Exxon may have mistakenly paid for denier to go to Bali
According to Greenpeace ExxonMobil funded a New Zealand-based climate change denier, Bryan Leyland, to the Bali climate change talks. Leyland was in Bali last week heading the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow delegation.
Leyland says on the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition website:
“We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to ‘solve’ a [climate] problem that probably does not exist,”
Nonetheless, it appears he headed to Bali to argue for his increasingly lonely point of view.
Even Exxon, which, it has to be admitted, has a financial interest in burning oil and emitting carbon into the atmosphere, has publicly taken a somewhat more measured approach to climate change than Leyland. Exxon’s CEO Rex Tillerson says here:
“It has become increasingly clear that climate change poses risks to society and ecosystems that are serious enough to warrant action - by individuals, by businesses, and by governments.”
I imagine that ExxonMobil will be extremely disappointed to know its generous corporate donation to a rather anodyne sounding research organisation has resulted in climate change deniers running around Bali trying to derail global efforts to address climate change.
Another Climate Science Coalition member who accompanied Leyland, Dr Vincent Gray, confirms that derailing was the goal of there delegation:
“The partial deadlock in the negotiations, the rejection of Al Gore by his own government and the refusal of the Americans to be railroaded into the economic disasters demanded by the vociferous activists gives comfort that our visit was worthwhile.”
December 18th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
doesnt sound like a mistake to me
December 18th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
It’s a mistake to be found out, nearly a year after announcing they would stop funding the deniers.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I thought that was just to the Centre for Competitive Enterprise etc…but yeah goes against their PR of late
December 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Would be interested in the proof though
December 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Must you use the word “denier”,? the term is hysterical and seeks to ostracise anybody who does not share your belief.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
blah…peer review…blah…etc…Either they’re a denier or they’re not…or does that sound a bit too George W Bush?
December 18th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Don’t be so PC big bro, XYY is just telling it how it is!!!
:-D
December 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Big Bro
Which PC term would you prefer? Is it
a) Reality challenged?
b) Factually impaired?
c) Excessively fringey?
December 18th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
StephenR
Nah, George W Bush would say “You’re either with us or you’re with the reality-based community.”
December 18th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
You guys should really get over your exxon phobia and imagining they are behind everything you don’t agree with through drawing highly dubious (or should that be dubyas) or tenuous connections where there really aren;t any. by banking/having shares in Westpac does that mean I support Labour or National, who they donate to.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
BB - We have kind of settled on ‘deniers’ because a) that’s what they do, and b) when we have called them sceptics in the past, the sceptics association has blasted us for misusing their good name because they don’t want to be associated/confused with people who deny the science.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Frog
“Denier”…it sounds like something out of a Monty Python skit.
Having said that I am not against free speech (unlike the Greens) so in 2008 I will refer to all “deniers” as “realists” and all those who insist on pushing the climate change con as communists.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Well Exxon were very open in their support of some US think tanks and other groups in the past, so it was hardly paranoia. Again would like to know what Greenpeace’s source is though.
Piss take anyone? Any group is more likely to have more scientologists in it than communists these days.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
BB, you didn’t answer me last time I asked … if climate change is a con, how come the Arctic sea ice is nearly all melted?
December 19th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Stuey
Don’t you read Michael Crichton? It’s caused by environmentalists blowing up the icebergs. Probably.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:53 am
BB your quantum leaps in logic intrigue me. Even if climate change is false, how does it make everyone who believes it a communist? I must say the communist party must be desperate for members if it is allowing the likes of the Pentagon and the entire capitalistic insurance industry into its fold.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:26 am
I dont know,maybe it because I’ve never seen it,but,probably all this talk about global warming,climate and weather change is just ‘old talk’ im sure our ancestors had similar torments to deal with..hey! Maybe my sunburn and skin cancer is simply evolution at its best!!!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:29 am
my sunburn really is a new form of skin!! yay evolution again..its fantastic!!