James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
A newly unearthed memo from a rural utility in Colorado has shed some light on the thinking behind the coal industry's support for climate change contrarians. You can read the memo, which lays out a strategy for a propaganda campaign against the idea that climate change is something we should be worried about, here, thanks to the wonderful metablog, deSmogBlog.
Seth Borenstein's AP story is a good overview from the popular press, and the RealClimate guys weigh in, too.
I haven't got much to add, except to note that I'm willing to bet there's going to be some mad members of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association. It was their general manager who wrote the memo. The IREA is a cooperative and it is doubtful that the entire membership is of one mind about paying $100,000 to scientists the likes of Patrick Michaels. Or funding a documentary to counter Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth.
Anyone who wants to ask Stanley Lewandowki Jr. where he gets the idea that "there is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases is causing or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate" can write to
Intermountain Rural Electric Association
5496 North US Highway 85
Sedalis, Colorado 80135Or call 303-688-3100 and leave a polite message
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