Joseph L. Walker III

Joe Walker, aka Joseph L. Walker III, was the public relations representative for the American Petroleum Institute who wrote the 1998 API Global Climate Science Communications Plan memo laying out plans among the major players to increase public doubt about climate change; the memo was subsequently leaked to the New York Times.

In 2007, the Society for Risk Analysis contracted with Walker to write press releases for papers published in their journal Risk Analysis, then edited by Elizabeth L. Anderson, health group VP of Exponent since mid-2006. One such press release was Efforts To Boost Climate Change Concern May Have Opposite Effect, Risk Analysis Study Shows, for a paper by Paul Kellstedt, Sammy Zahran and Arnold Vedlitz; the press release appeared Febrary 27, was picked up by columnist John Tierney of the New York Times on February 29 , and the Heartland Institute   global warming skepticism conference  started March 2.

Walker's response
Walker has said: "The project with which I was involved on climate change for API in 1998, I believe, was never funded and, to the best of my knowledge, never went anywhere." and "I have done no work whatsoever for oil interests since I left API in 1999, and have never done any work at all for coal interests."

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 * Global Climate Science Communications Plan (1998)