Goklany, I

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NO MERRI

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/exposed-academics-hire-agree-not-disclose-fossil-fuel-funding-20151208

EXPOSED: ACADEMICS-FOR-HIRE AGREE NOT TO DISCLOSE FOSSIL FUEL FUNDING

Last edited 8 December 2015 at 2:39pm

Leading climate sceptic who agreed to suggestion of secret Middle East oil cash is set to speak at Ted Cruz Senate hearing today

8 December, 2015

A Greenpeace undercover investigation has exposed how fossil fuel companies can secretly pay academics at leading American universities to write research that sows doubt about climate science and promotes the companies’ commercial interests.

Posing as representatives of oil and coal companies, reporters from Greenpeace UK asked academics from Princeton and Penn State to write papers promoting the benefits of CO2 and the use of coal in developing countries.

The Professors agreed to write the reports and said they did not need to disclose the source of the funding.

Citing industry-funded documents - including testimony to state hearings and newspaper articles - Professor Frank Clemente of Penn State said: “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.”

The leading climate-sceptic academic, Professor William Happer, agreed to write a report for a Middle Eastern oil company and to allow the firm to keep the source of the funding secret.

Happer is due to appear this afternoon as a star witness in US Senate hearings called by Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

In emails to reporters he also revealed Peabody energy paid thousands of dollars for him to testify at a separate state hearing, with the money going to a climate-sceptic think-tank.

The investigation also found:

US coal giant Peabody Energy paid tens of thousands of dollars to an academic who produced coal-friendly research and provided testimony at state and federal climate hearings, the amount of which was never revealed.

The Donors Trust, an organisation that has been described as the “dark money ATM” of the US conservative movement, confirmed in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that it could anonymously channel money from a Middle Eastern oil and gas company to US climate sceptic organisations.

Princeton professor William Happer laid out details of an unofficial peer review process run by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK climate sceptic think tank, and said he could ask to put an oil funded report through a similar review process after admitting that it would struggle to be published in an academic journal.

A recent report by the GWPF that had been through the same unofficial review process, was promoted as “thoroughly peer-reviewed” by influential columnist Matt Ridley -a senior figure in the organisation.

The full story and all the documents have been published onhttp://energydesk.greenpeace.org/

The findings echo the case of Willie Soon, a prominent academic exposed in a New York Times investigation as having accepted donations from fossil fuel companies and anonymous donors in return for producing climate-sceptic scientific papers.

Reporters approached the academics claiming to be representatives of unnamed fossil fuel companies looking to commission ‘independent’ research.

Professor Frank Clemente, a sociologist from Penn State university, was asked if he could produce a report “to counter damaging research linking coal to premature deaths (in particular the WHO’s figure that 3.7 million people die per year from fossil fuel pollution)”. He said that this was within his skill set; that he could be quoted using his university job title; and that it would cost around $15,000 for an 8-10 page paper

Asked whether he would need to declare the source of the money, Professor Clemente said: “There is no requirement to declare source funding in the US.” He then shared examples of a testimony and an op-ed, explaining: “Note that in none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.”

Clemente also disclosed that for another report on “the Global Value of Coal” he was paid $50,000 by Peabody Energy - the sponsorship was mentioned in the small print of the paper, but the amount has not been disclosed until now.

The academics’ willingness to conceal the source of funding contrasts strongly with the ethics of journals such as Science, which states in its submission requirements that research “should be accompanied by clear disclosures from all authors of their affiliations, funding sources, or financial holdings that might raise questions about possible sources of bias”

The investigation has also revealed a system by which foreign oil and gas companies can anonymously fund US climate-sceptic scientists and organisations.

When asked to ensure that the commissioning of the report could not be traced back to the Middle East oil and gas company, Professor Happer contacted his fellow CO2 Coalition board member, Bill O’Keefe, a former Exxon lobbyist. He suggested channelling it through the Donors Trust, a controversial organisation that has previously been called the“Dark Money ATM” of the US conservative movement.

When investigators asked Peter Lipsett of the Donors Trust, if the Trust would accept money from an oil and gas company based in the Middle East, he replied that, although the Trust would like the cash to come from a US bank account, “we can take it from a foreign body, just we have to be extra cautious with that.”

