Dr. John R. Mashey: "Fake Science, Fake Experts, Funny Finances, Free of Tax SEPP, Heartland, CSCDGC, Allies and Donors"

"Dr. Seitz is quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice."---Phillip Morris staffer (1989)


The computer expert Dr. John R. Mashey has published a Valentine's Day report on organizations that deny climate change titled "Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax SEPP, Heartland, CSCDGC, allies & DONORS" (2-14-12).


Dr. Mashey reports that the climate change denialist S. Fred Singer claimed that the elderly Frederick Seitz was the Chairman of Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) for two years after Seitz had died at age 97 and 20 years after a staffer for Philip Morris had written in 1989, "Dr. Seitz is quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice."


Dr. Mashey has posted the highlights of his report and has linked his entire report at Desmogblog in an entry titled "Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax" (2-14-12). Dr. Mashey has sent his report to the Internal Revenue Service because some of the denialist organizations are claiming charitable status.

Dr. Mashey reports that Robert Ferguson's Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a fake institute located in a mailbox at a UPS store in a Haymarket, Virginia shopping center. Mashey also explains that SPPI added footnotes to the Princeton Physicist William Happer's 2-25-09 undocumented Senate testimony. I also posted about SPPI's location and Happer's footnotes on my obscure blog. See pages 73 and 74 of Dr. Mashey's report. Incredibly, some of the SPPI footnotes added to Dr. Happer's Senate testimony cite the screwball British climate change denialist Lord Christopher Monckton.


Dr. Mashey explains about Happer's footnotes (p. 74):


Ferguson calls [Happer's 2-25-09 Senate testimony] a “Reprint,” but the net effect is to “meme-wash” low credibility anti-science by modifying Senate testimony so it looks official.


If denialists think that they are going to confuse teachers about climate science, they might want to reconsider! Teachers are exposing the tricks of these denialist charlatans! Teachers want their students to learn peer-reviewed science, not propaganda spread by the fossil-fuel industry. High school teachers and even high school students can see that something funny is going on when so-called a "scientific institute" is housed in a P.O. box and when a Princeton physicist lets someone else add footnotes from a non-scientist to his undocumented Senate testimony. We aren't brain-dead like some people!