Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

by Ben Jervey
With the second week of climate talks in a relatively steady holding pattern, the most interesting news out of Paris today had nothing to do with the negotiations themselves. Greenpeace used the platform of COP21 to release results of an undercover investigation that revealed just how easy it is to pay an academic to say whatever you want him to.

While posing as representatives from oil and gas companies, the Greenpeace U.K. investigators struck deals with academics from Princeton and Penn State to publish academic articles that promoted the positive benefits of carbon dioxide and the positive impacts of coal for the poor.

One of the academics exposed, William Happer of Princeton, is actually testifying at Ted Cruz's Senate hearing on protecting climate denial this afternoon.The details from the sting are a fascinating look into how academic credibility can be bought.

In Happer’s case, investigators said they were part of a “Middle East oil and gas company” and asked to ensure that their commissioning of the report could not be traced. Happer reached out to a friendly Exxon lobbyist who suggested channeling it through Donors Trust, the shady donor anonymity organization that has been called the “dark-money ATM” of North American conservatives.

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http://magazine.good.is/articles/academics-for-hire-disclose-fossil-fuel-funding