When the truth is too inconvenient, why not just lie about it
Presumably everybody on this web has heard of the supposed story of an Exxon-supported lobby group soliciting anti-global warming:
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Interested story. Only problem with it, is it is a total lie. Like the story title says, if the truth is inconvenient, why just make up a lie? Especially if you are a socialist rag like the Guardian, and lying is what you specialize in to start with.
Here are the facts:
- The organization (American Enterprise Institute) receives less than one percent of their funding from Exxon, hence “a lobby group funded by” Exxon is more than a bit of a reach. “Funded by” implies, well they receive their funds, not just a tiny fraction of them.
- Secondly, they aren’t offering $10,000 for scientists to debunk the story. They are paying somebody to review the global warming literature including the IPCC. The purpose of the research report (as it is described on the AEI website) was to present multiple viewpoints on the issue of the anthropogenic global warming. That is hardly the same thing as fishing for somebody to debunk it.
- Third they aren’t even a lobby group at all. They are an independent think tank, and serve no particular partisan issues on any topic, to the extent that yes indeed they even criticize Bush’s policies occasionally.
- Third, the group has no particular ties with the Bush administration, and as I mentioned is a frequent of him. Hardly the same as being cronies of Bush, as the Guardian so slimily insinuated.
And these crack heads on the left want us to take them seriously exactly why?
Note: The AEI response to the criticisms can be found here.
