smear sites

Smear Sites:

Science of The Smear (Herald Sun, Australia)

The following websites are widely used to smear Scientists and Sources Skeptical of "Man-Made" Global Warming:

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/

Run by the world renowned Climate Experts:

- Mark Hoofnagle, PhD Physiology
- Chris Hoofnagle, An Attorney
- Peter A. Lipson, A Practicing Internist


http://www.desmogblog.com/

$$$ Funded by James Hogan (James Hoggan & Associates) and John Lefebvre (Former President of Netseller Group)

- Who is James Hoggan? (Financial Post, Canada)
QUOTE (Financial Post)
So who is James Hoggan? He's a public relations man, based in Vancouver. His firm, James Hoggan and Associates, is positioned as a feel-good local operation with clients in all the "right" public and private sectors. He also sits on the board of the David Suzuki Foundation.

One of his side efforts is a blog operated out of Hoggan and Associates. Funded by retired Internet bubble king John Lefebvre, the blog has one full-time and three part-time staff. They spend their time tracking down and maliciously attacking all who have doubts about climate change and painting them as corporate pawns.

There has been no mention on the blog, nor on The Fifth Estate, of James Hoggan's client list. They include or have included the National Hydrogen Association, Fuel Cells Canada, hydrogen producer QuestAir, Naikun Wind Energy and Ballard Fuel Cells. Mr. Hoggan, in other words, benefits from regulatory policy based on climate change science.

But it is as a climate commentator that Mr. Hoggan gets carried away. On The Denial Machine, Mr. Hoggan is allowed to go on at some length about how climate skeptics are not true scientists, are not qualified, or have no expertise.

That takes some gall. Here's a totally unqualified small-town PR guy making disparaging comments about scientists he says are unqualified while he lectures the rest of us on the science. "If you look in the scientific literature, there is no debate," he tells Mr. McKeown. It doesn't seem to bother Mr. McKeown that Mr. Hoggan has no expertise. It is also a little rich to have a member of the Suzuki Foundation board pronounce other scientists unfit and unqualified for climate assessments, while geneticist David Suzuki roams the world issuing barrages of climate change warnings at every opportunity.

- Multi-billion-dollar charges for B.C. man (The Vancouver Sun, Canada)
QUOTE
Lefebvre, 55, was arrested by FBI agents at his Malibu home and charged with conspiring to promote illegal gambling by transferring billions of dollars of cyberspace bets placed by U.S. citizens with offshore gaming companies.

- Blog Funder Guilty of Money-Laundering (Heartland Institute)
QUOTE
John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, is facing substantial prison time after pleading guilty to federal money-laundering charges. The DeSmog Blog is operated by a small group of public relations people who specialize in attempting to discredit respected scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory. Ironically, DeSmog Blog's favorite tactic is to claim scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory are funded by "dirty money." The revelation of the blog's major source of funding as a convicted money launderer may undermine DeSmog's attempts to smear the integrity of respected, law-abiding scientists who disagree with them.


Exxon Secrets

$$$ Funded by Greenpeace

- Greenpeace (Discover the Networks)
QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
Founded in 1970 as a loose assortment of Canadian anti-nuclear agitators, American expatriates, and underground journalists calling themselves the "Don't Make a Wave Committee," Greenpeace is today the most influential group of the environmental Left. [...]

In the early 1990s, the organization turned its attention to the purported threat that chlorine posed to the world's water supplies. At the time, Greenpeace asserted that it would accept nothing less than the blanket prohibition of the element. "There are no uses of chlorine which we regard as safe," declared Greenpeace activist Joe Thornton, [...]

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore left the organization and now laments that the group has become "dominated by leftwingers and extremists who disregard science in the pursuit of environmental purity."

According to a December 20, 2005 New York Times report, "the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between [Greenpeace] members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front." [...]

An expose of Greenpeace's fundraising practices carried out in 2003 by Public Interest Watch (PIW), a nonprofit watchdog group, led to a report disclosing that Greenpeace uses its Greenpeace Fund, a tax-exempt entity debarred from engaging in political advocacy and lobbying by the IRS tax code, to illegally direct funds to Greenpeace Inc., a tax-exempt organization permitted to engage in lobbying and advocacy but not to accept tax-deductible funds. PIW calculated that in 2000, $4.25 million was provided by the Greenpeace Fund in this way.

