Finally.   After years of denying its role in the campaign of climate denial, Exxon has revealed a dirty secret, that it has and likely still is DIRECTLY funding junk scientists.

 

The ExxonMobil 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report were just released by the company ahead of their Annual General Meeting in Dallas tomorrow (May 27th) where the company is once again under significant pressure from Shareholder Activists.

The Worldwide Giving Reports are a key part of the data from which we have derived the ExxonSecrets funding linkages for the past decade.  Through the years, most ExxonMobil Foundation and corporate grants (the ones they report to the IRS anyway) have gone to think-tanks, organizations who have in turn propped up the small army of denial scientists, amplified their voices and injected them into the media and policy arenas. 

Thanks to Exxon's revealing this little secret, we now have a direct link between the Exxon black bag o' cash and two scientists who have made their careers as global warming deniers.

The new Exxon Giving report shows straight pipe funding, in the odd but specific sum of $76,106 to the  Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, home of Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas.  Or we assume the cash went to these two, until Exxon explains itself. 

The Observatory is the research arm of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) which has little to do with either the Smithsonian or Harvard at this point, other than in name (founded as a joint venture in 1973).  In past episodes, Smithsonian has distanced itself from Baliunas, who discredits their name.

Wait!!? Is that Ben Stiller starring as Willie and Amy Adams portraying a young spry Sally? Maybe they should spend a Night at the Museum...they might learn a few things.

The Observatory has produced some pretty useful publications over time like the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog, originally published in 1966 by Fred L. Whipple.  But somewhere along the line they let in the riff raff...

Sally Baliunas built her denial career downplaying the significance of the destruction of the ozone layer, publishing a report entitled "The Ozone Crisis" in 1994 for the George Marshall Institute.  Baliunas was, at the time, the chair of the Marshall Institute's Science Advisory Board and Fred Seitz was the Chairman of the Board...a full throttle denial team if ever there was one.

Remember the Marshall Institute?  Oh yeah, Exxon announced that they had dropped their funding last year...who needs Marshall when you have their scientists on a leash. 

Here is an excerpt from SallyBali's Ozone junk science:

Sound familiar?  Talk about lies and misinformation, check out the projected cost estimates of getting rid of CFCs!  Wow, was Sally wrong...its a wonder she wasn't so ashamed as to never publish again...but wait, there is no shame for a denier!

During the early Bush years, Soon and Baliunas were back in action, joint authors of a denial classic attacking mainstream climate conclusions. 

"Lessons & Limits of Climate History: Was the 20th Century Climate Unusual?" was published by the George Marshall Institute.  Jeff Nesmith of Cox News Service,  revealed that the study was funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Senator Inhofe of course loved the report!

Soon went on to coauthor another denial classic,  Polar Bears Are Doing Just Fine, reviewed by ExxonSecrets back in 2007.

This polar bear paper is key because, old Willie proudly admits both Exxon and American Petroleum Institute funding to support the research.  However, Exxon didn't report this funding in its Worldwide Giving Report or to the IRS...they never said a word about it...

After an October 17th 2007 House Science Committee hearing entitled, Disappearing Polar Bears and Permafrost: Is a Global Warming Tipping Point Embedded in the Ice?, Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina penned a letter to Exxon demanding answers.  He wrote, “Exxon has the right to fund any research or publications it wishes.  However, the Congress and the public have the right to know why ExxonMobil is funding a scientist whose writing is outside his area of expertise to create the impression that expert scientists have conducted rigorous, peer-reviewed work that says the problems with polar bears are unproven or unserious.”

As far as we know Rep. Miller never got answers.

By now, Willie Nilly has emerged from Sally Bali's shadow to become one of the go-to skeptics, appearing as a key speaker at the two recent Heartland Institute's Denial-Paloozas in New York.  Soon is again a featured panelist at next week's 3rd Heartland Institute Denial-Palooza (wait, didnt they just have the 2nd one about 2 months ago?) Senator Inhofe and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) will join the shrinking but noisy denial crew in DC on June 2nd.

The Exxon AGM season is like Christmas for us at ExxonSecrets and this year Santa treated us right.  Now, Rex Tillerson,  what exactly have you been paying Soon and Baliunas to do and for how long?  Clearly it didn't start in 2008.  Answers please.....we're waiting...

ExxonSecrets is hanging here in the Big Apple with DeSmogBlog, as the Heartland Institute, flush with cash from anonymous planet hating foundations and corporations, is putting on the second annual global warming Denial-Palooza.

The Guardian led with a description of the keynote address by Czech president, Václav Klaus, whose country holds the important rotating presidency of the EU.  Klaus' alarmist message to the cheering denier throng was that European nations plans for climate solutions hide a nefarious plot to ruin human society... "They probably do not want to reveal their true plans and ambitions to stop economic development and return mankind several centuries back" 

How's that for optimism and hope in troubled times?  Yo Vaccie, chillax and enjoy the Energy Revolution.

