Plutonium Page at Daily KOS: ExxonMobil's echo chamber

ExxonMobil's echo chamber: well-funded pseudoscience

by Plutonium Page
Sat May 14th, 2005 at 15:56:27 PDT

A few weeks ago, I wrote about ExxonMobil's funding of think tanks, religious groups, media outlets and other organizations, to spread doubt about the reality of global climate change ("it's a theory, not a fact").

I came across this gem. It's a chart that tells which groups got how much money from ExxonMobil, the lies they spread, and interesting facts about each group.

Some examples from that chart:

1. Acton Institute for the Study of Religious Liberty. Received $155,000 from ExxonMobil. They say that carbon dioxide caps are "a misguided attempt to solve a problem that may not even exist." One of their advisors is an AEI fellow (American Enterprise Institute).

2. The Advancement of Sound Science Center received $40,000 from ExxonMobil. Guess who runs it? FoxNews.com's columnist Steve Milloy.

3. The American Enterprise Institute bagged a staggering $960,000 from ExxonMobil. Their publications include "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in 2004, basically saying that global climate change is just something us crazy, hysterical environmentalists have blown way out of proportion. The real President of the US Dick Cheney is one of their former senior fellows.

4. The Heritage Foundation received $340,000 from ExxonMobil. They say: "For the next several decades, fossil fuel use is key to improving the human condition."

In all, ExxonMobil donated $8 million to these groups and others like them.

Click on the link and check out the rest of the chart, as well as the text on the sidebar. This is fantastic work.