Greenpeace is heavily funded by many foundations, among which are the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Columbia Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, the Nathan orgasmings Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, Ted Turner's Turner Foundation. The organization has also drawn support from numerous celebrities, including singers Sting, Tom Jones, and Elton John, who have sponsored its "save the rainforest" campaigns. In 2004, Greenpeace received $15,844,752 in grants, and held net assets of $1,893,548. That same year, the Greenpeace Fund received grants totaling $6,866,534 and held net assets of $7,532,018.

- Greenpeace (Activist Cash)
QUOTE (Activist Cash)
Greenpeace was originally the brainchild of the radical “Don’t Make a Wave Committee,” a group of American draft-dodgers who fled to Vancouver in 1969 and, supported by money from anti-war Quaker organizations, got into the business of forcibly blocking American nuclear tests. Over the years the group has loudly made its feelings known on a variety of issues (nuclear testing, whaling, and global warming, for instance), and its Amsterdam-based activist moguls pull the strings on what is estimated to be a $360 million global empire.

Here in the United States, however, Greenpeace is a relatively modest activist group, spending about $10 million per year. And the lion’s share of that budget in recent years has gone to outrageous attempts to smear agricultural biotech products and place doubts about the safety of genetically improved foods in the minds of American consumers. [...]

Patrick Moore was one of a dozen or so activists who founded Greenpeace in the basement of a Unitarian Church in Vancouver. Within 7 years, the organization had footholds in over two dozen countries and a $100 million budget. As eco-activists in general found themselves suddenly invited into the meeting-places of business and government, Greenpeace made the decision to take even more extreme positions, rather than being drawn in to collaboration with their former enemies.

Moore broke with his comrades during this period, and has emerged as an articulate critic of his former brainchild. Referring to Greenpeace’s “eco-extremism” in March 2000, he described the group in Oregon Wheat magazine as “Anti-human”; “antitechnology and anti-science”; “Anti-organization” and “pro-anarchy”; “anti-trade”; “anti-free-enterprise”; “anti-democratic”; and “basically anti-civilization.”

Writing in Canada’s National Post in October 2001, Patrick Moore offered the following critique: “I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates…. Clearly, my former Greenpeace colleagues are either not reading the morning paper or simply don't care about the truth.”

Greenpeace Officers:

John Passacantando, B.A., M.A. Economics (Executive Director)
Charles Margulis, B.A. Peace and Conflict Studies; Professional Baker (Genetic Engineering Specialist)
Mike Roselle, High-School Dropout (Forest Campaign Coordinator)


Grist Magazine

$$$ Funded by V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation - $3,406,000

V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (Activist Cash)


RealClimate.org

Hosted by - Environmental Media Services

Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Discover the Networks)
QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
EMS's founder and President was Arlie Schardt, who also served as the National Press Secretary for Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign, and as Gore's Communications Director during his 2000 bid for the White House. [...]

EMS officially served as the "scientific" branch of the leftist public-relations firm Fenton Communications; both companies shared the same Washington, D.C. address and office space. For more than a decade, David Fenton (CEO of Fenton Communications) used EMS to run negative media campaigns against a wide variety of targets, including biogenetic foods, America's dairy industry, and President George W. Bush. [...]

EMS also produced many stories condemning the Bush administration's environmental policies. Among these titles were: "Bush Administration Obscures Truth About Toxic Cleanups"; "President Bush Signs Fatally Flawed Wildfire Bill"; "Earth Day Event To Highlight Bush Administration Assault On Environment, Public Health"; "Bush Administration Report Card: 'F' on Protecting Children"; and "National Environmental Groups Launch Campaign to Defeat President Bush." EMS claimed that the data contained in its press releases constituted "the latest and most credible information" provided by "top scientists, physicians, and other experts." These "experts" included officials of Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

EMS was heavily funded by the Bauman Family Foundation, the Beldon Fund, the Energy Foundation, the Bullitt Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Columbia Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Nathan orgasmings Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

- Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Activist Cash)
QUOTE (Activist Cash)
EMS is the communications arm of leftist public relations firm Fenton Communications. Based in Washington, in the same office suite as Fenton, EMS claims to be "providing journalists with the most current information on environmental issues." A more accurate assessment might be that it spoon-feeds the news media sensationalized stories, based on questionable science, and featuring activist "experts," all designed to promote and enrich David Fenton's paying clients, and build credibility for the nonprofit ones. It's a clever racket, and EMS & Fenton have been running it since 1994. [...]

It's called "black marketing," and Environmental Media Services has become the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged "story ideas" for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying clients. These "experts," though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It's a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don't consider do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous "spin."

