Exxon offers bribes to scientists to discount global warming

Let 'em fry says Exxon.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/bribes-offered-to-scientists/2007/02/02/1169919530963.html

SCIENTISTS and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the UN climate change report.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush Administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The institute has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil - which yesterday announced a $50 billion annual profit, the biggest ever by a US company - and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush Administration. A former head of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, is the vice-chairman of the institute's board of trustees.

Climate scientists described it as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims," said David Viner, of the University of East Anglia in Britain.

When criminals are minding the criminals, this is what occurs.

May the board of Exxon rot in hell.

the oil industry? Yes - there will be cries for alternative fuels - but - it won't end our dependance on oil - and it will be a long time coming for anything of substance to displace oil. And if the oil companies are smart they should take the lead and determine what they need to do to stay in business with the alternatives. Better they obsolete themselves and have an economic stake in the technology that obsoletes them - then to have others do it.

It takes will. No will, no effect.