The Guardian: Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'

[truthpusher]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1399585,00.html

Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'

David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday January 27, 2005
The Guardian

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.
Bob May, president of the Royal Society, says that "a lobby of professional sceptics who opposed action to tackle climate change" is turning its attention to Britain because of its high profile in the debate.

Writing in the Life section of today's Guardian, Professor May says the government's decision to make global warming a focus of its G8 presidency has made it a target. So has the high profile of its chief scientific adviser, David King, who described climate change as a bigger threat than terrorism.

Prof May's warning coincides with a meeting of climate change sceptics today at the Royal Institution in London organised by a British group, the Scientific Alliance, which has links to US oil company ExxonMobil through a collaboration with a US institute.

Last month the Scientific Alliance published a joint report with the George C Marshall Institute in Washington that claimed to "undermine" climate change claims. The Marshall institute received £51,000 from ExxonMobil for its "global climate change programme" in 2003 and an undisclosed sum this month.

more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1399585,00.html

[illflem]

1. professional sceptics????

[TahitiNut]

2. A misprint. They meant "professionally septic."

:shrug:

[mutus_frutex]

4. That's what I thought..

These people give a very bad name to the real skeptics..

[NashVegas]

3. Why Does This Not Surprise Me

I can only assume these people either:

expect they'll be transported to heaven when the four horsemen come soon, and very soon;

figure if they can extract enough juice from what's left of the earth's re$ource$, they'll be able to afford front row seats in the first shuttle off to the new colony or Mars, or wherever.

[central scrutinizer]

5. It looks like the Tobacco Institute "scientists"

have found new jobs.

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

[No Exit]

7. It occurs to me that this global warming could work for

all of us, if it comes rapidly enough. Temperatures in the northern climes would, it seems, become much milder. This would reduce the need for heating oil. Anything that cuts into the profits of the oil/gas industry is music to my ears. After seeing the favored candidate of those industries become president and proceed to wreck the country, I despise those industries.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. If you're willing to take in all the equatorial populations

whose countries could become too hot to live in; to risk the world's oceans being disrupted as the lifecycles change due to temperatures; if you think we can organise the world's agriculture to grow different crops everywhere; if you think all species can be relocated as the climate around them changes; then maybe. But it would be far simpler to nationalise the world's oil and gas industries, if their profits are your concern. Chnaging the world's climate, just to get back at one set of people seems a trifle extreme.

[No Exit]

10. Nationalization of oil/gas? Sounds fine to me...

but sadly, I think it would actually be easier to do all the rest of the stuff you listed (ocean disruption, agriculture reorganization, etc.) than it would be to get this nationalization done.

Take in those from equatorial climates? Sure, no prob. But I don't believe that any climate on earth is too hot for people to live in... I notice people live in just about any climate, they just adapt. If people can live in, say, Fargo, where the temperature can get to at least 40 degrees below zero, seems to me people can also adapt to the heat extremes.

A shake-up in agriculture? Music to my ears... a shake-up would give us an opportunity to smack down Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland and the other huge agribusiness conglomerations that are currently performing such atrocities as forbidding farmers to plant the seeds from the crops they grow. Let's put big agribusiness into different hands... hey, actual people might be able to be farmers (as in the past) again...

Species? There have been climate shifts before... including, before humans had advanced. What happened then? Presumably, the same things will happen now.

Okay, look, here's why those extreme things don't bother me: I have such a feeling of siege while this fraudulent Bush administration is in, really, things like armageddon and other disasters almost don't scare me... It's almost as though I wish for some big shake-up, if ONLY it will bring relief from Bush's destruction.

Anyway, we don't have much choice. It appears that the earth's temperatures vary from time to time anyway. And we know big oil is destructive in so many ways, anything that would take power away from it has just got to be good.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. I think you need some basic education in agriculture

you cannot support a large population in a desert. You appear not to realise this. Of course there are climates that are too hot for people to live in.

Moving a couple of billion people from one country to another would not be easy. Think about it. Wars normally start over things like that. Nationalising a few companies is chickenfeed compared to that.

What happened in previous climate shifts was that thousand of species died out.

[Boswells_Johnson]

8. I am positive that the oil companies will develop a car that burns

twice the amount of oil and gas, but somehow produce 1/2 the pollution.

[starroute]

12. Check out exxonsecrets.org

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php

It will tell you exactly what groups Exxon is funding -- most of them right-wing organizations and many specifically anti-environmental or "wise use" groups.