KFKA's Oliver cited global warming column as "based on fact," but ignored that it cited debunked Oregon Petition

Summary: Reading from a January 15 guest commentary in The Greeley Tribune that cited a debunked petition against global warming, 1310 KFKA's Amy Oliver on January 16 asserted that the column was "based on fact" but that "global-warming alarmists ... don't care about fact." However, the petition to which Oliver and the writer apparently referred is almost 10 years old; moreover, it apparently was signed by many people who lack credentials as climate scientists.

On her January 16 1310 KFKA broadcast, Amy Oliver read from a January 15 guest commentary in The Greeley Tribune that cited a debunked anti-global warming petition to support her contention that "global-warming alarmists ... don't care about fact." Contrary to Oliver's assertion that the piece by Kate Power -- whom the Tribune identified as "a senior environmental consultant for the Department of the Interior" -- was "based on fact," Media Matters for America has noted that the petition to which Power apparently referred, the Oregon Petition, is almost 10 years old, and documented that many of the signatures on the petition apparently belong to people who are not climate experts. Power, who, according to the Tribune, "holds degrees in geology and geophysics," has not signed the petition.

From the January 16 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show:

OLIVER: So if you throw a crisis out there enough, you throw it out there enough, and it'll -- look at all the ones we have. How is it that we get through a day without having to take Prozac? We are in constant crisis mode. Oh, and global-warming crisis. How could I forget my favorite? I think global-warming crisis is my favorite, though. I have the most fun with that. And let me get to this real quickly. You have to read this op-ed. It is a fabulous op-ed. We need more open discussion on global warming from Kate Power, who lives in Greeley and holds a degree in geology and geophysics. She has 28 years of experience in the environmental industry and currently is a senior environmental consultant for the Department of Interior. This is a great, great op-ed. But here's the problem with it: It's based on fact. The global-warming zealots -- those who follow the "Goracle" [former Vice President Al Gore] -- fact is not important to them. It's their religion. Fact is just -- things like this [reading]: "A petition circulating among scientists states, 'There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.' The petition is accompanied by a 2007 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons titled 'Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon.' The petition has been signed by more than 20,000 American scientists." Here's the problem: It's based on fact. And the global-warming alarmists, the hysteria, they don't care about fact. Fact is -- just gets in the way.

According to an April 30, 1998, Associated Press article published May 1, 1998, on the website of The Seattle Times, the "petition circulating among scientists" to which Power apparently referred in her column "surfaced shortly before the April 22 [1998] Earth Day." It urges the federal government to reject the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to limit the production of greenhouse gases in an effort to curb global warming, and reads in part:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

The petition was a project of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), a self-described "non-profit research institute" studying "biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine, and aging." According to the website PR Watch, OISM "also markets a home-schooling kit for 'parents concerned about socialism in the public schools' and publishes books on how to survive nuclear war." Although the OISM website says it "has six faculty members, several regular volunteers, and a larger number of other volunteers who work on occasional projects," OISM's latest IRS Form 990 (2006) lists President Arthur Robinson and Vice President Noah Robinson -- Arthur's son, according to an attached statement to the institute's 2006 Form 990 -- as the only full-time compensated staff members. The AP reported that Robinson is "a physical chemist" who "acknowledges he has done no direct research into global warming."

PR Watch noted that "[w]hen questioned in 1998, ... Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, 'and of those the greatest number are physicists.' " The AP reported that Robinson "acknowledged that little attempt was done to verify credentials of those who responded" to the petition, and though the names of the signatories are listed on the OISM website, many of the entries lack academic credentials, none lists a city of residence, and none lists an academic institution with which the signer is affiliated.

Moreover, the AP noted that although Robinson claimed the petition "includes thousands of people 'qualified to speak on this subject' including biochemists, geophysicists and climatologists," he also admitted that "questionable names were added to the petition by pranksters."

From the AP article:

Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: "Perry S. Mason" (the fictitious lawyer?), "Michael J. Fox" (the actor?), "Robert C. Byrd" (the senator?), "John C. Grisham" (the lawyer-author?). And then there's the Spice Girl, a.k.a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed "Dr. Geri Halliwell" and "Dr. Halliwell."

Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. "It's fake," he said.

"When we're getting thousands of signatures there's no way of filtering out a fake," Robinson, 56, said in a telephone interview from Oregon.

Additionally, a May 1, 1998, AP article (accessed through the Nexis database) reported that the petition also bore the signatures of "Drs. '[Maj.] Frank Burns' '[Capt. B.J.] Honeycutt*' and '[Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye"] Pierce' " -- three characters from the hit television comedy M*A*S*H.

A Media Matters review of the signatures on the petition revealed that the signatures of these fictitious persons appear to have been removed.

The petition is accompanied by a letter signed by Frederick Seitz, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is "based upon flawed ideas." Seitz argues that "there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful." A June 5, 2000, item in Business Week reported that "[f]or 28 years, Seitz was also a paid director and shareholder of Ogden Corp., an operator of coal-burning power plants that stands to lose financially should the Kyoto Protocol become law." Business Week reported that Seitz "sold most of his 11,500 shares" of Ogden in 1999 -- after promoting the petition in 1998.

