Mother Jones
Put a Tiger In Your Think Tank
ExxonMobil has pumped more than $8 million into more than 40 think tanks; media outlets; and consumer, religious, and even civil rights groups that preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe. Herewith, a representative overview.
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Organization |
Funding |
Hot Air |
Fun Fact |
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$155,000 |
Calls CO2 caps "a misguided attempt to solve a problem that may not even exist." |
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Advancement of Sound Science Center |
$40,000 |
Run by FoxNews.com's Steve Milloy. |
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$250,000 |
"Science questions must be addressed before the United States and its allies embark on a path as nonproductive as that of the Kyoto Protocol." |
Group netted nearly a million dollars from ExxonMobil from 2000-2003 but the real science bashing was in 2001 when they got a quarter million. |
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$90,000 |
"Policymakers can safely take several decades to plan a response" to global warming. |
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$960,000 |
Published 2004 climate article titled "Don't Worry, Be Happy." |
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$712,200 |
Published Michaels' paper that claims "global warming could actually save lives." |
Launched attack on "Sons of Kyoto" state legislation in 2004. |
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$427,500 |
Baliunas is an adviser; honored Senator Inhofe for "supporting rational, science-based thinking and policy-making." |
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$49,500 |
They got this amount in 2001 when the office was headed by Robert C. Balling, a well known climate change "skeptic." |
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$440,000 |
"As the science behind global warming becomes increasingly sketchy, many environmentalists clutch even harder to their views." Atlas fellow, Deroy Murdock , "You call this global "warming"?" The Washington Times, May 31, 1996. |
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$75,000 |
One of the modern right's most respected think tanks |
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$115,000 |
Right-wing nonprofit watchdog group |
"Scientists disagree about climate change, but you wouldn't know that from the [Kyoto] treaty. It is based on a theory that man-made carbon dioxide, or CO2, gas emissions caused by industrial activities have created the so-called 'global warming' effect." CRC President, Terrence Scanlon, "Outside View: Hot air blows away," United Press International, February 8, 2002. |
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$40,000 |
"Not only is the scientific basis of global warming increasingly uncertain, but Kyoto will also ultimately prove to be an economic disaster for Europe--and the developing world," CNR President, Tim Evans, "Kyoto will chill the global economy," The Daily Telegraph (letter), October 2, 2004. |
Singer offers up his contrarian commentary on their website. |
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$40,000 |
Called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment "as phony as a three-dollar bill." |
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$55,000 |
Calls CO2 emissions "a force for good, enhancing the organic matter that sustains all of humanity." |
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$305,250 |
"The science behind global warming is inconclusive, and to teach otherwise is fearmongering." Peggy Venable, director of Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy in, "Groups criticize proposed texts ; Conservatives duel liberals over books," San Antonio Express-N ews, September 7, 2001. |
In 2001 its Texas branch fought to get rid of global-warming talk in school textbooks |
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$252,000 |
Website features "Some surprisingly clean facts about SUVs." |
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$1,380,000 |
Likens the danger of global warming to that of "an alien invasion." |
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$40,000 |
Says there is no "convincing, real evidence that humans are disrupting the earth's climate." |
This year's Martin Luther King Day civil rights honoree was Karl Rove. |
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$35,000 |
Funds the Cooler Heads Coalition's denialist website, globalwarming.org |
Michaels is an adviser. |
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$30,000 |
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$100,000 |
Montana-based thinktank |
"Given the uncertainty around warming, and the fact that some models predict that temperature increases of up to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit would have beneficial effects, increasing our adaptability to change may be more important than cutting emissions." FREE's Research Associate John C. Downen, "Resiliency is the Key to Climate Change," Bozeman Daily Chronicle, November 13, 2002. |
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$60,000 |
Vancouver-based thinktank questions the "still-speculative risk of global warming." Chief Scientist Kenneth Green, "Old school environmentalists need to become more business-minded," The Vancouver Province, June 2, 2003. |
Soon and Baliunas co-authored Fraser's "Global Warming: A Guide to the Science." |
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Free Enterprise Action Institute |
$50,000 |
Another of Milloy's projects, registered to his home address |
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$612,000 |
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$310,000 |
Challenging global warming (and promoting missile defense) since 1989 |
Baliunas is a senior scientist; Michaels is a visiting scientist. |
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$312,500 |
Compares Michael Crichton to Rachel Carson and Upton Sinclair. |
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$340,000 |
"For the next several decades, fossil fuel use is key to improving the human condition." |
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$140,000 |
Published "Happiness is a Warm Planet." |
