Insight into climate change PR spin
This week I received an e-mail from a group called the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, basically a handful of current and former scientists who claim greenhouse gases are good for us and that we’re fooling ourselves if we think we can control climate change. Get over it, they say — let’s just face the music and adapt. The timing of this e-mail, basically announcing the formation of this group (even though its Web site URL has been registered since 2000), comes suspiciously at a time when Stephen Harper’s federal conservative government is facing intense criticism for lacking a climate change plan and for being soft on greenhouse gas emitters. “NRSP’s first campaign is focused on dispelling the notion that Canada will benefit from carbon dioxide emission control,” claims this so-called scientific group, which fails on its Web site to disclose where it gets its funding while at the same time calling themselves “non-partisan.”
For great insight into this group and its tactics, check out the DeSmogBlog.com, which is written by Vancouver-based PR professional James Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates and a believer in sustainable business practices. Here are a couple of links specifically addressing the NRSP and some of the people behind it. Also, check here. The beauty of Hoggan’s blog is that, being in the business, he’s able to credibility deconstruct the spin in climate change denial campaigns.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
October 14th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Well I hope that James (or someone else) is able to uncover where the funding for this ‘new’ organization is coming from. I suppose that it’s fairly obvious considering who the front man is – the one and only Tim Ball (from Friends of Science). It’s amazing that he is still trying to make waves even though he has been discredited to the point that almost every news agency sees him as a joke. But.. I guess that so long as Big Oil is slipping money into his pocket, he will continue to try and dispel what ‘real’ climatologists know for fact. I only hope that news agencies run more articles on Tim Ball and his organizations – and how false they are.
October 17th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over this one. The CEI ads earlier this year were made fun of all over the media. In other words, it accomplished the opposite of what PR is meant to do. All they did was paint themselves as a bunch of corrupt, slimy lobbyists for Big Oil.
The Simpsons has made a career of parodying the corporate propaganda video; CEI might as well have used Monty Burns in theirs. I’ll assume that NRSP is no less inept.