- Fenton Communications (Discover the Networks)
QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
Foremost public relations firm of the political left. Past clients have included Marxist dictatorships in Central America. Represents environmentalist groups, pro-Democratic political action committees, labor unions, and the anti-war movement.

Founded in 1982 by activist and public relations veteran David Fenton, Fenton Communications (FC) is the leading advertising and public relations firm for advocacy groups on the political left, with locations in Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco.

FC serves as an "umbrella" for "three independent nonprofit organizations" which it co-founded. These include: Environmental Media Services, which manages publicity efforts for environmental groups; New Economy Communications, a social justice group; and the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty lobby.

FC expressly refuses to represent "clients and projects that we don't believe in ourselves." Among the clients and projects that FC has worked for are Marxist-Leninist regimes in Central America and Africa, environmental groups, labor unions, and anti-war organizations. In addition, FC has offered its services to pro-Democrat political action committees and law firms, as well as to political campaigns against the death penalty and gun-ownership rights. [...]

Equally noteworthy has been FC's business partnership with environmental groups. In 1988 and 1989, FC helped one such organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), promote misleading claims about the dangers of Alar, a pesticide then in use by the apple industry. On the basis of NRDC's study of Alar, itself based on exaggerated probabilities rather than concrete empirical data, FC launched a media campaign that stoked consumers' fears and captured the interest of television news programs, daily newspapers and daytime talk shows, fueling a backlash against apple growers. By some estimates, the apple industry suffered $200 million in lost revenue as a result of the FC campaign.

By contrast, FC and its client prospered. David Fenton subsequently boasted that his firm had "designed" the media campaign "so that revenue would flow back to NRDC from the public," noting that FC had gained "$700,000 in net revenues from it." Fenton Communications today cites the Alar campaign as a significant contribution to the "national debate" on pesticides. [...]

Joining forces with the Environmental Working Group, FC has also engineered media campaigns exaggerating the dangers posed by pesticides in tap water and baby food.

In 2003 FC created an ad campaign targeting the automotive industry for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The controversial ads alleged that consumers who bought sport utility vehicles were, in effect, supporting terrorism by using large amounts of fuel imported from the Middle East. [...]

Arlie Schardt, a senior consultant at Fenton Communications and Chairman of Environmental Media Services, served as Al Gore's national press secretary during his first presidential campaign.

Fenton Communications Launches Green-Tech Division
QUOTE
Fenton Communications has been deeply involved in environmental issues since its founding in 1982. The firm publicized the first reports of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, helped environmental NGOs at the Kyoto Global Warming Summit, and worked with Vice-President Al Gore to publicize the issues

A Little Testy at RealClimate (Roger A. Pielke (Jr.), Ph.D. Political Science)

Is Gavin Schmidt Honest? (Climate Audit)

RealClimate's Touchy Censors (National Center for Public Policy Research)

The Uncertainty Trap (Roger A. Pielke (Jr.), Ph.D. Political Science)


Skeptical Science

$$$ Funded by John Cook

QUOTE
I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist


Sourcewatch

$$$ Funded by The Center for Media and Democracy

Sourcewatch (Discover the Networks)
QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
SourceWatch seeks to expose what it calls the "propaganda activities of public relations firms" and the activities of organizations working "on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests." These "exposes," which tend to be critical of their subjects, deal predominantly with conservative entities... [...]

As with the online reference Wikipedia, the contents of SourceWatch are written and edited by ordinary Web users. Says SourceWatch: "You don't need any special credentials to participate -- we shun credentialism along with other propaganda techniques." While stating that it seeks to maintain fairness in the profiles and articles appearing on its website, SourceWatch does acknowledge that "ignoring systemic bias and claiming objectivity is itself one of many well-known propaganda techniques." [...]

...The perspectives are mostly leftist; the entries rely heavily on leftist and far-leftist sources.

Center for Media and Democracy (Discover the Networks)
QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
An anti-capitalist, anti-corporate organization that seeks to expose right-wing "public relations spin and propaganda".

In CMD's view, capitalism generally, and corporations in particular, are the principal root causes of societal ills in the U.S. and abroad. The Capital Research Center, which rates the ideological leanings of nonprofit organizations, places CMD near the extreme far left of the spectrum. The website ActivistCash, which provides "information about the funding source[s] of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists," characterizes CMD as "a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization." [...]