Professor Happer, who sits on the GWPF’sAcademic Advisory Council, was also asked by undercover reporters if he could put the industry-funded report through the same peer review process as previous GWPF reports claimed to have been “thoroughly peer reviewed”. Happer explained that this process had consisted of members of the Advisory Council and other selected scientists reviewing the work, rather than presenting it to an academic journal.

He added: “I would be glad to ask for a similar review for the first drafts of anything I write for your client. Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review.

GWPF’s “peer review” process was used for a recent GWPF report on the benefits of carbon dioxide. According to Dr Indur Goklany,the author of the report, he was initially encouraged to write it by the journalist_{ Matt Ridley, who }is{ also a }_GWPF academic advisor. That report was then promoted by Ridley, who claimed in his Times column that the paper had been “thoroughly peer reviewed”.

Commenting on the investigation, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said:

“This investigation exposes a network of academics-for-hire and a back channel that lets fossil fuel companies secretly influence the climate debate while keeping their fingerprints off. 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 those professors will keep that funding secret from the public. The question now is very simple. 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. It’s time for the sceptics to come clean.”

He added:

“Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has serious questions to answer. Does it condone a member of its academic council agreeing to be secretly sponsored to write a report by a group purporting to be from a Middle Eastern oil company? Have reports by senior figures in Lawson’s foundation been secretly paid for by the fossil fuel industry? Would they have agreed to Professor Happer’s suggestion that the ‘oil-funded’ report be put through a 'similar review' process to the GWPF's own ‘peer-review’ process? Does it accept that the foundation’s so-called ‘peer review’ process is flawed, given Professor Happer’s revelations about how it operated on an earlier report? And does the foundation stand by its academic advisor, Viscount Ridley, who described that earlier report as ‘thoroughly peer-reviewed’?”

ENDS

:{Article tagged as:Climate Deniers, Climate Skeptics, Investigation, Republican Party, Ted Cruz:{}:

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2012 Goklany, a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Interior Department, is currently under scrutiny [16] over whether the funding he has accepted from Heartland violates U.S. law against federal employees taking payments that could put them in conflict with their governmental duties.

desmog

Ph. D., Electrical Engineering, Michigan State University (1973).
M.S., Electrical Engineering, Michigan State University (1969).
B.Tech., Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. (1968)

Source:[1]

Background

Indur M. Goklany is listed as a Senior Adviser for Program Coordination at the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of Policy Analysis. [2]

His website, Goklany.org mentions that has "worked with federal and state governments, think tanks, and the private sector for over 35 years."

Goklany is associated with numerous think tanks that question man-made climate change including the Cato Institute, which published both of Goklany’s books, and theReason Foundationwhich published multiple "Policy Studies" by Goklany critical of the IPCC and which claim that the impact sof climate change are exaggerated.

Goklany was the Julian Simon Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC)in 2000, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (2002-2003), and the winner of the CEI's Julian Simon Prize and Award (2007). He is also a regular guest contributor on the blog Watts Up With That run by climate change skeptic Anthony Watts.

Goklany.org mentions that he’s "worked with federal and state governments, think tanks, and the private sector for over 35 years.”

Other climate denier think tanks Goklany is affiliated with include the Cato Institute, which published both of Goklany’s books, and the Reason Foundation which has published multiple "Policy Studies" by Goklany attacking the IPCC and claming climate change impacts are exaggerated. He was involved in a Competitive Enterprise Institute film countering Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. He's also affiliated with the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the International Policy Network, according to Sourcewatch.

Goklany was also the Julian Simon Fellow at the anti-environmental Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in 2000, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (2002-2003), and the winner of the Julian Simon Prize and Award (2007).

Goklany is a regular guest contributor on denier blog Watts Up With That, posting as recently as a few weeks ago.

Goklany is listed as a Senior Adviser on the Interior Department’s Office of Policy Analysiscurrent staff list.

According to leaked documents, Indur Goklany receives $1,000 per month from the Heartland Institute, an organization at the forefront of climate change skepticism.

