As I have written in previous postings, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has helped Bush II with his latest plan for the conflict in Iraq, want’s to minimize and control our liberties, and represents the authoritarian leadership of the extreme political right. They are also part of the effort to deny global warming and the possibility that humans are a contributing factor.
Back in 2005, MotherJones reported on the denial efforts of AEI and others. As part of that report they documented the forty public policy groups that ExxonMobil is paying to use Noble Lies and dispute the facts behind global warming and its link to human activity. This report showed that ExxonMobil had given AEI $960,000 in 2005 and that AEI had produced a publication in 2004 called Don’t Worry Be Happy where they stated, “So, in a nutshell, the leading scientific study supporting global warming has been thoroughly debunked.”
ExxonMobil and AEI are at it again. According to The Guardian, “Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.” Various scientists and economists were sent letters by AEI and offered cash and travel expenses for articles that dispute the latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
According to the Guardian, AEI’s funding from ExxonMobil is in excess of $1,600,000. Also, Lee Raymond, a former executive at ExxonMobil is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees. Kenneth P. Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, authored the letters and confirmed making the request.
The Guardian article concluded with:
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: “The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration’s intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they’ve got left is a suitcase full of cash.”
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.
Andy Hailey