New "Frackademia" Report Co-Written by "Converted Climate Skeptic" Richard Muller

[bananas]

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/12/16/new-major-frackademia-report-co-written-converted-climate-skeptic-richard-muller

Mon, 2013-12-16 Steve Horn

New "Frackademia" Report Co-Written by "Converted Climate Skeptic" Richard Muller

The conservative UK-based Centre for Policy Studies recently published a study on the climate change impacts of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking&quot for shale gas. The skinny: it's yet another case study of "frackademia," and the co-authors have a financial stake in the upstart Chinese fracking industry.

Titled "Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favour Fracking" and co-authored by Richard Muller and his daughter Elizabeth "Liz" Muller, it concludes that fracking's climate change impacts are benign, dismissing many scientific studies coming to contrary conclusions.

<snip>

There is an important detail buried on the last page of the Centre for Policy Studies report: Liz Muller's position as founder and Managing Director of the China Shale Fund. One copy of the study is even published on the China Shale Fund's website.

<snip>

The biggest cheerleaders of the Muller study are the shale gas industry and its public relations echo chamber.

Nearly everyone who promoted the study on Twitter, for example, receives a paycheck from the industry or an industry front group.

Twitter promoters included Matt Pitzarella — Range Resources Director of Corporate Communications, who admitted his company utilizes psychological warfare tactics on U.S. citizens at a November 2011 conference — who sent out six tweets promoting the study; industry front group Energy in Depth, Energy in Depth-Marcellus and its social media guy, Energy in Depth-California, among others.

Energy in Depth also devoted a blog post to promoting the study, written by Katie Brown, former communications director for the climate change-denying U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).

<snip>

[bananas]

1. Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?

http://grist.org/news/every-serious-environmentalist-must-support-fracking-seriously/

Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?

15 Dec 2013 By John Upton

If you oppose fracking, then you are not a “serious environmentalist.”

So say U.C. Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller and his daughter Elizabeth Muller in a new opinion paper with a none-too-subtle title: “Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favor Fracking.”

Until recently, Muller wasn’t much of an environmentalist himself. He was a prominent climate denier. But last year he wrote in The New York Times that he came to realize the error of his ways after an intensive review of the science.

Now this self-described “converted skeptic” has appointed himself the arbiter of serious environmentalism.

<snip>

It turns out there’s more behind the Mullers’ paper than meets the eye. Elizabeth Muller has a clear financial stake in the fracking industry. She is managing director of the China Shale Fund, a venture capital fund set up to export American fracking technology to Asia.

The Mullers’ paper was published by the Centre for Policy Studies, which was cofounded in 1974 by Margaret Thatcher “to promote the principles of a free society.” Why would a British think tank be promoting the Mullers’ views? Because fracking is a white-hot issue in the U.K. right now. The conservative national government desperately wants to expand fracking, but many citizens remain unconvinced of its benefits.

A free society, hey? It would sure be nice to free our society from fracking industry propaganda.

[caraher]

2. It's a remarkably common position

Secretary of Energy Moniz is also pretty bullish on fracking. Muller's analysis takes as its baseline the notion that one should compare burning natural gas to burning coal. If those are your only two options the case isn't overly hard to make, and many others have made it.

The trouble with that analysis, from my perspective, is that it tends to be focused too narrowly, and there are better alternatives - they just don't support the same energy industry players as fracking. It's good to know the conflicts of interest in play here.

Also, to call what Muller wrote the result of a "study" is a bit of an overstatement. It's really more of a series of back-of-the-envelope calculations. It's also not peer-reviewed work.

[Nihil]

3. So much for the "converted" part ... he's still 100% for fossil fuel extraction & consumption. (n/t)