U Calgary launders money for astroturf group

Charles Montgomery has a detailed expose in the Globe and Mail on the activities of Tim Ball and the Friends of Science. It turns out that the University of Calgary has been used to launder oil company money to fund the Friends of Science:

There was plenty of money for the anti-Kyoto cause in the oil patch, but the Friends dared not take money directly from energy companies. The optics, Mr. Jacobs admits, would have been terrible.

This conundrum, he says, was solved by University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper, a well-known associate of Stephen Harper.

As his is privilege as a faculty member, Prof. Cooper set up a fund at the university dubbed the Science Education Fund. Donors were encouraged to give to the fund through the Calgary Foundation, which administers charitable giving in the Calgary area, and has a policy of guarding donors’ identities. The Science Education Fund in turn provides money for the Friends of Science, as well as Tim Ball’s travel expenses, according to Mr. Jacobs.

And who are the donors? No one will say. …

The brilliance of the plan is that by going through the foundation and the university fund, donors get anonymity as well as charitable status for their donations. In the last two years, the Science Education Fund has received more than $200,000 in charitable donations through the Calgary Foundation. Yet its marketing director Kerry LongprÃ© said in June that she had never heard of the Friends of Science. The foundation, she said, deals only with the university, which is left to administer donations as it sees fit.

Meanwhile, the new Conservative has come up with a solution to the global warming problem:

And on June 30, the government simply disappeared its main climate-change web site, which once contained educational materials for teachers.

More comments from Jim Hoggan, Richard Littlemore and Kevin Grandia.

Hat tip: Stephen Berg.

Comments

#1 Mark [Section 15]
August 13, 2006

My federal government has got to go.

Fortunately, Canadians are showing signs that they aren’t falling for it.

Should Elizabeth May become leader of the federal Green party (highly likely), she’ll be keeping Global Warming policy (and the lack thereof) in the news.
#2 John Cross
August 13, 2006

Having conversed with Prof Ball over on Climate Audit I can say that the man has no interest in the science. He is still supporting Jaworowski and claims that the satellites show cooling!
#3 John A
August 13, 2006

He says that although he has earned as much as $5,000 for speeches to industry groups such as lime producers, he more frequently gives talks for free.

Woo hoo! Follow that money!

$5000 wouldn’t refuel Rainbow Warrior, but it’s enough apparently for a retired professor to prostitute himself.

Take Fred Singer, a former professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, who supplied one of the charts for Tim Ball’s slide show. A string leads from Mr. Singer’s name straight to ExxonMobile, which has given his Science and Environment Policy Project $20,000 (U.S.), according to the oil company’s 1998 and 2000 grant records.

Woah! A whole $20,000! Now we’re talking! That would keep Rainbow Warrior in fossil fuel for like, a month?

As long as we’re interested in links to fossil fuel industries, why not criticize arch-climate alarmist James Lovelock for working for and retaining close links with, Shell Oil?

Because it’s a smear. And because its a smear, that’s why it belongs on Deltoid – the home of antiscientific smears.
#4 John Cross
August 13, 2006

John A: I probably wouldn’t been that hard on Prof. Ball as to call him a prostitute, but you are of course entitled to your opinion.

However since Prof. Ball doesn’t appear to be interested in discussing topics with me, perhaps you could ask him how he justifies this statement from an interview that he gave in November 2005

Tim Ball: … The satellite data, for example, shows cooling.

Regards

John
#5 llewelly
August 13, 2006

He is still supporting Jaworowski and claims that the satellites show cooling!

They do! That is, if one still has the old data, generated by the old code, with the old bug in it …
I hear some arthropods are moving north due to global warming. Perhaps this one crawled up to Canada along with the pine beetles …
#6 caerbannog
August 13, 2006

Woo hoo! Follow that money!

$5000 wouldn’t refuel Rainbow Warrior, but it’s enough apparently for a retired professor to prostitute himself.

