ClimateScienceWatch

Promoting integrity in the use of climate science in government

Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for the integrity and effectiveness with which they use climate science and related research in government policymaking, toward the goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change. See Details

Global Warming Denial Machine

New report from Union of Concerned Scientists documents ExxonMobil’s disinformation campaign

Posted on Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to “Manufacture Uncertainty” on Climate Change, a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists, details how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. The section of the report on “Buying Government Access” includes discussion of documentation we made available in 2005 and issues we have raised since then.

Harvard Prof. Daniel Schrag on Senator Inhofe’s “gathering of liars and charlatans”

Posted on Saturday, December 23, 2006

Prof. Schrag testified at the Senate Environment Committee hearing December 6 on climate change and the media. “Then,” he reports, “I watched in horror as Inhofe’s witnesses spouted outrageous claims intended to deceive and distort....But amid the collegiality and decorum that is the tradition in the Senate, no one stood up and called this hearing what it was: a gathering of liars and charlatans, sponsored by those industries who want to protect their profits.” Bravo to Prof. Schrag. Scientists may regard the likes of Sen. Inhofe’s denialist witnesses as charlatans, but how many communicate this forcefully to a wider public?

CSW letter to the Wall Street Journal

Posted on Thursday, December 21, 2006

On December 13 the Wall Street Journal printed our letter critical of their December 4 editorial, “Global Warming Gag Order.” We said: “Your attack on Sens. Snowe and Rockefeller for their letter calling on ExxonMobil to stop supporting groups that obfuscate climate change science is misconceived on some essential points....The senators are not alone in believing it is time for ExxonMobil to stop warring against the leading climate scientists....” The Competitive Enterprise Institute didn’t like our letter.

ExxonMobil CEO says global warming poses significant potential risks, emissions reductions needed

Posted on Friday, December 08, 2006

There was much business-as-usual in ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s recent speech to the Chief Executives Club of Boston, but considering Exxon’s leading role in funding the global warming disinformation campaign for the past eight years, we found it interesting that he now says: “[W]hen it comes to the issue of climate change....the potential risks to society could prove to be significant, so despite the areas of uncertainties that do exist, it is prudent to develop and implement strategies that address the potential risks....Consistent with this approach, we should take steps now to reduce emissions in effective and meaningful ways.”

Four noteworthy articles on climate change in the Washington Post

Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2006

Climate in the Court (November 26, Editorial). “On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in...a challenge by states and environmental groups to the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gases as pollution.”

Science a la Joe Camel (November 26, Sunday Outlook section). “It’s bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.”

On the Move to Outrun Climate Change: Self-Preservation Forcing Wild Species, Businesses, Planning Officials to Act (November 26, National News, p. A3)

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change (November 25, front page). “While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nations largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.”

Michael MacCracken’s 2002 letter to the ExxonMobil board of directors

Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2006

ExxonMobil had attacked the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and had called on the incoming Bush administration to purge four specific individuals involved in climate change activities. In September 2002, in his final week in the U.S. Global Change Research Program Office, National Assessment coordinator Michael MacCracken, one of the “ExxonMobil Four,” sent a letter to each member of the ExxonMobil board of directors. With ExxonMobil’s global warming denial campaign behavior and the Bush administration’s suppression of the National Assessment process coming under greater critical scrutiny, Dr. MacCracken has authorized us to post his letter as part of the record.

“The Denial Machine” airs on CBC-TV

Posted on Friday, November 17, 2006

On November 15 “the fifth estate,” Canada’s leading investigative public affairs program, aired “The Denial Machine” (Webcast here). CBC says: “The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences.” In an interview on the program, Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz says: “This is a political operation to deny the seriousness of the problem in order to control the direction of policy. So I call it ‘the denial machine’ because I think it’s a more accurate description of what’s going on in this town right now.”