Goklany is also known for his promotion of DDTas a method to fight malaria, despite the possibility for more effective measures available. [3]

Stance on Climate Change

Although Goklany does not appear to dispute the existence of climate change, he routinely argues that adaptation is the only solution:

". . . over the foreseeable future, the magnitude of the problem due to unmitigated climate change is generally smaller than that due to non-climate change related factors, and, where it is not, as in the case of coastal flooding, it is more economical to remedy it via adaptation. Therefore, global warming is unlikely to be the most important environmental problem facing the world, at least for most of the remainder of this century." [4]

Key Quotes

"Climate change is not now—nor is it likely to be for the foreseeable future—the most important environmental problem facing the globe, unless present-day problems such as hunger, water-related diseases, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, and indoor air pollution are reduced drastically. . . Future generations should, moreover, have greater access to human capital and technology to address whatever problems they might face, including climate change. Hence the argument that we should shift resources from dealing with the real and urgent problems confronting present generations to solving potential problems of tomorrow's wealthier and better positioned generations is unpersuasive at best and verging on immoral at worst." [5]

"Considering that future generations will be far better off than current generations even after accounting for climate change, it would be more equitable for today’s industrialized world to help solve the real problems facing today’s poorer developing world than to mitigate climate change now to help reduce the burden on future populations that would not only be wealthier but also technologically superior." [6]

"Strictly from the perspective of human well-being, the richest-but-warmest world characterized by the A1FI scenario would probably be superior to the poorer-but-cooler worlds at least through 2085, particularly if one considers the numerous ways GDP per capita advances human well-being." [7]

Key Deeds

February 22, 2012

Representative Raúl M. Grijalva called for a full Natural Resources Committee hearing to probe whether Indur Goklany improperly received payments from the Heartland Institute while still receiving taxpayer dollars.

Goklany was listed as receiving $1,000 per month to write a chapter on "Economics and Policy" for a Heartland-funded book (the NIPCC report) on climate science.

The letter (PDF) from M. Grijalva points out that employees of federal agencies are specifically warned not to take payment from outside organizations, particularly for "teaching, speaking and writing that relates to [their] official duties." [8]

May 16 - 18, 2010

Goklany was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago, Il.

His presentation was titled "Global Warming, Global Warming Policy and Mortality Rates," an discussed "potential death and disease from biofuel production."

December 13, 2009

Made a presentation to the University of Pennsylvania Workshop on Markets & the Environment titled "Trapped Between the Falling Sky and the Rising Seas: The Imagined Terrors of the Impacts of Climate Change."

October-December 2006

Goklany was one of the authors of "The Stern Review: A Dual Critique" (PDF) which criticized numerous elements of the Stern Review. [9]

Other authors included prominent climate change skeptics such as Robert M. Carter, Chris De Freitas, and Richard S. Lindzen.

According to the critique, "The scientific evidence for dangerous [climate] change is, in fact, far from overwhelming, and the Review presents a picture of the scientific debate that is neither accurate nor objective." One could interpret this last statement to mean that not enough evidence from the "Skeptic" side was presented.

Goklany appears to have contributed to both parts of the report, as his name is listed for both "Part 1: The Science," and "Part II: Economic Aspects."

Although the original Stern Review is not without it's own faults, RealClimate* concludes that "Stern gets the climate science largely right." However, the Dual Critique published by Goklany *et al has been criticized for it's own lack of peer review, and citation of a certain paper by Khilyuk and Chilingar. [10], [11]

August, 2009

Goklany took part in a video produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute titled "Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies are More Dangerous than Global Warming Itself."

The movie, narrated by climate change skeptic Marlo Lewis, criticizes Al Gore's film, "attacking the assumptions cited as fact in 'An Inconvenient Truth' and the solutions Gore proposed to combat the alleged disastrous consequences of global warming."

Goklany also participated in a panel discussion on the movie along with Marlo Lewis andHeritage Foundation policy analysts Ben Lieberman andDavid Kreutzer. [12]

Affiliations

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)— Visiting fellow (2002 - 2003).[13]

Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)— Member, Academic Advisory Council. [14]
International Policy Network (IPN)— Contributor. [15]
Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (EJSD) (co-published by IPN) — Past Co-editor. [15] It is unclear whether EJSD is still in operation.
Watts Up With That (WUWT)— Contributor.

Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, and a list of publications provided at Goklany's website, it appears the Goklany has published numerous papers on Policy related to climate change, but has not published a single paper involving the Sciencerelating to climate change.

The majority of Goklany's climate-related papers are published by skeptical think tanks and by the journal Energy & Environment which has been criticized for it's peer review process and is noted for a tendency to published papers by climate change skeptics.