Rather like Judas and his 30 pieces of silver, I guess..

Remember — most prostitutes aren’t $3,000/night call girls.

And as for that 5 grand? If you divide that by the amount of work expended to get it, you’ll see that the numbers work out very nicely.
#7 John A
August 13, 2006

$5000 wouldn’t refuel Rainbow Warrior, but it’s enough apparently for a retired professor to prostitute himself.

Rather like Judas and his 30 pieces of silver, I guess..

..unless you’re James Lovelock, in which case it’s a love offering.

How about the millions given to Greenpeace by Enron, a thoroughly corrupt fossil fuel supply company? It’s truly amazing how small amounts of dosh inferred by Keven Bacon-like linkages manage to completely blacken the reputations of some people and yet whacking great wads of fossil-fuel based cash can leave others smelling of roses.

The key verb is of course “laundering” which is a process by which money gained from a criminal enterprise (of which fossil fuel is not) is transformed into clean lucre just in time for large environmentalist corporations to power their campaigns. But it remains sticky and resistent to any cleansing agent if it ends up in the wrong hands.
#8 Stephen Berg
August 13, 2006

Re: “Because it’s a smear. And because its a smear, that’s why it belongs on Deltoid – the home of antiscientific smears.”

You’re wrong, John A. If any site is guilty of “antiscientific smears,” it’s ClimateAudit. ClimateAudit is the home the smearing of true climate scientists like Drs. Mann, Bradley, and Hughes among many others by those who are not scientists (such as by economist McKitrick and former mining executive McIntyre). Not to mention that little of the “science” that is put forth by those on ClimateAudit could pass the peer-review process.

Re: “It’s truly amazing how small amounts of dosh inferred by Keven Bacon-like linkages manage to completely blacken the reputations of some people …”

No. This is not “the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.” This is the one degree or zero degrees of separation of people like Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, and Sherwood Idso from the the funding of the fossil fuel industry, an industry that is trying to prevent measures from being taken to combat climate change so their profits can be maximised.
#9 Lee
August 13, 2006

JohnA, I noticed you are censoring Steve Bloom at CA right now, simply because he isnt posting what you are demanding he post – speaking of unscientific.

Has Steve MacIntyre given up on insisting that you arent a comoderator over there, but simply someone who helps out with computer issues?
#10 Ian Forrester
August 13, 2006

It appears that the “Friends of Science” are neither friendly or very good scientists. In fact they are down right rude!

Here is the reponse I got to a letter that I wrote to the Calgary Herald informing a previous letter writer where he could get factual information on AGW (I did not know at the time that he appears to be a “Friend of Science”) The e-mail to me was cc’d to a number of individuals who I recognized as being “Friends of Science.”

“Hello Ian,

You are one ignorant horse’s ass.

There is no chance that Norm K has done any of this work for personal gain – he has done it out of conviction and clearly has a better understanding of climate science than you do.

I recently had a letter published in the National Post which also attacked the bogus science of global warming alarmists – if you were so misguided as to suggest that I was also doing this for personal gain, I would be pleased to engage a lawyer to prove the contrary, and to separate you from your hard-earned assets.

Allan”

Here is the letter that generated this rude response:

“Science – Re: “Myth lives on,” Letter, Aug. 3.

Norm Kalmanovitch asks that solid science be used to determine when global warming will end.

The solid science, not the “science” put out by the small band of global-warming deniers funded by the industries who are creating global warming, has shown conclusively that global warming will stop when we stop emitting huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The scientific consensus is that the climate is warming and human causes are to blame for the majority of that warming.

Anyone who looks at the scientific literature will be well aware of this.

This is where solid science is to be found, not on the op-ed pages or the reports from industry-funded “scientists.”

Ian Forrester”.

