On Friday, The Guardian reported that the American Enterprise Institute — which has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil — was offering to pay global warming skeptics to speak out in an effort to push back on the new IPCC climate change study. The IPCC report states that it is “very likely” that man-made greenhouse gases were the main cause of the Earth’s recent warming trend.

The article reported that one American scientist — Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university — turned down the offer citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. “You wouldn’t know if some of the other authors might say nothing’s going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it’s not our fault,” he said.

A copy of the AEI letter can be read HERE.

Kenneth Green and Steven Hayward, the AEI employees who sent the letter, claimed they were soliciting views that would highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report. But, in the letter, Green and Hayward clearly indicate they are only seeking views that criticize the IPCC. They write:

As with any large-scale “consensus” process, the IPCC is susceptible to self-selection bias in its personnel, resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent, and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work of the complete Working Group reports.

[...]

We are hoping to sponsor a paper…that thoughtfully explores the limitations of climate model outputs as they pertain to the development of climate policy.

[...]

AEI will offer an honoraria of $10,000. … We intend to hold a series of small conferences and seminars in Washington and elsewhere…for which we can provide travel expenses and additional honoraria if you are able to participate.

Indeed, the letter reveals that the oil lobbyists at AEI are quite familiar with “self-selection bias.”

Attending a caucus retreat today, President Bush “told Democrats in private that he empathizes with their anguish on Iraq, saying the war is ‘sapping our soul,’ according to two officials who attended the session.”

This week, the UK Daily Mail published photos of polar bears stranded on ice floes in the Arctic.

Determined to deny the existence of global warming, Rush Limbaugh said on Friday that the bears were “just playing around…just like your cat goes to its litter box”:

This whole thing is totally misleading. They’re not even stranded on an ice floe that’s broken apart. They’re just out there just playing around. They’re just out there. You know, just like your cat goes to its litter box. When’s the last time your cat got stranded in its litter box? Just like your pit bull attacks and kills the neighbor’s baby horse, whatever, I mean these things happen. It’s called nature.

This isn’t “nature.” It’s human-induced global warming. In recent months, scientists have found that:

– Polar bears “are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf. Researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.”

– “Pregnant polar bears in Alaska, which spend most of their lives on sea ice, are increasingly giving birth on land, according to researchers who say global warming is probably to blame.”

– Polar bears “may be turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food.”

In December, the Bush administration “decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world’s most recognizable animals out of existence.”

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