Sample Papers Published in Reputable Journals

Indur M. Goklany. "Strategies to enhance adaptability: Technological change, sustainable growth and free trade," Climatic Change, Volume 30, Number 4 (1995).

Indur M. Goklany. "Integrated strategies to reduce vulnerability and advance adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 12, Number 5 (2007).

Kenneth D. Frederick, Indur M. Goklany and Norman J. Rosenberg. "Conclusions, remaining issues, and next steps," Climatic Change, Volume 28, Numbers 1-2 (1994).
Indur M. Goklany. "Precaution without Perversity: A Comprehensive Application of the Precautionary Principle to Genetically Modified Crops," Biotechnology Law Report. June 2001, 20(3): 377-396.

Sample Papers Published by Climate Skeptic Journals and Organizations

Indur M. Goklany. "Discounting the Future" (PDF), Regulation (Cato Institute publication), Spring, 2009.

Misled on Climate Change: How the UN IPCC (and others) Exaggerate the Impact of Global Warming, Reason Foundation, Policy Study No. 399, December 2011.

Wealth and Safety: The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900–2010, Reason Foundation, Policy Study No. 393, September 2011.

Economic Development in Developing Countries: Advancing Human Well-Being and the Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change. Draft. In: Patrick J. Michaels, ed., Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2011), 157–184.

Is Climate Change the "Defining Challenge of Our Age"? Energy & Environment20(3): 279-302 (2009).

What to Do about Global Warming, Policy Analysis, Number 609, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 5 February 2008.

"Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?" Energy & Environment, vol. 18, nos. 7 and 8, pp. 1023-1048 (2007).

"Wealth, Health and the Cycle of Progress," in: Philip Stevens (ed.), Fighting the Diseases of Poverty(IPN Press, London, 2007)

Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events: Global and U.S. Trends, 1900-2006, in The Civil Society Report on Climate Change, International Policy Press, London, November 2007.

"Living with Global Warming." Policy Report No. 278 (Dallas, TX, National Center for Policy Analysis, September 2005).

"Climate Change: the 21st Century’s Most Urgent Environmental Problem or Proverbial Last Straw?" In Kendra Okonski, ed., Adapt or Die: The Science, Politics and Economics of Climate Change (London: Profile Books, 2003), pp. 56-74

"Relative Contributions of Global Warming to Various Climate Sensitive Risks, and Their Implications for Adaptation and Mitigation," Energy & Environment 14: 797-822 (2003).

"Global Warming: From the Frying Pan into the Fire." In R. Bate, ed., Perilous Precaution: the Folly of Disregarding Science (Cambridge, UK: European Science and Environment Forum, 2002), pp. 28-69.

"Much Ado About Warming?" Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy 16 (no. 4, 2002): 40-46.

*Applying the Precautionary Principle to Global Warming*. Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., USA. Policy Study 158. November 2000.

Resources

"Indur M. Goklany: Brief Biography," Goklany.org. Accessed April 19, 2012.
"OPA - Staff Directory," U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed April, 2012. Archived with WebCite April 19, 2012.
Tim Lambert. "Indur Goklany, DDT and Malaria,"Deltoid, September 15, 2010.
"A Climate Policy for the Short and Medium Term: Stabilization or Adaptation?" Energy & Environment 16: 667-680 (2005).
Is Climate Change the "Defining Challenge of Our Age?" Energy & Environment20(3): 279-302 (2009).
Discounting the Future, Regulation 32: 36-40 (Spring 2009).
Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?" Energy & Environment, vol. 18, nos. 7 and 8, pp. 1023-1048 (2007).
"Dear Chairman Hastings and Ranking Member Markey"(PDF), Raul M. Grijalva, Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, February 22, 2012.
The Stern Review: A Dual Critique, Part I: The Science (by Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland & Richard S. Lindzen), and Part II: Economic Aspects (by Ian Byatt, Ian Castles, Indur M. Goklany, David Henderson, Nigel Lawson, Ross McKitrick, Julian Morris, Alan Peacock, Colin Robinson & Robert Skidelsky), World Economics 7 (4): 165-232 (2006).
Tim Lambert. "Khilyuk and Chilingar: the gift that keeps giving," Deltoid, January 17, 2007.
Tim Lambert. "Paper claims human CO2 emissions are negligible," Deltoid, December 6, 2006.
Adam Brickley. "New Movie Seeks to Refute Gore’s 'Inconvenient Truth'," CNSNews.com, August 14, 2009. Archived June 6, 2011.
Indur M. Goklany.The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet. Cato Institute, 2007. Page vii.
"Academic Advisory Council," The Global Warming Policy Foundation. Accessed April, 2012.
"Indur M. Goklany," Profile at the International Policy Network. Accessed April, 2012.
"Indur Goklany," SourceWatch.
"Indur M. Goklany," Wikipedia.
ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Indur M. Goklany.

