health effects, the Petroleum Lobby is busily repositioning global warming as theory rather than fact. Want to learn more? Head over to DeSmogBlog.com – they do a great job of separating climate fact from climate fiction.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/29107248]

More links:

University Funds Used in PR War, Files Show

Oil Money Funnelled To Climate Denier Group

Talisman Energy Kick-Started U of C Climate Skeptic Fund

Global Warming Denier Nonsense Amusing If It Weren’t Deadly

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This is a reposting – it was originally published on December 1, 2009.

Have a great weekend!

A recent response to one of my posts questioned my statement that there were fewer trees in the world than 200 years ago, saying I had provided no proof.  This same person questioned why it was important to point out that trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen when discussing global warming.

This is amusing, on the face of it.  Except that there is a relentless disinformation campaign going on, funded by the companies that have the most to lose if our economy switches from fossil fuel-based to greener, less polluting energy sources.  Lest you think I’m just a paranoid conspiracy theorist, let me remind you of the tobacco companies’ example.  For years, they poured millions of dollars into denying that cigarette smoke is linked to cancer, paying scientists and PR people alike to muddy the waters.  Can we really assume that the oil, coal and gas companies are any different?  They have taken a page out of the tobacco companies’ book, and are trying to divert a solutions-focused climate change discussion.

Exxon Mobile is the largest and wealthiest corporation in the world.  Rather than retreating in the face of mounting evidence of global disaster, there is evidence that it continues to put money and effort into denial of global warming.  In 2006  Exxon was called to account before the Royal Society of London scientific body for its funding of  so-called “think tanks”, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).  CEI produced commercials extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide; set to the background of sunrises and little girls blowing dandelions, the commercials state boldly “Carbon dioxide.  They call it pollution.  We call it life.”  (Click here to view video).

Obviously, carbon dioxide is a part of life.  But the CEI ad – and similar denial claims – ignore that fact that it is not carbon dioxide itself that is inherently harmful, but it is excessive discharges of the gas that scientists argue is harmful to the atmosphere. And excessive discharging of carbon dioxide is what we humans, mostly in Europe and North America, have been doing with our increased rate of fossil fuel consumption since the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago.

In “Climate Change Cover-Up”, James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore offer this analogy:

Behind us is a considerable crowd, 6.7 billion people and counting, and below is a beckoning pool.  Some people say that you can jump into that pool without risk. They say that humans having been doing so for ages without any problems. But others say that waves have been eating away at the foot of the cliff, causing big rocks to fall into the water. They say that the risk of jumping grows more frightening by the day. Whom do you trust?

Hoggan and Littlemore then point out that some of the lifeguards on the climate change cliff just aren’t that qualified, and some of them seem quite willing to sacrifice the whole swim team if there are profits to be made.

Would you trust an unqualified lifeguard, or one with vested interests, with your life, and that of your children and grandchildren?

Icebergs, Ice Hockey, and Other News

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It’s been an eventful weekend.  On Saturday, Chile experienced an earthquake that registered 8.8 on the Richter scale and left more than700 people dead, and the country’s second largest city without electricity and water. News of giant chunks of Antarctic ice floating towards Australia was also in the headlines the past few days. And, as the Olympics in Vancouver wrapped up, Canada won gold in the men’s hockey final against the U.S. in a nail-biter of a game – Go Canada!!

Here’s some discussion from the blogosphere on these, and other,  issues of interest:

  • NPR has an interesting discussion about how one’s response to climate change is dependent the world view one holds going into the discussion:

Over the past few months, polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, despite a raft of scientific reports that say otherwise.

This puzzles many climate scientists — but not some social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs. 

Click here for more on the NPR discussion, Belief in Climate Change Hinges on Worldview.

  • Senator Al Gore responded to anti-science climate skeptics in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Saturday entitled We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

Click here to read the entire column.

  • In relation to natural disasters and climate change, the bloggers at Make Wealth History.org have a recent post on this subject that includes two graphs from the insurance company Munich Re which track the pattern of natural disasters around the world for the past 50 years.  As the graph below indicates, the increase in disasters closely tracks the rise in global temperatures, which rose most sharply in the 1990s and continued to rise, but more gradually, in the past decade.

    Great weather catastrophes 1950 – 2009. Munich Re Insurance Company

Click here to read the article Climate Change and Natural Disasters or here to go right to the Munich Re website.

  • In response the icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice sheet and floating towards Australia, Andy Russell’s weather-related blog examines the general climate situation in the South Pole region, with great pictures and links to peer-reviewed articles.  Check it out the posting, Antarctic Climate Change – The Exception That Proves the Rule? here.
  • And, finally, a picture from yesterday’s gold medal hockey game. Click here to watch the gold medal moment on YouTube.

    Canadian men's hockey teams wins Olympic gold. (MATT SLOCUM / The Associated Press)