Anticipating the denialist attack on authors of the IPCC climate change assessment

Posted on Monday, November 06, 2006

We are witnessing the development of an unmistakable effort by the global warming denial machine and some of the contrarian scientists to create controversy in order to discredit the authors and findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in advance of publication starting in early 2007 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. New Scientist news service reports on scientists’ concerns in a November 4 article, “Climate change special: State of denial.” Climate Science Watch calls on policymakers and journalists to maintain critical perspective and not be diverted by spun-up controversy from focusing on this comprehensive and authoritative mainstream scientific assessment of climate change.

Global warming and the media at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference

Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Podcast interviews on climate change with Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, environmental author Bill McKibben, and CSW Director Rick Piltz from the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists, held in Burlington, Vermont, last week. Also: Senator Inhofe’s PR hatchet man Marc Morano, communications director of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, faces off with Bill Blakemore of ABC News, Revkin, and journalism Prof. Dan Fagin of New York University.

Senators Snowe and Rockefeller to ExxonMobil: Stop funding denialists

Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006

In a welcome bipartisan action, on October 30 Senators John (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) called on the world’s largest oil company to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign. “We are persuaded that the climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally,” the senators said in a strongly-worded letter to ExxonMobil’s Chairman and CEO. The senators singled out the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Tech Central Station Web site among the dozens of interlocking front groups that have been beneficiaries of Exxon’s $19 million in funding of the global warming denialist agenda.

“The Denial Machine”—Canadian TV to air investigative documentary on global warming denialists

Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006

Canada’s premier investigative documentary program, the fifth estate, will first air “The Denial Machine” on CBC-TV on Wednesday, November 15, at 8:00 p.m. The program’s Web site promo says: “Call them sceptics, deniers, or naysayers. They are scientists that see themselves as keepers of the truth about global warming: that it is a theory only, not a scientific fact, some even call it a hoax. Who are they? They may be small in number, but they have rich and powerful allies—the oil industry and the U.S. government.” Among those interviewed for this program were White House CEQ Chairman James Connaughton, Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, Ross Gelbspan, Kert Davies, and Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz.

The “Vanishing” National Climate Change Assessment, Part 1: The Administration

Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006

An October 3 story in Greenwire on the continuing controversy over the administration’s actions to bury the first National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as saying: “To the extent that it has vanished, we have succeeded.” Here we clarify a few points about the actions of the administration to make the National Assessment “vanish”.

Pat Michaels, Virginia “State Climatologist”? A critical perspective on the issues

Posted on Sunday, October 01, 2006

The Washington Post ran an article on September 17 on the controversy over whether Pat Michaels, long-time voice of the global warming denial machine, was entitled to continue to identify himself as the Virginia State Climatologist. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine doesn’t want Michaels appearing to speak for the state on global warming issues. This guest contribution provides a critical perspective that goes beyond what was developed in the Post’s coverage—about the legitimacy of Michaels’ designation as state climatologist, about Michaels’ funding sources and think tank affiliation, and about the meaning of “climatologist” in the contemporary scientific context.

Royal Society letter to ExxonMobil: Exemplary citizen-science for public accountability

Posted on Saturday, September 23, 2006

U.S. climate scientists, the National Academy of Sciences, and other science institutions should think about the remarkable recent letter from the British Royal Society to ExxonMobil in terms of their own role as guardians of public accountability. Shouldn’t ExxonMobil and other participants in the U.S. global warming misinformation machine also be hearing from U.S.-based scientists and their organizations?

UK science academy letter tells ExxonMobil to stop funding global warming denial machine

Posted on Saturday, September 23, 2006

The UK Guardian reported on September 20 that a letter from the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, has called on ExxonMobil Corp. to stop funding dozens of organizations that have “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence”. Exxon has been distributing millions of dollars to what Climate Science Watch terms the global warming denial machine. See “details” for the full text of the Royal Society’s no-nonsense letter, which exemplifies the role we have called on the science community to play in promoting accountability for how climate change research is used in the public arena.

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