Royal Society blasts lobbyists! (20/9/2006) | |
1.Royal Society blasts its pals 1.Royal Society blasts its pals The Royal Society has taken issue with Exxon over its funding of lobby groups which engage in climate change denial. Among the groups mentioned in the article are the the International Policy Network (IPN) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The article notes that senior figures in the CEI "have described global warming as a myth" while the IPN "jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere." The Royal Society's letter is said by The Guardian to reflect "mounting concern about the activities of lobby groups that try to undermine the overwhelming scientific evidence that emissions are linked to climate change." The joke is of course that many of those involved in these lobby groups have been amongst the Royal Society's staunchest allies in the GM debate. The CEI, for instance, actually co-founded CS Prakash's AgBioWorld campaign and the CEI's Greg Conko serves as AgBioWorld's Vice-President. The climate-change denying Scientific Alliance has an Advisory Forum that is dominated by fervent GM supporters, eg Anthony Trewavas, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Vivian Moses, who is the Chair of the biotech industry backed lobby group CropGen, and who like Trewavas is on the Advisory Council of Sense About Science - a lobby group which has worked hand in glove with the Royal Society. Interestingly, the Royal Society itself has had no hesitation in accepting substantial funding from transnational corporations in the biotech and nuclear sectors. 2.Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial These include the International Policy Network, a thinktank with its HQ in London, and the George C Marshall Institute, which is based in Washington DC. In 2004, the institute jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. "There is not a robust scientific basis for drawing definitive and objective conclusions about the effect of human influence on future climate," it said. In the letter, Bob Ward of the Royal Society writes: "At our meeting in July ... you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge." The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, adds: "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading inform |