An article in the May 2006 edition of Vanity Fair by Mark Hertsgaard reported, in Hertsgaard's words, "in full for the first time," the real "overlap" -- exemplified by Seitz -- between "the people who deny the dangers of climate change" and the "tobacco executives who denied the dangers of smoking." Hertsgaard reported that after leaving the NAS, Seitz "helped R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc., give away [$45 million] to fund medical research in the 1970s and 1980s," and further reported that the research "avoided the central health issue" of smoking and "served the tobacco industry's purposes," but that "as proof of its commitment to science," the industry "frequently ran ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program." Additionally, the article reported that, in a paper he authored in the 1990s, Seitz "asserted that secondhand smoke posed no real health risks." The article added that Seitz is "chairman emeritus" of the George C. Marshall Institute, which is one of "an array of organizations" funded by ExxonMobil to "downplay the problem" of global warming.

From the May 2006 Vanity Fair article:

Call him the $45 million man. That's how much money Dr. Frederick Seitz, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, helped R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc., give away to fund medical research in the 1970s and 1980s. The research avoided the central health issue facing Reynolds -- "They didn't want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking," says Seitz, who is now 94 -- but it nevertheless served the tobacco industry's purposes. Throughout those years, the industry frequently ran ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program as proof of its commitment to science -- and arguing that the evidence on the health effects of smoking was mixed.

In the 1990s, Seitz began arguing that the science behind global warming was likewise inconclusive and certainly didn't warrant imposing mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. He made his case vocally, trashing the integrity of a 1995 I.P.C.C. [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal, signing a letter to the Clinton administration accusing it of misrepresenting the science, and authoring a paper which said that global warming and ozone depletion were exaggerated threats devised by environmentalists and unscrupulous scientists pushing a political agenda. In that same paper, Seitz asserted that secondhand smoke posed no real health risks, an opinion he repeats in our interview. "I just can't believe it's that bad," he says.

Al Gore and others have said, but generally without offering evidence, that the people who deny the dangers of climate change are like the tobacco executives who denied the dangers of smoking. The example of Frederick Seitz, described here in full for the first time, shows that the two camps overlap in ways that are quite literal -- and lucrative. Seitz earned approximately $585,000 for his consulting work for R. J. Reynolds, according to company documents unearthed by researchers for the Greenpeace Web site ExxonSecrets.org and confirmed by Seitz. Meanwhile, during the years he consulted for Reynolds, Seitz continued to draw a salary as president emeritus at Rockefeller University, an institution founded in 1901 and subsidized with profits from Standard Oil, the predecessor corporation of ExxonMobil.

Seitz was the highest-ranking scientist among a band of doubters who, beginning in the early 1990s, resolutely disputed suggestions that climate change was a real and present danger. As a former president of the National Academy of Sciences (from 1962 to 1969) and a winner of the National Medal of Science, Seitz gave such objections instant credibility. Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at M.I.T., was another high-profile scientist who consistently denigrated the case for global warming. But most of the public argument was carried by lesser scientists and, above all, by lobbyists and paid spokesmen for the Global Climate Coalition. Created and funded by the energy and auto industries, the Coalition spent millions of dollars spreading the message that global warming was an uncertain threat. Journalist Ross Gelbspan exposed the corporate campaign in his 1997 book, The Heat Is On, which quoted a 1991 strategy memo: the goal was to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact."

"Not trivial" is how Seitz reckons the influence he and fellow skeptics have had, and their critics agree. The effect on media coverage was striking, according to Bill McKibben, who in 1989 published the first major popular book on global warming, The End of Nature. Introducing the 10th-anniversary edition, in 1999, McKibben noted that virtually every week over the past decade studies had appeared in scientific publications painting an ever more alarming picture of the global-warming threat. Most news reports, on the other hand, "seem to be coming from some other planet."

[...]

ExxonMobil -- long the most recalcitrant corporation on global warming -- is still spending millions of dollars a year funding an array of organizations that downplay the problem, including the George C. Marshall Institute, where Seitz is chairman emeritus. John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, calls the denial campaign "one of the great crimes of our era." Passacantando is "quite confident" that class-action lawsuits will eventually be filed against corporations who denied global warming's dangers. Five years ago, he told executives from one company, "You're going to wish you were the tobacco companies once this stuff hits and people realize you were the ones who blocked [action]."

The Oregon Petition is also accompanied by a paper authored by Arthur and Noah Robinson and Willie Soon, an astrophysicist identified by the Union of Concerned Scientists as a "[s]cientific spokespe[rson] [a]ffiliated with ExxonMobil-funded [g]roups." The paper argues that "increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide ... have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate" and that "[i]ncreased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth." It also states that "[t]he 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length."

* The Internet Movie Database and the website of actor Mike Farrell, who played this character, spell this name "Hunnicut" and "Hunnicutt," respectively. Based on the May 1, 1998, AP report, it is not clear which spelling of the name appeared on the petition.

—C.H.