Tags:

climate change denier

global warming research

climate misinformation

smogger

climate change skeptic

climate denialism

denial database

Department of Interior

denialgate

DenierGate

Indur Goklany

congressional hearing

Raul Grijalva

Indur Goklany previously worked for the Office of Policy Analysis of the U.S. Department of the Interior and is currently a Julian Simon Fellow at the conservative think tank, the Political Economy Research Center. He is also a speaker at Lindenwood Institute for the Study of Economics and the Environment, which sponsors "lectures from conservative thinkers on topics such as environmental protection through free-markets, the ineffectiveness of the Kyoto protocol and the faulty science of climate change, and the benefits of opening ANWR to drilling." ^[1]

He is on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Contents [hide]

Environment

Goklany was a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change (2009) hosted by the conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute. His presentation was titled, "Climate Change Impacts." ^[2]

Goklany is a regular guest poster on Watts Up With That .^[3] It should also be noted that Goklany is active in rewriting the history of DDT and the measures to control malaria ^[4] . This may well be part of an effort to make a revision of environmental legislation of the past , to discredit environmental measures of today, as suggested by Dr Naomi Oreskes in her book Merchants of Doubt.

Dr Indur Goklany is also a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.^[5] Dr Goklany is also affiliated with the Exxon Funded thinktank the International Policy Network^[6] He is also co-editor of the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development.

Articles and resources

References

↑ "ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Lindenwood Institute" ExxonSecrets.org, accessed April 2009.
↑ Indur Goklany, "Climate Change Impacts", Presentation to the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change (2009), March 9, 2009. (PowerPoint)
↑ "[1]"
↑ "[2]"
↑ "[3]"
↑ "[4]"

External resources

Profile on Heartland http://heartland.org/indur-goklany

Articles and Presentations

Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

External articles

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Categories:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indur_Goklany

IPN http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108

According to one of the documents that came out in last week's scandal, the Heartland Institute plans to pay a federal scientist for his contributions to an annual climate-denial report. The proposed 2012 budget for the institute is one of the more interesting things to come out of the Heartland documents that were passed around the internet, as it includes a $1,000-per-month payment to a Department of Interior employee.

Posted on DeSmogBlog last week, the budget includes a monthly stipend for Indur Goklany, who serves as a senior adviser in the office of policy analysis at the Department of Interior. The document indicates that the money is compensation for authoring a chapter on "economics and policy" for the "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change," an annual paper that Heartland and other climate deniers release in response to the reports from the actual, United Nations-sanctioned scientific panel known as the IPCC.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, on Wednesday requested a Natural Resources Committee hearing to investigate whether this payment violates ethics rules at the DOI. Greenpeace also requested an investigation into this in a letter sent to DOI Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday. In it, the group notes that the ethics guidelines for federal employees state that they "generally may not receive pay for teaching, speaking and writing that relates to [their] official duties."

The Heartland funding wouldn't be the first time Goklany has worked with free-market think-tanks. According to his website, Goklany has also authored three books published by the Cato Institute and has written for the Reason Foundation and the Fraser Institute, three libertarian think-tanks.

Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for DOI, told Mother Jones that the department is reviewing the matter.

Heartland Docs Indicate It Paid Gov't Scientist for Work

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Feb. 22, 2012 2:50 PM PST

Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for DOI, told Mother Jones that the department is reviewing the matter.

209 S Kingshighway St Charles, MO 63301

Phone: (636) 949-4949

Lindenwood University is a small liberal arts college in St. Charles, Missouri.

Lindenwood's Institute for the Study of Economics and the Environment is designed to inform students about environmental health risks. The Institute sponsors lectures from conservative thinkers on topics such as environmental protection through free-markets, the ineffectiveness of the Kyoto protocol and the faulty science of climate change, and the benefits of opening ANWR to drilling. Speakers hailed from organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, the Political Economy Research Center, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.