Never mind the Swindle, here’s the real story:

June 03rd, 2008 Comments(38)

Hoax!The Great Global Warming Swindle screened on Prime on Sunday night.

For those of you who didn’t see it, don’t bother.

For those of you who did, consider this advice given to the Bush Administration in 2001 by Frank Luntz, a communications advisor:

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed….Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”

This is the strategy being followed by corporate America, and the think tanks they fund who are at the forefront of the climate sceptic industry.

10 out of the 16 interviewees in The Great Global Warming Swindle are connected with no less than 30 Exxon-funded Conservative Think Tanks based in the US. See our ExxonSecrets map.

It’s hard to outline the factual errors in the Swindle, because there are so many. Read more »

Kiwis paid by Exxon-funded groups to attend climate sceptic conference

March 06th, 2008 Comments(13)

What were New Zealand climate sceptics like Vincent Gray and Owen McShane doing in New York this week? They were flown there to speak at a climate sceptic conference on global warming funded by US think tanks who take money from ExxonMobil to challenge climate science.This is a new aspect to New Zealand’s Climate Science Coalition, who appear to have been taken up by the Exxon-funded climate denial industry with vigour.

I’ll get to the details, but a bit of history might be useful.

In the early 1990’s, as negotiations began for international action on climate, I was working for Greenpeace International’s climate campaign, based out of London. There, I witnessed the birth of a new industry, as big business (especially the oil, coal and gas industries), started to lobby against any action on climate. The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was formed - and it was extremely effective, not least in the USA.

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