It is also interesting that it appears that my letter was forwarded directly to “Allan” from the Calgary Herald since the copy of my letter in his e-mail had “© Calgary Herald 2006″ at the end of my letter. I would have thought that giving out personal information supplied to them should be against their code of conduct.
#11 Steve Bloom
August 13, 2006

It’s perhaps no coincidence that he started censoring me just as it became clear that Steve M.’s latest post (a re-post of our friend Warwick Hughes’ latest fabrication) had not a shred of scientific justification. This may have been an honest end-of-week slip on Steve’s part, as he is normally more careful. OTOH, as Lee pointed out over there, another recent CA post, this one written by Steve and relating to paleo treelines as evidence for an MWP as warm as the present, turned out to have no scientific leg to stand on, so maybe we’re seeing a new pattern of behavior.

Big picture-wise, what with the recent tenor of GW headlines life must be pretty frustrating for our poor little petro-sock puppet John A. The near absolute media blackout on the Barton hearings following close on the heels of the pro-hockey stick NAS report coverage must have been especially hard to bear. The triumphalism over at CA anticipating a public hanging of MBH and a subsequent repudiation of all of climate science was something to behold.
#12 JB
August 13, 2006

“This is not “the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

Looks to me more like “500 degrees of Canadian Bacon” (ie, burnt)
#13 Brian S.
August 13, 2006

From John A.:

“How about the millions given to Greenpeace by Enron”

I’d like to see a source for that statement – smells pretty bad to me.
#14 llewelly
August 13, 2006

From Brian S. :

From John A.:

“How about the millions given to Greenpeace by Enron”

I’d like to see a source for that statement

Closest I could find was this article by Marc Morano on NewsMax , which says:

Enron also cultivated friends in the environmental movement. Palmisano, in the Dec. 12, 1997 memo, boasted that because of its support for climate change treaties, “Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, [World Wildlife Fund], [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI, and Worldwatch.”

among other things…

However it does not contain the claim that Enron donated millions to Greenpeace.

John A, if you can come closer to the original source, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.
#15 Stephen Berg
August 14, 2006

Ian, who is this “Allan” guy?
#16 Gareth
August 14, 2006

You might like to note that Warwick is not averse to issuing press releases that betray his wanton misuse of the data.

Here’s his press release (an earlier one from the NZ CSC got no traction, so he tried on his own), and here’s NIWA’s rebuttal.

Big barrel, long arms?
#17 Eli Rabett
August 14, 2006

Maybe it is this:

“For its part, Exxon isn’t afraid to play hardball. It has donated millions to groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that calls itself “a leader in the fight against the global-warming scare.”

Hmm, no, never mind
#18 Harald Korneliussen
August 14, 2006

“John A, if you can come closer to the original source, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.”

Good way to scare him away, apparently.
#19 richard
August 14, 2006

“Should Elizabeth May become leader of the federal Green party (highly likely), she’ll be keeping Global Warming policy (and the lack thereof) in the news.”

Ha ha! Poor Mark….sorry but Ms May has already shot her bolt. She should have stuck with the Sierra Club; the Greens have already peaked and are rolling downhill. Hard to see how dividing up the political landscape even further will advance the fight against global warming. The Greens will just see to it that Harper remains in power.
#20 Ian Forrester
August 14, 2006

Stephen Berg asks – “Ian, who is this “Allan” guy?’

Stephen, he is Allan MacRae, president of FIRSST Investments in Calgary. FIRSST is an investment banking firm specializing in energy investments.

He has been vocal in AGW denial for a number of years. See http://www.envirotruth.org/expert_letters/

Seems as if he is a bit edgy about source of funding for FOS. Note – my letter and his response predate the G&M article.
#21 Tom Fiddaman
August 14, 2006

You can still find a lot of the disappeared content on the wayback machine, e.g. follow the Jan. 23 2004 link at
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.climatechange.gc.ca
#22 Stephen Berg
August 14, 2006

MacRae seems unqualified to talk that way towards you. He’s an engineer, not a climatologist. Kalmanovitch doesn’t seem like one who “clearly has a better understanding of climate science than you do” either, in MacRae’s words. Sure, he’s a geophysicist, but in terms of climate science, he couldn’t beat a Dr. Mann, Bradley, or Hughes with the “Hockey Players’” hands tied behind their backs.