CMD was founded by the leftist writer and environmental activist John Stauber, who continues to serve as the Center's Executive Director. Stauber began his activism in high school when he organized anti-Vietnam War protests and early Earth Day events. The co-author (with SourceWatch founder Sheldon Rampton) of six books, Stauber created the now-defunct website Vote2StopBush.org. He is also an unpaid advisor to several organizations, including the Action Coalition for Media Education, the Center for Food Safety, the Liberty Tree Foundation, the Media Education Foundation, and the Organic Consumers Association.

The aforementioned Sheldon Rampton currently serves as CMD's Research Director. A graduate of Princeton University, Rampton was formerly an outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan's efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of "social justice in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism."

An April 2001 commentary in the liberal publication Village Voice said of Rampton and Stauber: "These guys come from the far side of liberal."

- Center for Media & Democracy (Activist Cash)
QUOTE (Activist Cash)
The Center for Media & Democracy (CMD) is a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization. CMD isn’t really a center it would be more accurate to call it a partnership, since it is essentially a two-person operation.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber operate, as do most self-anointed progressive watchdogs, from the presumption that any communication issued from a corporate headquarters must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. In their own quarterly PR Watch newsletter, they recently referred to corporate PR as a propaganda industry, misleading citizens and manipulating minds in the service of special interests. Ironically, Rampton and Stauber have elected to dip into the deep pockets of multi-million-dollar foundations with special interest agendas of their own.


Tobacco Documents

$$$ Funded by Smokescreen Corporation

Michael Tacelosky, Smokescreen Corporation - Donated $3000 to the DNC
Keith Ivey, Smokescreen Corporation - Donated $600 to John Kerry, $300 to Barrack Obama


Union of Concerned Scientists

$$$ Funded by Various Funds

Union of Concerned Scientists (Discover the Networks)

QUOTE
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with more than 100,000 members. Seeing its mission as building a "cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world," ... It opposes genetically engineered foods, condemns SUV vehicles, and proposes measures aimed at combating what it deems the imminent dangers of global warming. It also opposes the vast majority of American foreign policy decisions, and calls for a unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles. UCS disseminates to lawmakers and news outlets its opinions about each of these matters, with the intent of ultimately influencing public policy.

Students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded UCS in 1969. "Through its actions in Vietnam, our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions," reads the UCS founding document. That sentiment continues to this day, with UCS condemning American efforts in the War on Terror and the 2003 War in Iraq.

UCS typically minimizes threats posed by foreign rogue regimes, and challenges U.S. assertions about the intentions and military capacities of those governments. In 1998, for instance, UCS assured the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea's ability to produce nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang regime was still many years away from being able to develop such an arsenal.

UCS vigorously opposes America's development of a missile defense system. It also calls for the "adoption of a U.S. nuclear no-first-use policy"; "a U.S. rejection of rapid-launch options, and a change in deployment practices to provide for the launch of U.S. nuclear forces in hours or days rather than minutes"; "the elimination of all U.S. 'tactical' nuclear weapons, intended for use on the battlefield"; "verified unilateral reductions to a total of 1,000 strategic warheads (including deployed and stored), accompanied by warhead dismantlement"; and "a commitment to further reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, on a negotiated and verified multilateral basis."

UCS admonishes American corporations such as McDonald's and Burger King, asserting that the presence of antibiotics in meat used by fast-food companies contributes to large-scale antibiotic resistance. In 2003, bills based on UCS research aimed at prohibiting the use of eight classes of antibiotics in livestock used by fast-food producers were introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate. Soon after, UCS admitted that the majority of its claims were speculative. UCS has also warned of the alleged dangers of genetically modified food.

Another issue of concern to UCS is that of global warming. The organization circulated a petition that drew the signatures of some 1,600 scientific experts demanding that the United States ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

A Union of Concerned Scientists declaration, entitled "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making," charges that the Bush administration "has continued to distort and suppress science in pursuit of its political goals — despite a plea from top U.S. scientists to restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process." According to UCS President Kevin Knobloch, "We found a serious pattern of undermining science by the Bush administration, and it crosses disciplines, whether it's global climate change or reproductive health or mercury in the food chain or forestry -- the list goes on and on." The signers of this document portrayed themselves as objective scientists with no political agenda. But in truth, over half of them were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes. [...]

UCS is a member of the Save Our Environment Action Center, a leftist coalition that describes itself as "a collaborative effort of the nation's most influential environmental advocacy organizations harnessing the power of the internet to increase public awareness and activism on today's most important environmental issues."

UCS has received funding from the Beldon Fund, the Compton Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Scherman Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Energy Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts.

