Thread by @DivestHarvard

A few days ago, @ForeignPolicy published a piece claiming that divestment would derail the energy transition.

What wasn’t mentioned was that its authors’ research is funded by big oil — and one of them is literally the vice president of a fossil fuel company.

(THREAD)

2/ Both authors work at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Some of the recent donors to its energy initiatives include Exxon, Saudi Aramco, Schlumberger, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.

3/ Dr. Foss also taught at the University of Texas, where she founded the Exxon/Chevron/Koch-funded Energy Institute, served as a Shell Interdisciplinary Scholar and Exxon Mobil Instructor of Excellence, and ran executive education for fossil fuel industry leaders.

4/ She also serves as the vice president of Harvest Gas Management, a Houston-based drilling company.

5/ And in her role as an academic, Dr. Foss has engaged in climate denial — in this presentation for the notorious misinformation front Heartland Institute, for example, she questioned whether the science is settled and whether climate models can be trusted to make policy.

6/ This is only one example of a much broader story. As scholars @BenFranta and @GeoffreySupran have shown, fossil fuel interests have systematically poured millions into academia in hopes of shaping its direction on climate.

theguardian.com/environment/cl…

7/ It’s empirically documented that funding can subtly but significantly skew research. Take, for example, the fact that that tobacco-funded scientists were significantly more likely to find positive correlations between nicotine and cognitive function:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

8/ When fossil fuel interests deploy the same playbook, it puts us all at risk. These companies have a long history of seeking to deny and delay, and will not hesitate to undermine academic freedom and poison public discourse in the process.

9/ The authors, of course, have every right to share their expertise and opinion. But readers have every right to know what conflicts of interest may exist. When this doesn’t happen, it threatens the credibility of media and academia in a time when we need it more than ever.