Keep up the good fight and don’t be silenced by these idiots.
#23 Lars
August 14, 2006

If it’s of any interest, Barry Cooper’s antics are of a piece with his membership of the Calgary School (a rather nebulous group, according to its alleged members [but then, apparently, they would say that], but some background is available at these sites ( http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/31934.php , and
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2005/11/29/HarperBush/ ). Typical right-wing contrascience. It’s embarassing, having to share a campus with these clowns.

Ian, you shouldn’t be surprised that the Calgary Herald showed no vestige of journalistic ethics. It’s in total thrall to the Oil Patch (this was the first Canadian publication that I know of which actually used the term “Fair and Balanced”, ie. spineless, supine, and supplicatory to the interests of the rich and powerful, to describe its news coverage in a non-ironic way). Fishwrap-grade only.

This is off topic, I realize, but…JohnA, have you considered using a different former PM’s name for your tag? Admittedly, Sir John A. was a corrupt drunk, but he was inarguably able and in his sober moments firmly wedded to reality. The secret spiritualist McKenzie King seems a bit more appropriate for you – outwardly sober and plausible, but inwardly a gullible fantasist of the first water.
Think it over.
#24 Bill O'Slatter
August 16, 2006

According to John A it is O.K. to accept fossil fuel inducstry money if you are undertaking research on climate change.This is an interesting statement of policy from Climate Audit. An audit needs to be undertaken on Climate Audit itself.
#25 Peter K Anderson
August 16, 2006

As mentioned elsewhere, California Power Policy is in a shambles, power generation is below requirements leading to dangerous blackouts and the few are trying a ‘cover up’. The same situation is developing in NSW due to the use of ‘Climate Novels’ as ‘policy references’. Movies and Novels are NOT valid manifestos of public policy, and streamlining remuneration process for ‘blackout damages’ is NOT a replacement for required Electrical Generation systems, this is the ‘inconvenient truth’ the ‘environmental lobbies’ need to understand…

The ‘process’ of ‘greenhouse warming’ hasn’t even the involved materials actual behaviour to support it, so the existence of ‘greenhouse warming opinion’ is NOT linked to the reality within the environment. Climate has been ‘warming’ for the last 20,000 years and will continue to do so for some centuries longer with this process unaffected in any INDICATED, DIRECT manner by Human activity. It is also Common Knowledge, and thus commonly known, that there have been ~60 glacial advances within the last ~3 Million year ‘Climate Period’.

As for a supposed ‘greenhouse warming’, there is still needing to be shown a validly produced THEORY (opinion is NOT such a validation) for the production of the supposed ‘greenhouse effect’, made with actual attention to the materials involved and their ACTUAL and REAL properties. The Photons present within the Atmosphere are NOT produced within any process related to the ‘temperature’ of the materials presenting them and thus ‘proxy concepts’ also are invalid. Turbulent processes will alter residual Kinetic Energy within a System, this residual is presented within measures of Temperature and so ‘observations’ show short term fluctuations of ‘temperature’ un-associated to alteration of total Kinetic Energy induction.

The POLITICAL play is attempting to AVOID notice of the inability of ‘greenhouse theory’ to describe the Real World whilst ‘hiding’ behind ‘scenario creation’, ‘proxy fabrication’ and ‘movie/book’ presentations. The vast majority regard “climate science” as more involved with the over-play of ‘theatrics’ and the overdone attempt to ‘appear scientific’ with a ‘moral backbone’ in simplistic denouncement of ‘oil’.

