One Comment

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  Sarah Hebber on Jun 16, 2010

  The influence of the fossil fuel industry in issues such as climate change and energy is troubling. To me, corporate connections aren’t necessarily bad. It is important that they be out in the open. We should be well aware of who is funding what and how this is influencing an organization’s work.

  2 of 3 of the Alliance for Climate Education’s board members are executives with BP. [J. Eisen. and M. Hass]

  http://www.acespace.org/about-ace/board

  http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9024973&contentId=7046905

  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jim-eisen/11/b29/530

  The primary funder for ACE is an executive [M. Hass] who happily made the choice to bring his company under BP, because he liked how it works and what it stands for:

  http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9024973&contentId=7046905

  My roomate did an interview of ACE at their offices. When she saw lots of BP coffee mugs in the cubicles, she asked about the source of funding ACE receives. This was clearly not a comfortable topic for ACE employees; they preferred to quickly move on to other matters, saying simply: “We’re a non-profit, with a few individual donors.”

  BP is a major funder of research in climate and energy at UC Berkeley ($1/2 billion). In California, BP’s influence is quite strategic and pervasive:

  http://www.rwor.org/a/083-special/bp-berkeley-en.html

  I wonder how many are aware of this.

  – Sarah Hebber