Union of Concerned Scientists (Activist Cash)


Wikipedia

The Faith-Based Encyclopedia (Robert McHenry, Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopedia Britannica)

Wikipedia's Zealots (Financial Post, Canada)
The Real Climate Martians (Financial Post, Canada)
The Opinionator (Financial Post, Canada)
Wikipropaganda On Global Warming (CBS News)

The Anti Wikipedia Resource


Biased Sites:

BBC

BBC heats up the climate news (Financial Post, Canada)
The BBC Changes News to Accommodate Activist (The Politics and Environment Blog)
BBC Article: Global temperatures 'to decrease' (Before and After) (Google Cache)
Origin - BBC : Balance Restored (Campaign against Climate Change, UK Activist Portal)

BBC report finds bias within corporation (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
Bias and the Beeb (Financial Times, UK)
Bias at the Beeb - official (The Times, UK)
BBC confesses bias on religion, politics (WorldNetDaily)
BBC network admits it: We're biased toward left (WorldNetDaily)
BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’ (The Times, UK)
BBC viewers angered by its 'innate liberal bias' (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
Confessions of a BBC liberal (The Times, UK)
Facebook reveals the BBC as a liberal hotbed (The Daily Mail, UK)
The BBC's commitment to bias is no laughing matter (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
The Beeb's Bias (The Wall Street Journal)
We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News (Daily Mail, UK)
Why saving Earth is not the BBC's job (Daily Mail, UK)


CBS

CBS 60 Minutes Got it Wrong - Again (Video) (5min)
CBS 'Global Warming Special' Host Likened Warming Skeptics to Holocaust Deniers (NewsBusters)
CBS News sinks to new low; publishes crackpot global warming story, attributes it to AP, kills it with no retraction (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist)
CBSNews.com Pulls Story Making Quake/Climate Link Claim (Business & Media Institute)
In Alarmist Report, CBS's Scott Pelley Ignores Scientist's Key Findings (NewsBusters)


MSNBC

MSNBC Finds Penguins at North Pole... But Penguins Don't LIVE at North Pole (NewsBusters)
MSNBC.com Misquotes Evangelical Leader on Global Warming (NewsBusters)
MSNBC.com Pumps Up Bias, Shows Gas Price 21 Percent Above Average (NewsBusters)


NBC

'Today' show embarrassed by 'video stunt' (WorldNetDaily)
- Michelle Kosinski rowing a canoe in a "flood" (Video)


The Weather Channel

Con job at The Weather Channel (WorldNetDaily)
Weather Channel Politics: Admit Man Causes Global Warming Or Else (The National Ledger)
"The Weather Channel" Mess (James Spann, AMS Certified Meteorologist)
The Weather Channel's 'One Degree' of Propaganda (Business & Media Institute)
Weather Channel's Cullen Hopes to Push Global Warming Agenda on Weather.com (Business & Media Institute)
Weather Channel 'likes to call Gore President-elect' (WorldNetDaily)


Time Magazine

What on EARTH Are We Doing? (Time Magazine, 1989)
Endangered Earth Update U.S. Agenda Consumers It's Not Easy Being Green "Waste (Time Magazine, 1989)
Endangered Earth Update U.S. Agenda Businesses Scrub That Smokestack (Time Magazine, 1989)
Endangered Earth Update the Fight to Save the Planet (Time Magazine, 1989)
Endangered Earth Update Now Wait Just a Minute (Time Magazine, 1989)
Endangered Earth Update Is the Planet on the Back Burner? (Time Magazine, 1990)


Alarmists:

David Suzuki

The Sad Legacy Of David Suzuki (Tim F. Ball, Ph.D. Historical Climatologist)
Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki (National Post, Canada)


George Monbiot

Mr Green goes motoring (The Times, UK)
QUOTE
George Monbiot, the environmental campaigner, scourge of the automobile industry and champion of not owning cars, has finally bought himself . . . a car. Notwithstanding pledges to live a green lifestyle and be a model to others, he has given in to temptation and acquired a secondhand Renault. [...]

In what can only be described as a comprehensive U-turn, Monbiot has chosen a Renault Clio, an economical hatchback but not the most frugal in fuel consumption or carbon emissions. He bought it from a friend for an undisclosed amount. As zealots will be quick to remind him, it emits 115g/km , 10% higher than a Toyota Prius, the petrol-electric hybrid belovedof CO2 of the green movement.


Rebuttals:

Smearing Conservative Writers (The Conservative Voice)

Frederick Seitz - Vanity Scare
Roy Spencer - Full Disclosure
S. Fred Singer - Letter to ABC News from Dr. S. Fred Singer