From museum.state.il.us :-
[" If "ice age" is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances. "]

Climate change is natural, with irregular progression, the LIE is in the attempts to overlay ‘greenhouse opinion’ and label such as ‘science’. The PUBLIC will not listen to the ‘environmental lie’ being platformed in Movies/Novels, all works of fiction. It is very easy to understand if one steps away from the ‘greenhouse wagon’ and looks back at that ‘vehicle’, it remains a POLITICAL platform where-in ‘advocates in white coats’ are STILL only advocates.

Your’s,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
- From the PC of Peter K Anderson
- E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
- http://hartlod.blogspot.com/
#26 mndean
August 16, 2006

Wow, what a load. No facts or linked research, just assertion in a language I think is called “gibberish”. With lots of capitalization, to lend impressive tone.
#27 JB
August 16, 2006

I especailly liked the above paragraph beginning

“The Photons present within the Atmosphere are NOT produced within any process related to the ‘temperature’ of the materials presenting them…”

“I have the dilithium crystals… Beam me up Scotty.”
#28 Stephen Berg
August 17, 2006

Re: “According to John A it is O.K. to accept fossil fuel inducstry money if you are undertaking research on climate change.This is an interesting statement of policy from Climate Audit. An audit needs to be undertaken on Climate Audit itself.”

To extend this, according to John A it is OK to accept fossil fuel industry money if you are undertaking research on climate change but it is not OK to accept government or university money to undertake research on climate change. John A thinks there is no bias that will come about with regards to fossil fuel industry funding, yet there will be an unacceptable bias when it is the government or universities underwriting funding.

What a crock!
#29 stewart
August 17, 2006

Is there any word from the U of Calgary on this? It seems that the Friends of Science has a mission which is directly antagonistic to one of the university’s components, the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy. I’d be astonished if there are serious links between the two groups, as one is composed of scientists and the other of industry shills and politicians.
ISEE: http://www.iseee.ca/
#30 Stephen Berg
August 17, 2006

Interesting piece here:

” Information Cleansing, Canadian Style

Bill Berkowitz*

OAKLAND, California, Aug 16 (IPS) – If you’re a teacher, student, journalist or just a plain concerned citizen interested in finding well-researched documentation about climate change, you can no longer depend on the Canadian government to supply that information.

(Continued…)”

http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=34363

(Previously cited by DeSmogBlog)
#31 Brian Gordon
August 18, 2006

Re: Information cleansing Canadian-style

This is a HUGE mistake by the “Conservatives.” We Canadians generally take pride in our country’s reputation as clean and green(er than the US. Sadly, we are often smugly content to be a bit ‘better’ than the US.). We feel our social programs, environmental awareness, and peacekeeping role differentiate Canada from the US, make us more European, and most Canadians are pretty attached not only to the programs, but to our image.

Unless the Conservative government comes up with something imaginative and amazing in October, a backlash is building. Last time the Conservatives were in power (called the Progressive Conservatives at the time), they rammed through the Free Trade Agreement, pegged the Canadian dollar at 95c compared to the US dollar (ridiculously high), and exported thousands of jobs to the US. Result: the Conservatives went from a very solid majority government with 160 seats to two (2) seats in the next election. Keep in mind that the Progressive Conservatives had been one of Canada’s major parties since Canada began. Imagine the Republicans getting a handful of seats and you get the idea of the magnitude of change.

That was 1993. This time around we only gave them a minority – not that we don’t trust them….
#32 Graculus
August 18, 2006

Should Elizabeth May become leader of the federal Green party (highly likely), she’ll be keeping Global Warming policy (and the lack thereof) in the news.

It would probably help if the “Green” Party didn’t have a lower environmental rating than the NDP, a well-established party with a fully developed platform in all areas.

The Greens are tanking in Canada because they can’t compete with a real “liberal” party (NDP). In the US they are doing better because the Republicans are funding them as spoilers. I really hope that the Reformatories go for the same strategy up here, because they don’t have the kind of money that the Republicans have, and it will drain funds away from their own warchest.