While the news may be shocking, it really isn’t that shocking, especially after the findings of an eight-month long investigation by InsideClimateNews revealed that ExxonMobil had prior knowledge of the climate impact of fossil fuels, and chose to not make the information public.
In the Greenpeace UK undercover operation, activists posed as representatives from oil and coal companies. They approached professors at leading U.S. universities, asking them to write papers promoting the benefits of carbon dioxide and the use of coal in developing countries. They hooked two academics.
Peer-review be damned and show the money upfront
According to a blog post from Greenpeace International, professors at Penn State and Princeton agreed to write the reports, saying they didn’t need to reveal the source of their funding. Professor Frank Clemente of Penn State cited industry-funded studies, including testimony he gave at state hearings and newspaper articles. He added: “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.”
William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett professor of physics at Princeton University, also was reeled in by Greenpeace. Happer is a well-known climate change skeptic. A Greenpeace reporter, posing as a Middle Eastern oil and gas company and an Indonesian coal company, approached the professor, asking if he would write a report describing the benefits of rising carbon emissions.
The Guardian is reporting that in an email to the Greenpeace representative, he thought was a fossil fuel rep, Happer wrote: “I could submit the article to a peer-reviewed journal, but that might greatly delay publication and might require such major changes in response to referees and to the journal editor that the article would no longer make the case that CO2 is a benefit, not a pollutant, as strongly as I would like, and presumably as strongly as your client would also like.”
What Happer suggested instead is really shocking, and truly disheartening because it belittles real academic research. Happer suggested he could pass the article to “selected reviewers,” writing “Purists might object that the process did not qualify as a peer review. I think it would be fine to call it a peer review,”
Happer declined any money for writing his report but wanted the $8,000 in remuneration he required donated to the CO2 Coalition. In an email he wrote he would need $250 an hour for four days work, a total of $8,000. “Depending on how extensive a document you have in mind, the time required or cost could be more or less, but I hope this gives you some idea of what I would expect if we were to proceed on some mutually agreeable course.”
Science Alert says, Professor Clemente saw the dollar signs. He told the undercover operative that if he were to write a paper that challenged the research that linked coal use to increased numbers of premature deaths, he would require $15,000 for an eight to 10-page paper or $6,000 for an opinion piece for a newspaper.
Casting the seeds of doubt through corporate funding
As Digital Journal reported in November, since 1998, Exxon has given over $31 million to organizations and individuals for the sole purpose of creating mistrust in the public about any scientific evidence proving climate change was real. The Koch brothers have been funding their vast corral of climate-denial activist organizations to the tune of $79 million. This funding ensures false information is spread through the media and the public.
The Guardian quotes John Sauven, the director of Greenpeace UK:
“Our research reveals that professors at prestigious universities can be sponsored by foreign fossil fuel companies to write reports that sow doubt about climate change and that this sponsorship will then be kept secret. Down the years, how many scientific reports that sowed public doubt on climate change were actually funded by oil, coal and gas companies? This investigation shows how they do it, now we need to know when and where they did it.”
When approached by the Guardian, Clemente said he has acted as a consultant to “many industries that improve the human quality of life”. He added: “I fully stand behind every single statement I made in my emails. I am very proud of my research and believe that clean coal technologies are the pathway to reliable and affordable electricity, reduction of global energy poverty and a cleaner environment.”
Bringing the veracity of the reports claiming CO2 and carbon emissions are good for humanity out in the open has taken on greater importance, especially with the COP21 meetings going on in Paris. The Greenpeace investigation is additional proof of the under-the-table goings-on of big corporations and their funding of dubious and quite often, unsubstantiated claims of the benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels.
