For about two months prior to the Kyoto meeting, you probably heard the $13 million anti-global-warming advertising campaign funded by the "Global Climate Coalition."  What you received is a part of that general movement funded by the coal and oil industry, related profiteers, and ideologues.

    The fairly vast network consists of:

      1.  Fossil fuel conglomerates
      2.  Free-market ideologues
      3.  The right wing
      4.  The ultra right wing
      5.  Christian Fundamentalists

    The fossil fuel and related industries have their resources invested in fossil fuels, and obviously do not favor cut-backs. Other industries obviously do not want to expend money on reducing or cleaning up emissions.

    The free-market ideologues are driven by the fear that an acknowledgement of the threat of global warming will give the U.S.
government an excuse to exercise more regulatory control.

    The right wing is anti-government and shares a general disdain for "pointy head academics," and their motives for disbelieving
science are varied:

    a)    its-a-liberal-scare-tactic to increase membership in environmental groups.  (Environmentalists and environmental scientists are "watermelons - green on the outside and red on in the inside."

    b)    Those government scientists just want to keep their grants coming in.

    c)    None of the gloom and doom predictions have ever come true.

    The ultra-right wing fears that the threat of global warming will cause the United Nations to take over and create a one-world-government.  And others believe that it is a communist plot.

    Some Christian Fundamentalists believe that global warming is the way the world is supposed to end and that we shouldn't do anything about it; many are simply anti-science; and others believe that man dominates nature.

    Who are these people?

    Frederick Seitz has training in solid state physics. He is chair of the George C. Marshall Institute, a conservative "think
tank" funded by oil magnates and conservative foundations which also rely heavily on oil magnates. The anti-global-warming campaign is managed by these think tanks.  The huge network of them (more than 600) are led by the ones based in Washington, DC and like the G.C.Marshall Institute, are funded by the fossil fuel industries and conservative foundations.  Most of them are staffed by folks with a B.S. in economics.  Their boards, trustees, and personnel generally overlap and are interchangeable.They use a mix of strategies - from highlighting any scientific inconsistency or debate to disseminating misinformation. Note the distortion of information in the publication below:

          CONGRESS ACTION: January 11, 1998
          Kim Weissman <BEVDAV@worldnet.att.net>

        COLDEST YEAR ON RECORD: "In the lower stratosphere 1993 was extremely cold, the coldest temperatures on record." -- National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Did you miss the headlines across the country which revealed that 1993 was the coldest year on record? How about the news that the most reliable measurements of atmospheric temperatures have shown a consistant COOLING trend for nearly the last 20 years?   Missed that headline also? Don't worry, you didn't miss anything. Those two items might rank among the best kept secrets of environmental science. But you didn't miss the more recent news screamed across the newspapers of the nation: "1997 Was Hottest Year on Record".

    The author deliberately confuses tropospheric and/or stratospheric satellite data with surface temperatures to give the impression that Earth is cooling rather than warming.  The fact that surface, lower troposphere, and the stratosphere are different planes is obfuscated.  And the fact that the satellite data from the troposphere shows a 0.07 C degree warming per decade when adjusted for El Nino and volcanic eruptions is ignored.  Also ignored is the fact that the convection physics between the surface and lower troposphere is not understood and that in some instances there appears to be an inverse relationship between surface and troposphere temperatures. Stratospheric temperatures are _supposed_to cool if heat is being trapped on Earth (at least that is my understanding).

    But back to Seitz.  The publication goes on to say:

    In fact, one of the scientists involved in the IPCC process, Professor Frederick Seitz, a past president of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society, is pretty upset at the political way the IPCC report is being used, and distorted. Fortunately for the fearmongers, nobody cares what the IPCC report really says, and the fearmongers themselves only care about what political mileage can be wrung out of lying about what the IPCC report says.

    Seitz accused the authors of the IPCC scientific summaries of "exaggerating risk . . soley - we suspect - to satisfy an
indeological objective of aggressively constraining the use of energy."  Citing S. Fred Singer, he said, "there is no consensus
among climate experts in backing the assertions of the IPCC." In citing Singer, he was referring to the "Leipzig Declaration"
which purported to canvass "climate scientists."  The 45 American names on the declaration included Seitz and Singer themselves; Robert Balling who is funded by the Kuwaiti oil interests; Patrick Michaels, who is funded by Western Fuels; other oil-industry-funded scientific spokesperson; and an interesting variety of eclectics.

    For example: Chauncey Starr of the Electrical Power Research Institute endorsed the declaration.  So did Richard F.      Groeber, whose scientific credentials do not include a college degree.   In Springfield, Ohio, Groeber is better known as the operator of Dick's Weather Service. He tracks weather data at his private station, but avoids the trickier job of forecasting. A long-time observer of Ohio weather, he suspects global climate trends are related to sunspots, not greenhouse gases.

    At WTVT in Tampa, Roy Leep, who signed the declaration, has a sophisticated array of meteorological equipment, a longstanding reputation for reliable forecasts and a seal of approval from the American Meteorological Society.  Leep doesn't have a Ph.D. in any scientific field, or a bachelor's degree. He was taking meteorology courses at Florida State University
and broadcasting radio weather reports when WTVT hired him in 1957.  Leep signed the Leipzig declaration partly because he thinks government  money invested in global warming research would be better spent on other things, such as hurricane research.  [Source: St. Petersburg Times, July 6, 1996]

    Bert Bolin, Chair of the IPCC at the time, stated that Seitz was misinformed and that documents/statements produced by the IPCC are peer-reviewed and have a 90-95% consensus. The political network manages and funds several hundred "grassroots" organiztions known as the "astro-turf" base.  Citizens for a Sound Economy is a typical example.  Although they are paid lobbyists, they dress down when visiting Congress and present themselves as "grassroots."

    The DC-based tanks use people with scientific credentials to testify for Congress.  Sallie Baliunas is a Harvard University
astronomer with impressive credentials in her own field of research - sunspots, etc.  She also serves as a scientist for the George C. Marshall Institute.  The Institute sent Baliunas to testify for Congress:  The ozone layer is not thinning and the UV rays which would escape if the layer were thinning are not the type which damage skin.  The testimony by Baliunas is being used by congresspersons who advocate withdrawal from the Montreal Protocol.

    Additionally, the DC-tanks provide policy briefings for Congress.  The briefings are popular and effective.

    How big is their mailing list? Massive.  And they reach people through hundreds of trade and political publications like _Pro-Farmer_ and _American Spectator_. Additionally they have saturated the internet with hundreds of electronic mailing lists. Their staff persons publish daily in the Washington Times.

    Who funds them? The fossil fuel industry, manufacturers, etc.  The Western Fuels Association, Amoco Foundation, ARCO Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Adolph Coors Foundation, the Moonies, the Koch Family Foundation, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Scaife Family Foundations (Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Allegheny Foundation), the John Olin Foundation, Exxon, Weyerhauser, ad infinitum.

    See :

Environmental Working Group (CLEAR)  at http://www.ewg.org
Ozone Action  http://www.ozone.org
Env. Information Center  http://www.eic.org

    And a good article on the "think thanks" by Lou Jacobson can be found in the 8 July 1995 National Journal,  "Tanks on the Roll." Additionally, a good overview is the book by Ross Gelbspan, The Heat Is On_ published by Addison-Wesley.

    And finally, _Facts Not Fear:  A Parent's Guide to Teaching About the Environment_, the handbook written for the anti-environment masses and funded by the oil industry, pretty much shows you how they think.