ICE klappa

<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Greening Earth Society (GES)</h3>Palmer was a past director of the now-defunct <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Greening_Earth_Society" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Greening Earth Society (GES)</a>, a front group that was controlled by the Western Fuels Association. GES had the stated mission of “advocacy on climate change, the environmental impact of CO2, and fossil fuel use.” The group's “scientific advisors” featured a range of well-known industry-funded deniers such as <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sallie-baliunas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Sallie Baliunas</a> and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/willie-soon" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Willie Soon</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s6" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[6]</a>According to a November, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/ges-all-2-needs-re-scanning.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">1998 report by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR)</a> examining the Greening Earth Society and its related entities, Fred Palmer claimed he created the GES because the coal industry was “<a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1510958/thegreeningea01547.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">waging an uphill battle</a> against a well-funded environmental lobby that has coalesced around the scientifically unproven notion the earth may warm to cataclysmic proportions in the next century.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s7" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[7]</a>,<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s8" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [8]</a>The CLEAR report notes that Greening Earth Society and Western Fuels “are essentially the same organization.” Both are located at the same office suite in Arlington, VA. They share Fred Palmer as leadership, several WFA board members serve as the board for GES, and they have the same “manager of communications and governmental affairs,” Both Ned Leonard and Fred Palmer served as registered lobbyists for Western Fuels Association at the time. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[9]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s8" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[8]</a><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Informational Council for the Environment (ICE)</h3>Palmer's work with the Western Fuels Association goes all the way back to 1991, when he served as Vice President to the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/06/campaigns-tried-break-climate-science-consensus" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Informational Council for the Environment (ICE)</a>, a small coalition of US coal companies that <a href="http://research.greenpeaceusa.org/?a=view&d=2950" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">devised a detailed PR campaign</a>to show that “evidence that the earth is warming is weak” and that proof that carbon dioxide was the primary cause was “non existent.”<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s10" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [10]</a><a href="http://www.wecenergygroup.com/about/management_team/bios/klappa_bio.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">ICE's President </a>was <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/gale-klappa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Gale Klappa</a> of the<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Southern_Company" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> Southern Company</a> and its “Science Advisory Panel” included prominent climate change skeptics <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/robert-c-balling-jr" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Robert C. Balling, Jr.</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sherwood-b-idso" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Sherwood B. Idso</a>, and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-michaels" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Patrick J. Michaels</a>. As part of the group's plan to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact),” ICE proposed a number of advertising headlines such as: <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s10" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [10]</a><blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 30px;">“The most serious problem with catastrophic global warming is– it may not be true.”“If the earth is getting warmer, why is Minneapolis getting colder?”“Who told you the earth was warming… Chicken Little?”“Some say the earth is warming. Some also said the earth was flat.”</blockquote>The <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=4461&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=The%20Coal%20Industry%27s%20%22ICE%22%20Campaign%20(1999)" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">ICE program was discontinued</a> after getting press coverage in a trade paper, The Energy Daily, as well as by The National Journal, The Arizona Republic and The New York Times.<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s11" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [11]</a> Palmer has claimed that he disbanded ICE after becoming dissatisified with its PR approach.Nevertheless, Palmer of Western Fuels said in a 1999 letter: “It's unfortunate that ICE did not go forward” since the campaign did provoke a “dramatic turnaround in how people viewed the issue of global warming” before its demise. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s11" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[11]</a>View <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3119453-1991-Informed-Citizens-for-the-Environment.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">additional ICE documents and print ads here</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s12" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[12]</a>According to documents obtained by environmental group Ozone Action and journalist Ross Gelbspan, ICE messaging strategies included targeting “older, less educated males from larger households who are not typically active information seekers” and “younger, lower income women.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s13" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[13]</a>,  <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s8" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[8]</a><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Gale Klappa & ICE</h3><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">A 2015 report </a>by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos#.WN7rpBPys1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">The Climate Deception Dossiers</a>, outlined some 85 internal company and trade association documents with details on how ICE had worked to guide the public's views on climate change. