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Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Appendix D: Corporate-funded Organisations Linked to Contributors to the Programme

Organisation

Details

Intermountain Rural Electric Association, or IREA
www.intermountain-rea.com

[Note: Contributors to the film who have links with the IREA: Professor Patrick Michaels]

The IREA is an energy utility, or what is known in the US as a Generation & Transmission Cooperative (G&T). On July 07 2006, the IREA sent a letter to more than 900 fellow members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The letter is at http://tinyurl.com/ywppbm (PDF). After mentioning the potential threat to the energy industry of emission caps, the letter states:

We here at IREA believe that it is necessary to support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists and bring a balance to the discussion … We decided to support Dr. Patrick Michaels and his group (New Hope Environmental Services Inc.).

It goes on:

In February of this year, IREA alone contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels. In addition, we have contacted all the G&T’s in the United States … and obtained additional contributions and pledges for Dr. Michaels’ group. We will be following up the remaining G&T’s over the next several weeks.

The letter included a 6 page “fact” sheet containing a great deal of disinformation about the science of climate change (see Realclimate: http://tinyurl.com/35qzp7 and ABC News: http://tinyurl.com/l2o4q).

Inter Region Economic Network or IREN
http://www.irenkenya.com

[Note: Contributors to the film who have links with the IREN: James Shikwati]

The IREN is a libertarian think tank and lobby group, which has been funded by the International Policy Network (IPN), which was formerly called the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the UK. According to the Atlas/IPN accounts (see http://tinyurl.com/223rc4), IREN received £6,853 from Atlas in 2001, £4,000 in 2002 and £4,000 in 2003.

IPN, in turn, has received $390,000 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998 (see ExxonSecrets: http://tinyurl.com/2hzwnm).

[Note: The above figure was accurate when this complaint was submitted. For the up-to-date figure, see: http://tinyurl.com/2hzwnm [ExxonSecrets].]

The IREN and its Director James Shikwati are also strongly promoted by the fossil fuel industry–funded lobby group the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (see Google: http://tinyurl.com/36co69). He is also a contributing writer to their magazine (http://tinyurl.com/2kj3sk).

National Center for Policy Analysis, or NCPA
www.ncpa.org

[Note: Contributors to the film who have links with the NCPA:
Dr Frederick Singer]

A lobby group which opposes the Kyoto Protocol and any regulation of greenhouse gasses, and which has received $545,900 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (see ExxonSecrets: http://tinyurl.com/ydbza3).

[Note: The above amount was the total ExxonMobil donations figure received from ExxonSecrets researchers at the time that this complaint was submitted in June 2007. Subsequently, new data has been uploaded and data entry and programming errors have been corrected, causing the total figures for some organizations, including the NCPA, to be somewhat overstated or understated in this complaint. For the accurate updated figures and links to Exxon source documents, see: http://tinyurl.com/ydbza3 [ExxonSecrets].]

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Intermountain Rural Electric Association / Inter Region Economic Network / National Center for Policy Analysis]


Page 152 of 176	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007