What the paper really said:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2054654.ece
Plausable Deniability means that Exxon can't make these approaches directly.
You should know that.
"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
news:1171025285.396765.42660@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> 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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