Hired Hack 'Scientists' and Global Warming

Many partisan organizations have been created over the past (at least) 25 years as disinformation specialists, whose job it is to obfuscate the facts, and create a perception that the facts are in doubt. A lot of moneyed interests want to prevent any policies that would keep them from dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Facts are not fair; they just are. In the interest of fairness, is it fair that paid hack 'scientists' promote ideas meant to confound the public into doing things against their best interest or not doing things for their best interest, all to benefit corporate interests? How many times has this happened in the past? Remember when the big tobacco companies perjured themselves about the addictive & harmful effects of cigarettes, and were deliberately working on increasing that addictiveness? Remember Love Canal? The list of corporate crimes is seemingly endless, but of the top 100 corporate crimes of the 1990's, 38 were environmental crimes.

Here's a fact: an environmental group recently estimated that ExxonMobil Corp. and the products it makes have been responsible for roughly five percent of the world's manmade carbon dioxide emissions since 1882.

Here's another fact: Exxon-Mobil has spent over $12 million dollars funding think tanks to obfuscate the idea of global warming in the minds of the average American.

"ExxonMobil has funded dozens of front groups, think tanks, industry associations, corporate-friendly research centers, and purportedly independent scientists to spread its denialism. Greenpeace has documented the company’s support for a web of more than 100 organizations - from the American Council on Science and Health to the Washington Legal Foundation - that work to cast doubt on global warming science and likely consequences."
"The company has also collaborated with the administration on the basic denialism project. A former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute and chief of staff of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, resigned in June 2005 after the New York Times revealed he had edited government reports to challenge the link between carbon emissions and global warming. A week later, Cooney was on ExxonMobil’s payroll."

Buying policy is apparently cheaper than doing the right thing.

For example, Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in the United States, has financed a network of conservative nonprofit organizations designed to influence policy debate in this country."

Many of the same key “skeptics” show up again and again in the echo chamber funded by ExxonMobil:

Here are some other good sources for finding out who's related to whom in the field of global warming (and more) obfuscation:
Media Transparency: Recipients -- tracks the impact of conservative philanthropy on the media - recipients of conservative funding.
Media Transparency: Funders -- tracks the impact of conservative philanthropy on the media - funders.
ExxonSecrets.org -- Documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics.
SourceWatch - Documents public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.
Center for Media and Democracy -- Investigates and exposes public relations spin and propaganda, and promotes media literacy and citizen journalism.
ConWebWatch -- dedicated to analysis and critique of conservative Web-based journalism.
CorporateCrimeReporter -- Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the Decade (1990's)
The Center for Corporate Policy -- a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization working to curb corporate abuses and make corporations publicly accountable.
from the Center for Public Integrity -- Post-War Contractors Ranked by Total Contract Value in Iraq and Afghanistan
from CommonDreams --The Ten Worst Corporations of 2005
Big Oil Protects its Interests --
Industry spends hundreds of millions on lobbying, elections
Front groups -- List of example front groups from SourceWatch.org