The New York Times panned the conference in Monday's paper, documenting several cases of peer to peer disagreement on how to best deny global warming - MIT's Richard Lindzen slamming the sun-spot people and Fred Singer correcting fellow skeptics understanding of physics.  ExxonSecrets loves it when the skeptics eat their young.

But the best salvo of the Times article was a recitation of last year's Exxon Corporate  Citizenship report blockbuster sentence by ExxonMobil spokes Alan T. Jeffers, who wrote the Times in an e-mail, saying that the company had ended support “to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion about how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Ending Exxon's diversion campaign being the primary goal of ExxonSecrets, seeing these immortal words from last May in the NY Times warmed our hearts....

Heartland, the free-marketeers, went on...attacking corporations who now express some consciousness of the threat of global warming: "Joseph L. Bast,  the president of the Heartland Institute, said Exxon and other companies were just shifting their stance to improve their image. The Heartland meeting, he said, was the last bastion of intellectual honesty on the climate issue." Last bastion of antireglatory extremists more like.

“Major corporations are painting themselves green around global warming,” Mr. Bast said, adding that the companies have shifted their lobbying and public relations efforts toward trying to shape climate legislation in their favor."

Well they have a point there, we have noticed a spike in climate greenwashing.  Maybe Heartland wants to join our StopGreenwash campaign?

Despite Exxon unceremoniously kicking them to the curb in 2007, Heartland seems to have raised a lot of money bashing Al Gore over the last few years.  In a promo brochure handed out at the conference, the Heartland Institute's funding looks like the much maligned Michael Mann hockey stick graph. Their funding more than doubled from 2005-2007 rising from $2.5 million to $5.2 million after hovering at less than $2 million from 1999-2003.

 

 

 

Today, Guardian writer Ed Pilkington took a fresh swat at Governor Sarah Palin's use and defense of Exxon-funded junk science on polar bears in the State of Alaska's attempts to to kill the listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

We have covered the evolution of this story on ExxonSecrets for over a year here and here with links to articles and documents of interest.

Much has been made of Palin's denial of global warming since she was nominated as the GOP Veep candidate, but no one has questioned her credibility for using 'research' that was funded by ExxonMobil, American Petroleum Institute and Charles Koch Foundation.

We are wondering if Gwen Ifill of PBS will ask Ms. Palin a pointed question tomorrow? or if Senator Biden has read the Guardian story?

Tom Kizza at the Anchorage Daily News has followed this story the best, filing two good articles earlier in the year here and here.

This classic ExxonSecrets map of the junk science authors from the Dyck, Soon, et al article shows once again the tentacles of the Denial Machine (see page 9 for acknowledgement of funding from Exxon and friends).  Palin's goon squad cited the Dyck, Soon paper 6 times and even attached a copy of the article (pre-publication) to their 49 page submission to the Department of Interior.

All the background documents can be found on Greenpeace Investigations:

• Exxon funded junk science
• rebuttal by real polar bear scientists
• Alaska's submissions to Department of Interior

No reporters have questioned Exxon or API about funding this research and no one has gotten the scientists themselves on the record as to how much money they got from Exxon and friends and the marching orders attached to that funding.

 

In a new Greenpeace investigation of more than 500 congressional lobbying records of the chemical industry and allied businesses researchers identified 238 lobbyists who registered to lobby against strong chemical security legislation in 2007. With at total lobbying budget of $130 million dollars, Greenpeace estimates that the industry averaged about $1 million a month to forestall strong chemical security legislation.

The Greenpeace report, as well as supporting documents, can be found here

 

The report documents multiple layers of a quiet but extensive lobbying campaign to prevent strong regulations and to keep chemical users from switching to safer, more secure chemicals and processes. The report includes 20 trade associations such as the chemical manufacturer's American Chemistry Council (ACC) as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 30 companies including Dow Chemical Company, and ExxonMobil and high priced lobby firms such as Hogan & Hartson.


Since 9/11, the chemical industry lobby has succeeded in delaying the enactment of permanent, comprehensive chemical security legislation. In 2006 a 740 word temporary law was enacted with the expectation that Congress would revisit the issue in 2007.

Jack Gerard, CEO of the ACC summed up the chemical lobby's agenda, “We believe the Department of Homeland Security should have the ability to put these regs in place. Let's let the dust settle, and then a few years down the road let's take a look at it."

In contrast the Association of American Railroads recently issued a strong statement on ultra-hazardous chemicals: "It is time for the nation’s big chemical companies to stop making the dangerous chemicals that can be replaced by safer substitutes or new technologies currently in the marketplace…And if they won’t do it, Congress should do it for them in the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008."

On March 6th, the House Homeland Security Committee adopted a comprehensive bill (H.R. 5577). The House Energy and Commerce Committee which is expected to take up this legislation soon and has scheduled a hearing for May 15th. To avoid a renewal of the hopelessly weak temporary statute, Congress must pass a permanent law this year.

The Heartland Institute has emerged over the last year as the ringleader of global warming denial, challenging Al Gore to pointless debates and now hosting what is possibly the largest Denial cnvergence ever- we'll call it

Denial-a-palooza 2008...

