OntheWilderSide

 

Ed Note: In case you wonder where the NCPPR’s global climate change attacking press release at the bottom of theis post comes from, read some of their funding sources in between.

The funding of National Center for Public Policy Research, NCPPR from http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=59

National Center for Public Policy Research has received $280,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

1998
$10,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
Source: ExxonMobil 1998 grants list

2000
$30,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
general support
Source: ExxonMobil Foundation 2000 IRS 990

2001
$30,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
15K for ‘climate change’ 15K for general support
Source: ExxonMobil 2001 Annual Report

2002
$15,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
general support
Source: ExxonMobil 2002 Annual Report

2002
$30,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
‘educational activities’
Source: ExxonMobil 2002 Annual Report

2003
$25,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
General Operating Support
Source: ExxonMobil 2003 Corporate Giving Report

2003
$30,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
Global Climate Change/EnviroTruth Website
Source: ExxonMobil 2003 Corporate Giving Report

2004
$55,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
Source: Exxon Giving Report 2004

2005
$55,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
General Support and Educational Activities
Source: ExxonMobil 2005 DIMENSIONS Report (Corporate Giving)

Abramoff connections from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was a member of NCPPR’s Board of Directors; he resigned in October 2004 after NCPPR’s Board of Directors concluded he had violated the organization’s conflict of interest policy.[1]

In October 2002, Abramoff directed the Mississippi Band of Choctaws to give $1 million to NCPPR, and then told Amy Ridenour to distribute the funds to Capital Athletic Foundation ($450,000), Capital Campaign Strategies ($500,000) and Nurnberger and Associates ($50,000). In June 2003, Greenberg Traurig, the firm that employed Abramoff, sent $1.5 million to NCPPR, of which Ridenour distributed $250,000 to Capital Athletic Foundation and the remainder to Kay Gold LLC, both controlled by Abramoff. Ridenour said in testimony that she believed Abramoff co-conspirator Michael Scanlon was the owner of Kay Gold (Kaygold).[2]

Here’s more on Abramoff & NCPRR from http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=682

Timothy Noah
Slate.com
March 28, 2006
Think Tanks for Sale

Amy Ridenour, Abramoff Fellow.
…not all the money Abramoff directed from his clients to NCPPR—which ran to the millions—was transferred to third parties. Some of it remained at NCPPR. We don’t know how much, but apparently it was enough to make Abramoff address Ridenour less like a grantee and more like an employee. Ridenour, for her part, was eager to please her magnifico.How eager? Eager enough, apparently, that Ridenour was willing to grind out an op-ed piece, a letter to the editor, and a press release extolling the virtues of Abramoff’s clients. What follows are some e-mail exchanges, published for the first time, in which Ridenour, Abramoff, and an Abramoff associate discuss some, ahem, scholarly work that Abramoff underwrote at NCPPR.Read the full report >

Here the press release that comes out of this:

NCPPR: Inaccurate 2006 Hurricane Forecast Should Remind Americans that Climatology is Uncertain Science

And Political Science, Even More So

11/30/2006 8:31:00 AM

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To: National DeskContact: David Almasi, 202-543-4110WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ — Following is a release from the National Center for Public Policy Research.As the 2006 hurricane season comes to a close, the failure of forecasters to accurately predict the frequency and intensity of this year’s hurricanes should remind Americans that climatology is an uncertain science. It should also cause Americans to question the reliability of definitive claims made by prominent environmental activists that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes.Today marks the official end of the 2006 hurricane season. The number of hurricanes was 38 percent below the number originally forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The number of hurricanes that qualified as “major” – category 3 or above – fell 50 percent below NOAA forecasts. Not a single hurricane made landfall.

“If we can’t depend on hurricane forecasts made one to six months ahead of time, how can we expect to depend on predictions about the behavior of hurricanes decades from now,” asked David Ridenour, vice president of The National Center for Public Policy Research. “Those who claim that rising global temperatures would definitely lead to more intense hurricanes appear to be relying upon political science, not climate science.”

Forecasters say their projections this year were off the mark, in part due to a late-developing El Nino, which produced wind sheers that destabilized developing hurricanes.

El Ninos are a phenomena that some climate scientists believe would increase in frequency if average global temperatures rise.

“If increasing global temperatures increases the frequency and duration of El Ninos as these scientists suggest, global warming could result in less intense hurricanes,” said Ridenour. “That is exactly the opposite of what Albert Gore and other often- quoted advocates of immediate action on climate change have been saying.”

With uncertainty surrounding the actual effects of planetary warming, The National Center contends that catastrophic scenarios are frequently raised to make the case for action more compelling.

“When it comes to hurricanes and global warming, the rhetoric was only thing that grew in intensity in 2006. It is now at such a fevered pitch that even those who believe action on climate change is needed are growing uncomfortable with the shrill nature of the discourse on climate change,” said Ridenour. “Mike Hulme, one of Britain’s top climate scientists, and a man who believes climate change is underway, probably put it best: ‘The language of catastrophe is not the language of science.'”

—

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, non-profit educational foundation based in Washington, D.C.

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