WASHINGTON - February 14 -

BRENDA EKWURZEL, via Aaron Huertas, ahuertas@ucsusa.org, http://www.ucsusa.org

Ekwurzel is a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which recently released a report titled "Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to 'Manufacture Uncertainty' on Climate Change." The report states: "ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science."

TOM JACKSON, joepublicfilms@yahoo.com, http://www.worldoutofbalance.org
Jackson is the director-writer of the new documentary film "Out of Balance: ExxonMobil's Impact on Climate Change". He said today: "While reporting another record year of earnings, ExxonMobil has also recently started its own media blitz, attempting to convince the public that they have changed their ways with regard to climate change. In the past few weeks, through mainstream media outlets like MSNBC, ExxonMobil has implied that they aren't funding climate change skeptics anymore, but they actually only specify the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- they've funded many more organizations than that.

"Barely a week later, it was revealed that ExxonMobil attempted to pay off climate scientists to downplay the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Clearly ExxonMobil is only out to change its image, not its ways."

Background:

The British newspaper The Guardian recently reported: "Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

"Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasize the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ...

"The AEI has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees." http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2004397,00.html

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