February 9, 2007; Page A10
Mark Twain once complained that a lie can make it half way around the
world before the truth gets its boots on. That's been the case of late
in the climate change debate, as political and media activists attempt
to stigmatize anyone who doesn't pay homage to their "scientific
consensus."
Last week the London Guardian published a story headlined, "Scientists
Offer Cash to Dispute Climate Study." The story alleges that the
American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative-leaning think tank
in Washington, collected contributions from ExxonMobil and then
offered climate scholars $10,000 so they could lobby against global
warming legislation.
Another newspaper, the British Independent, picked up on the story and
claimed: "It has come to light that one of the world's largest oil
companies, ExxonMobil, is attempting to bribe scientists to pick holes
in the IPCC's assessment." (The IPCC is the United Nations climate-
change panel.)
It would be easy to dismiss all this as propaganda from British
tabloids, except that a few days ago the "news" crossed the Atlantic
where more respectable media outlets, including the Washington Post,
are reporting the story in what has become all too typical pack
fashion. A CNNMoney.com report offered that, "A think tank partly
funded by ExxonMobil sent letters to scientists offering them up to
$10,000 to critique findings in a major global warming study released
Friday which found that global warming was real and likely caused by
burning fossil fuels."
Here are the facts as we've been able to collect them. AEI doesn't
lobby, didn't offer money to scientists to question global warming,
and the money it did pay for climate research didn't come from Exxon.
What AEI did was send a letter to several leading climate scientists
asking them to participate in a symposium that would present a "range
of policy prescriptions that should be considered for climate change
of uncertain dimension." Some of the scholars asked to participate,
including Steve Schroeder of Texas A& M, are climatologists who
believe that global warming is a major problem.
AEI President Chris DeMuth says, "What the Guardian essentially
characterizes as a bribe is the conventional practice of AEI -- and
Brookings, Harvard and the University of Manchester -- to pay
individuals" for commissioned work. He says that Exxon has contributed
less than 1% of AEI's budget over the last decade.
As for Exxon, Lauren Kerr, director of its Washington office, says
that "none of us here had ever heard of this AEI climate change
project until we read about it in the London newspapers." By the way,
commissioning such research is also standard practice at NASA and
other government agencies and at liberal groups such as the Pew
Charitable Trusts, which have among them spent billions of dollars
attempting to link fossil fuels to global warming.
We don't know where the Brits first got this "news," but the leading
suspects are the reliable sources at Greenpeace. They have been
peddling these allegations for months, and the London newspaper
sleuths seem to have swallowed them like pints on a Fleet Street lunch
hour.
So, apparently, have several members of the U.S. Senate. Yesterday
Senators Bernard Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein and John
Kerry sent a letter to Mr. DeMuth complaining that "should these
reports be accurate," then "it would highlight the extent to which
moneyed interests distort honest scientific and public policy
discussions. . . . Does your donors' self-interest trump an honest
discussion over the well-being of the planet?"
Every member of AEI's board of directors was graciously copied on the
missive. We're told the Senators never bothered to contact AEI about
the veracity of the reports, and by repeating the distortions, these
four Democratic senators, wittingly or not, gave credence to
falsehood.
For its part, Exxon appears unwilling to take this smear campaign
lying down. Bribery can be a crime, and falsely accusing someone of a
crime may well be defamation. A company spokesman says Exxon has
written a letter to the Independent demanding a retraction.
One can only conclude from this episode that the environmental left
and their political and media supporters now believe it is legitimate
to quash debate on climate change and its consequences. This is known
as orthodoxy, and, until now, science accepted the legitimacy of
challenging it.
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