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s35" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[35]</a>Another report at the Energy & Policy Institute <a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/wisconsin-energy-ceo-gale-klappa-president-of-global-warming-misinformation-campaign/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">detailed the role of Gale Klappa</a>, whose role was not highlighted in the UCSreport. <a href="https://www.wecenergygroup.com/about/management_team/bios/klappa_bio.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Gale E. Klappa</a> was then vice president at <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Southern_Company" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Southern Company, </a>and current non-executive Chairman of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Energy_Corporation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Wisconsin Energy Corporation</a> and now <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2017/03/24/chairman-gale-klappa-stays-atop-we-energies-parent.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">retired CEO</a> of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Energy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">We Energies</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s36" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[36]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s37" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[37]</a>,<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s38" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [38]</a>Back in 1991, Klappa was interviewed in a the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/08/business/pro-coal-ad-campaign-disputes-warming-idea.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">New York Times </a>article regarding the leaked ICE documents, saying:  <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s36" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[36]</a>,<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s39" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> [39]</a><blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 30px;">“Those who are predicting catastrophe have been very effective at getting their message across in national media, and in so-called ‘public service’ announcements. But there is another viewpoint, a substantial viewpoint from a body of reputable scientists, and that viewpoint has really not been made available to a large majority,” Klappa told The New York Times in a telephone interview. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s36" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[36]</a></blockquote>Amy Jahns, Media Relations Specialist at We Energies, responded to Energy & Policy Institute writer Matt Kasper on how Klappa became involved in ICE. “Gale Klappa served as president of the ICE board more than 25 years ago,” she said, going on to present Wisconsin Energy's emission control investments and reductions. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s36" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[36]</a>Fred Palmer reported that he had been initially approached by Gale Klappa, then of Southern Company, and Fred Lukens, of Minnkota Power regarding what would become ICE. Palmer recalled in an <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/29/25-years-ago-fred-palmer-kick-started-first-fossil-fuel-funded-campaigns-attack-climate-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">interview with </a><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/29/25-years-ago-fred-palmer-kick-started-first-fossil-fuel-funded-campaigns-attack-climate-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">DeSmog</a>: <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s40" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[40]</a><blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 30px;"> “I went to my board not long after the Hansen presentation, probably in 1990, and I said, you know, these coal plants have the most CO2 coming out of them than anywhere else. It was the top of the food chain, I called it. The board agreed. The board said I could go on the ICE board, so I did.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s40" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[40]</a></blockquote>Palmer said he quickly became “dissatisfied” with the approach of ICE. “I didn’t think it was a PR issue. I thought it was a scientific educational issue,” he said.<blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 30px;">“I have always been about education, but I was chair (of ICE) and […] I looked at it and I said ‘I don’t like this’ and so we got out of ICE and it was abandoned and Western Fuels started the Greening Earth Society.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fred-palmer#s40" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">[40]</a></blockquote><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Stance on Climate Change...</h2><div>
</div><div></div><div>ref</div><div>...</div><div><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">ICE</h3>“Reposition global warming as theory (not fact),” was the main proposition of a campaign developed in 1991 by a coalition of US coal companies. Western Fuels Association and The Southern Company joined utilities association Edison Electric Institute to develop the campaign under a new group – <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/information-council-environment" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">the Information Council on the Environment</a>.Newspaper and radio advertisements were developed and a <a href="http://research.greenpeaceusa.org/?a=view&d=2950" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">detailed PR campaign devised</a>. Contrarian scientists Dr Robert Balling, Dr Pat Michaels and Dr Sherwood Idso would act as scientific advisors, make public appearances and write newspaper columns, <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=4461&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=The%20Coal%20Industry%27s%20%22ICE%22%20Campaign%20(1999)" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">the plan outlined</a>.One advert chimed “Who told you the earth was warming… Chicken Little?” and claimed that “evidence that the earth is warming is weak”.  In any case, proof that carbon dioxide was the primary cause was “non existent”, the advert claimed. The intention was to convince the public that there was a raging debate among climate scientists about the causes of climate change.John Cook’s study found that in 1991, this just wasn’t the case. There were 65 peer-reviewed studies blaming global warming on human activity in 1991. Only four blamed something else.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">Dirty lessons</h3></div><div>==</div>