Climate-change skeptics gain from Ottawa funding
The Canadian Press December 15, 2009
The federal government has been funding an asbestos lobby group that promotes the work of prominent climate-change skeptics.
The revelation comes as Canada’s delegation struggles to avoid being cast as the villain at the Copenhagen climate conference, and environmentalists are urging the government to stop financing the group.
On its website, the Chrysotile Institute promotes a chapter that it says debunks the asbestos health-risk hoax from the 2007 book Scared to Death – From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth.
Ottawa has been frequently knocked by opponents for cutting cash to organizations that believe in fighting climate change.
But Chrysotile Institute president Clement Godbout said Monday that his organization — which has received more than $20 million over two decades — actually has no position about the book’s chapter on climate change.
He said his group is only promoting the book for outlining how the science of asbestos, and its potential health risks, have been systematically exaggerated by the “anti-asbestos lobby.”
“We’ve never said a word about climate change — we have a mandate on chrysotile [the type of asbestos mined in Quebec] and we take care of that,” Godbout said when asked why his website refers to the bestseller by noted British newspaper columnist Christopher Booker and co-author Richard North.
“We haven’t studied this dossier … Booker says what he says, I have no comment on that.”
More after the jump.
Tue, Dec 15, 2009
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