Last night, I received an e-mail that said--in part:
I have just been sent notification of an exxon funded group about to launch a 'critique' of the latest IPCC report.
This will happen on 10am Monday in central London. If you are in London and can be there then let me know, if not then please take a look at the report and help us to highlight this sham!
Here's how I interpret the underlying premise of the message. Exxon has an interest in debunking--correctly or not--reports that claim humans are at least partially causing climate change. Therefore, any report generated by a group that accepts funds from Exxon is by definition biased. So here's my question: How do we interpret e-mails from groups that have declared interest in supporting reports that claim humans are at least partially causing climate change?
The above e-mail is from Calvin Jones at the Climate Change Action blog. The name of the blog alone implies that they have declared their stance and by implication will defend any report that supports their position. Isn't that the same thing that they are accusing Exxon of doing?
For some interesting reading, take a look at Exxon's self-reported list of environmental donations in 2005. If we are going to use the 'guilt by association with Exxon' criterion for judging groups, then you have to call into question the motives of Audubon, Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, Resources for the Future (y'know, the 'green think-tank'), The World Resources Institute and many of the world's top academic institutions including Yale and MIT.
I'm not saying one group is right or wrong here. I'm just asking--perhaps whining--for objectivity in the discussion. Maybe it's time to move beyond the science equivalent of he said/she said and start asking 'what do we do from here?" The answer to that question is going to require cooperation from the public, industry, think tanks, governments, activists and academics (did I leave anybody out?).