This two day festival of stuff and nonsense, might be better suited as an opening act for Monty Python's Spamalot, playing down the street on Broadway. The conference is sponsored and attended by the small and shrinking tribe of diehard deniers who question the veracity of the global warming crisis and attack those who are trying to do something about it. 

But where on earth is Exxon?  diehard sponsor of said organizations...  A few years back, Exxon would have been giving the keynote speech at a show like this, or at least behind the scenes pulling puppet strings.  In fact many companies would have been eager to endorse this counterinsurgency.  Not now apparently.

Lost

The train has left the station, but they’ll always have each other, huddled grumpy on the platform.  Well, a little better than the train platform, this week’s conference is being held at the quite pricey Marriot Marquis right on Times Square in New York City.  Someone with deep pockets must be paying Heartland’s bills these days.  We wonder who?

The subtitle of the innocous and official sounding 2008 International Conference on Climate Change is the pleading“Can you hear us now? Global Warming Is Not a Crisis?  There is a megaphone on the cover. While on its face, this is a conference about global warming science, there are well populated conference tracks on Climate Change Politics and  Economics.  To us here at ExxonSecrets, there is no difference between doubting and denying the science and attacking policies to solve it.  The overwhelming and unsettling conclusions of the scientific community on global warming have imparted an urgency and inspiration to the policy community around the world.  If you argue we should do nothing, or do less, you ARE denying the science.  There is no doubt about it.

 

What Inspires Them?

One wonders how these hardy deniers keep it up in the face of the momentum that has finally arrived.  Or perhaps that is exactly what inspires them.  This is the final battle for this crowd.  It is a crisis for them, a crisis of lost credibility and corporate backing. After at least 15 years of success with tactics of delay and denial and distraction, they are losing badly. 

We are finally on the cusp of passing national global warming regulations in the US (hopefully when we get a new president).  Numerous major corporations have endorsed that goal.  Still more corporations are moving ahead with corporate carbon reduction goals and moving into the market for clean technology. Just what do these denial professionals think of the likes of turncoats Walmart, General Electric, GM, Alcoa, Fed-Ex, Coca-Cola, Bank of America to name a few, who have acknowledged the threat, and either endorsed regulatory approaches or and taken measures to shift investment and business practices?

States and local communities across the country have moved even faster than the Fed to pass regulations and regional carbon reduction efforts.  What do these deniers think of Arnold "the Global Warming Terminator" out in California?

And just what do they think of the fact that our next president, Obama, Clinton and McCain WILL tackle global warming one way or another.  They are all speaking about global warming as the number one environmental threat, and speaking about the economic opportunity in finding solutions?  No wonder Rush Limbaugh and the conservatives hate McCain, he went to the Arctic with Hillary a few years ago to see global warming damage firsthand with the scientists.  McCain has been the unlikely Republican stalwart on global warming since 2000.

So Who Is Here?

There are weathermen, PR flacks, pundits, some scientists as well.  Some fifty organizations are co-sponsors.  Heartland, the host, has asserted on its website and in the program that “No corporate funding was used to support this conference.”  One wonders why they are so insistent on stating this.  Until a few years ago, these groups would proudly proclaim that they were supported by great American corporations (without disclosing their funders).

We've done an ExxonSecrets deluxe map of those we know about.  We have all the cosponsors on the left side, the 50 some odd speakers down the middle and the other organizations they are linked to down the right.

We have data linking some $7.5 Million in Exxon funding (98-06) to many of the prominent cosponsors along with the Heartland Institute.  Maybe Exxon opted out of Heartland’s workplan for 2008 or stipulated that it wouldn’t sponsor this conference?  Again, why are they being so defensive about corporate funding?

We know that a few of the conference cosponsors were dropped by Exxon like rotten hot potatoes in 2006:
Competitive Enterprise Institute,
Center for Defense of Free Enterprise,
Independent Institute
Free Enterprise Education Institute the precursor to Steve Milloy’s Free Enterprise Action Fund

But 10 conference co-sponsors received a total of $782,500 from Exxon in 2006, the latest year for which Exxon has revealed its handouts.

The preface of the conference program claims 400 people will attend, including the 100 or so assorted speakers and panelists.  The featured attendees include PR flacks, pundits, thinktankers, and a small handful of the old-school doctors of denial like Singer, Seitz and Micheals, a few ex-weatherman and even a comedian, not kidding.  There are profiles of the 50 some odd people we know on  ExxonSecrets wiki and DeSmog has posted some detailed profiles here.

Freedom?!

The title of ABC’s John Stossel’s closing address on Tuesday is "Freedom and Its Enemies”  The conference must have something to do with “freedom” or more specifically “free enterprise”, which translates to freedom for corporations.  There are five cosponsoring organizations with free in their names -The Center for Defense of Free Enterprise, Frontiers of Freedom, Free Enterprise Action Fund, The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, The Free Market Foundation (from S. Africa).  

We will report on this mess over the next couple of days.  Stay tuned.