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$15,000 |
Got funding in 2000, the same year they published Singer's article, "Cool Planet, Hot Politics: The next president needs to know that the global warming hypothesis, though politically powerful, is scientifically weak." |
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$30,000 |
Published 2003 report entitled: "New Perspectives in Climate Science: What the EPA Isn't Telling Us." |
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Institute for Energy Research |
$67,000 |
A 2003 "Letter to President George W. Bush" (PDF) advised that "the uncertain link between industrial emissions and global warming after a century of [greenhouse gas] buildup and decades of study points toward lower-range, benign warming scenarios." |
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$50,000 |
"The temperature variations read in the past century could be part of a larger process that is alien to humanity." IPI author Kendra Okonski ed., Adapt or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change, London: Profile Books, 2003. p. 205 |
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$15,500 |
Funding amount from 2001when a board of scholars member opined: "The Kyoto Protocol seems to be built on the following two assumptions: First, global warming is a function of human activity (with the biggest villains being automobiles, factories, and power plants), and second, we are currently experiencing unprecedented levels of global warming. However, a review of the earth's most recent 'geological history' brings into question both assumptions and puts the entire subject in a different light." |
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$50,000 |
Blasted the "networks' overwhelmingly one-sided picture of the global warming debate." |
Robert Novak dubs MRC an "indispensable counterpunch to liberal reporting." (PDF) |
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$40,000 |
George Mason University shop that included an eight-page speech by Michael Crichton in its official comments to the White House Office of Management and Budget in 2003. |
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$75,000 |
Kyoto could "reverse the…economic progress that blacks and Hispanics have achieved in recent years." (PDF) |
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$205,000 |
"There is still no conclusive evidence that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise." |
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$160,000 |
In their "Questions and Answers on Global Warming." it states, "There is no serious evidence that man-made global warming is taking place," and "There are many indications that carbon dioxide does not play a significant role in global warming." |
Its Envirotruth.org website debunks "myths" of climate change, including, "Humanity is the primary cause of global climate change"; and |
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$145,000 |
"No one seriously claims to know whether the past warming was caused by human activities; whether further warming will occur and, if it does, whether it will result from human activities, and whether such warming in some general sense would be a bad thing." Senior fellow Benjamin Zycher, "State's Auto Emissions Bill Is Just So Much Gas," Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2002. |
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$15,000 |
"Whether global warming is happening is a matter of debate" PLF attorney, Anne M. Hayes, "Legislature declares war on SUVs," San Diego Union Tribune, July 12, 2002 |
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$60,000 |
Gave Bush a B- on global warming, applauding his acknowledgment of "the importance of scientific uncertainty." (PDF) |
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$230,000 |
Their website reads, "The sun, not a gas, is primarily to 'blame' for global warming." |
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$10,000 |
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Tech Central Science Foundation |
$95,000 |
A virtual HQ for global warming deniers |
Baliunas is a commentator; Soon is the science director; and Milloy is a contributing writer. Run by former FoxNews.com editor and hosted by an AEI fellow. |
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Total 2000-2003 |
$8,678,450 |
Some key “skeptics” show up again and again in the echo chamber funded by ExxonMobil.
SALLIE BALIUNAS, a Harvard-Smithsonian Institute astrophysicist, has, along with colleague WILLIE SOON, been giving deniers scientific cover since the mid-1990s. They began by claiming solar effects could account for the rise of the global thermostat. After that theory was debunked, Baliunas and Soon wrote a paper—partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute—for Climate Research that claimed that the 20th century hasn’t been all that warm. Their conclusions have been praised as the epitome of “sound science” by deniers, including Sen. James Inhofe. The journal’s editor, meanwhile, said the paper should never have been published. Baliunas and Soon are each connected to at least four ExxonMobil-funded groups.
PAUL DRIESSEN: See “Black Gold?” page 45. Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.
PATRICK MICHAELS: University of Virginia climatologist and Cato Institute fellow. One of the most widely cited skeptics, Michaels has received substantial funding from energy companies. Author of The Satanic Gases and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.
STEVEN MILLOY: A columnist for FoxNews.com and publisher of JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. Milloy also runs the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. Those two groups—apparently run out of Milloy’s home—received $90,000 from ExxonMobil. Key quote: The date of Kyoto’s implementation will “live in scientific and economic infamy.” Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.
S. FRED SINGER: A godfather of global warming denial, author of The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty and Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate. Key quote: “There is no convincing evidence that the global climate is actually warming.” Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.
Go to: As The World Burns: A Mother Jones Special Report on Global Warming