Anti Climate Policies Secret Funding, What’s Wrong

The Climate change and Green House Gases evoke a lot of controversy.

On the one hand a  group claims the world is becoming warmer and we are rushing into disaster because of green house Effects  the other Group claims that the data on Climate change is debatable , neutral scientific papers are not allowed to do the rounds and that Scientists advocating greenhouse Effects  do not allow external verification of their Data.

http://ramanisblog.in/2011/09/17/global-warming-falsenobel-winner-resigns/

I belong to the minority who believes  that climate change is a fraud perpetrated on the gullible, solely with the intention of funding the NGO Industry.

Recent news item that the Earth,in fact, is inching towards an Ice Age and the fact that the Data by the pro Green Houses are inaccurate and doctored.

http://ramanisblog.in/2013/01/04/alaska-moves-to-ice-age-global-warming-wrong/

Now Documents released by The Guardian Uk indicate that the anti Green House Lobby has secret funds to thwart Governmental Policy on Green House effects.

If one does not listen to reason, what else can one do?

My complaint is that they  need not have been  secretive in raising funds for it attributes criminality and nefarious intentions while it is not.

(that is raising funds to fight democratically)

Story:

The main lobby group for suchsceptics in the UK is the Global Warming Policy Foundation, established by Lord Lawson. Photograph: Micha Theiner/Rex Features
The main lobby group for suchsceptics in the UK is the Global Warming Policy Foundation, established by Lord Lawson. Photograph: Micha Theiner/Rex Features

The spectacular exposé by the Guardian of the hidden funding network for US climate change sceptics reveals a set-up that also exists in the UK, where wealthy rightwing donors secretly finance a highly professional campaign against policies to reduce greenhouse gases.

The main lobby group for suchsceptics in the UK is the Global Warming Policy Foundation, established by Lord Lawson, a Conservative peer. The foundation was officially launched with an article by Lawson in the Times on 22 November 2009, just three days after emails that had been hacked from the University of East Anglia were posted on the web in a bid to scupper the United Nations climate change negotiations in Copenhagen that December.

Lawson used the article to accuse climate scientists of “manipulating” records of global temperature and of refusing external scrutiny of their raw data, while also calling for a “an open and reasoned debate” about domestic and international climate change policies.

But despite his apparent enthusiasm for greater transparency by climate researchers, Lawson has been less than forthcoming about how the foundation is funded. According to its latest annual accounts, the foundation received £12,161 from membership fees in the year ending 31 July 2012.

As the annual membership fee is “at least £100”, it appears that the foundation has 120 members at most.

The identity of the donors is shrouded in secrecy. The foundation’s website states that it is “funded overwhelmingly by voluntary donations from a number of private individuals and charitable trusts”, and that it “does not accept gifts from either energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company”.

Lord Lawson has consistently refused to disclose the name of the donors. When interviewed by BBC Radio 4 last October, he said that he relied on his friends who “tend to be richer than the average person and much more intelligent than the average person”.

However, membership fees are only a minor source of revenue for the foundation. Accounts show that it has received more than £1m in donations over the past three years.

The Guardian managed to uncover evidence last March that one of the foundation’s secret donors is Michael Hintze, a wealthy businessman who also gives large sums to the Conservative party.

So what does Lord Lawson do with all this money? Although the foundation is registered as an educational charity, its primary purpose seems to be to campaign against policies to tackle climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

After the UK general election in May 2010, the foundation started to lobby the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition governmentto stop subsidies for alternatives to fossil fuels and to abandon the UK’s emissions reductions targets.

The foundation has also paid for the publication and dissemination of pamphlets by prominent climate change sceptics. For instance, it has distributed a leaflet extolling the virtues of shale gas by Matt Ridley, the former chairman of Northern Rock who earlier this month was voted into the House of Lords by 24 Conservative hereditary peers. And last October, the foundation issued a pamphlet by Conservative MP Peter Lilley which attacked the 2006 review of the economics of climate changecarried out by Prof Lord Stern, currently chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The foundation’s lobbying activities are also assisted by the services of Bell Pottinger, headed by Margaret Thatcher’s favourite advertising expert, Tim Bell. A register maintained by the Public Relations Consultants Association shows that the foundation was a client of Bell Pottinger between December 2010 and February 2011.

The public relations company has attracted controversy because of its claims of influence over senior members of the government. In December 2011, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism uncovered evidence that senior executives of Bell Pottinger boast of their contacts with the prime minister and the chancellor.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/18n7uo

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