Pots, Kettles and Black Oil

Frontburner | Trey Garrison:

“Irving-based ExxonMobil is being accused of funding dishonest ideological groups by, wait for it, a dishonest ideological group.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Trey Garrison, lately of Dallas Blog, now publishes his anti-scientific opinions on the pages of Frontburner's blog. The example above of a non-rebuttal rebuttal illustrates why his departure from Dallas Blog is not a loss for that publication and not a gain for Frontburner.

The claim cited by Mr Garrison is that:

ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

Instead of rebutting the claim, Mr Garrison attacks the messenger. He posts an ad hominem attack that boils down to ... 'yeah, well, so's your mother.' Left untouched is the claim that ExxonMobil is using its billions in profits to create the illusion of a vigorous scientific debate about global warming.

Recently, another group, Britain's leading scientific academy, The Royal Society, asked ExxonMobil to halt support for groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change." I'm sure Mr Garrison can find links to foster the illusion that The Royal Society is also a dishonest, ideological group.

Maybe Mr Garrison is just upset that he isn't getting anything from ExxonMobil for his own promotion of their illusions. He isn't, is he?