International Climate Science Coalition

The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) is a group of climate change skeptics which describes itself as "an association of scientists, economists, and energy and policy experts working to promote better public understanding of climate change science and policy. ICSC is committed to providing a highly credible alternative to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and helping foster a more rational, open discussion about climate issues. Two panels of distinguished scientists and policy experts from more than a dozen countries oversee the ICSC’s research and educational efforts."

Funding
According to the ICSC website,
 * "Since its formation in 2007, ICSC has been funded and supported exclusively by private individuals... We have never received financial support from corporations, foundations or government."

Yet ICSC received $45,000 from the Heartland Institute in 2007, according to Heartland's Form 990 for that year. .

ICSC unwilling to resolve discrepancy
Requests that ICSC resolve this apparent discrepancy between IRS records and the ICSC assertions have been rebuffed.

Personnel

 * Tim Patterson, Chairman
 * Tom Harris, Executive Director; Harris was formerly the Executive Director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and a Director of Operations of the Ottawa office of the High Park Group (HPG), a Canadian PR and lobbying firm.
 * Emma Gibbs, Director
 * Terry Dunleavy, Director, Executive Vice-Chairman
 * Jay Lehr, Director
 * Bryan Leyland, Secretary

Australia advisors
The ICSC affiliate group in Australia includes advisors such as Vivian Forbes and Professor Ian Plimer. Mr Forbes is a director of coal export business Stanmore Coal. Professor Ian Plimer is a director of at least five mining companies, including Ormil Energy, which in June 2011 received state approval to drill near Sydney in search of coalbed methane.

Web Sites indicate 3 "Climate Science Coalitions" are linked
The web sites of the International Climate Science Coalition, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, and the Australian Climate Science Coalition are all hosted at the same IP address, by a single Internet service provider in Arizona. . ICSC's executive director was unwilling to comment on this apparent linkage.

The ICSC site highlights news on climate skeptics from all over the world. It also propagates skeptics' conspiracy theories on climate change.

Speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change
At the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, ICSC Executive Director Tom Harris gave a speech in which he discussed what he called "information sharing" and "coordinated local activism":


 * [...] We need regular high-impact media coverage of the findings of leading scientists — not just one or two publications, but we need to have hundreds all over the world. We need to have a high degree of information sharing and cooperation between groups, so that when Vincent Gray for example has an article published in New Zealand, we can take the same piece and we can (say) submit it to newspapers all over North America and Europe.


 * Then we have a nicely well-coordinated response, where letters to the editor and phone calls are made. "Congratulations on publishing that article!" You know, it's interesting because I've had many of my articles opposed so strongly, by environmentalists through phone calls and letters to the editor, that they just simply dry up, they just won't publish us again. So this does have feedback, I mean, these are people that run these newspapers, and they're scared, and impressed, and encouraged, depending on the feedback they get.


 * We have to have grassroots organizations doing exactly that kind of thing: coordinated local activism.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Global warming
 * The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change