The drum on IPA from "the Drum"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-24/hamilton-the-shadowy-world-of-ipa-finances/3849006
The shadowy world of IPA finances
Posted 24 Feb 2012, 8:28amFri 24 Feb 2012, 8:28am
Last week's revelations about the Heartland Institute, probably the most important climate science denying organisation in the United States, raise some questions about the murky influence of think tanks on the climate debate in this country.
Confidential documents from the Heartland Institute reveal how wealthy individuals have actively promoted the campaign to attack the credibility of the world's top climate scientists and create the impression that there is a controversy about the main propositions of global warming science.
In fact the bulk of Heartland's climate science denial campaign - which includes plans to promote anti-science in schools - has been funded by one donor, whose name did not appear in the purloined documents.
There is a direct Australian link in the Heartland Institute files. Bob Carter, an adjunct research professor at James Cook University, has a long-standing record of denying climate science.
Now it is revealed that he is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, to the tune of $1,667 per month for unspecified work. On his personal webpage, Carter declares that "he receives no research funding from special interest organisations such as environmental groups, energy companies or government departments," a claim that on the scale of truth matches his reporting of climate science.
Carter is also a fellow at the right-wing Melbourne think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which has for many years been the principal originator of anti-climate science propaganda in this country.
The IPA is closely linked to the Heartland Institute, not least through its sponsorship of two of its recent conferences.
The secret funding of the Heartland Institute once again focuses attention on the financing of the IPA and particularly it sustained attacks on climate science and all policies aimed at cutting Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
The IPA is notoriously secretive about its sources of funding. Its senior staff have refused to answer journalists' questions, although over the years enough information has leaked out to suggest that much of its funding has come from the oil and mining industries, including Exxon, Shell, Caltex and BHP-Billiton.
The IPA's executive director John Roskam, who used to work for Rio Tinto, has said that donors to the Institute want to remain anonymous because they "have been intimidated because of their supposed support for us".
The IPA's coyness is all the more hypocritical because a few years ago it launched a sustained attack on NGOs by claiming they were unaccountable, unrepresentative and not worthy of charitable status. The demand for transparency applies to everyone but itself.
Despite its refusal to divulge, we can make a good guess at where a large part of its recent funding has come from - right-wing mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.
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