The
George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) is a politically conservative
think tankA think tank is an organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice...
established in 1984 in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1990s, the Institute was engaged primarily in
lobbyingLobbying is the practice of influencing decisions made by government . It includes all attempts to influence legislators and officials, whether by other legislators, constituents, or organized groups. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a...
in support of the
Strategic Defense InitiativeThe Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
.
More recently, the Institute has focused on disputing mainstream
scientific opinion on climate changeNational and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming...
. Funded by
ExxonMobilThe Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil....
and chaired by a former official of the
American Petroleum InstituteThe American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the main U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, representing about 400 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry...
, the George C.
The
George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) is a politically conservative
think tankA think tank is an organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice...
established in 1984 in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1990s, the Institute was engaged primarily in
lobbyingLobbying is the practice of influencing decisions made by government . It includes all attempts to influence legislators and officials, whether by other legislators, constituents, or organized groups. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a...
in support of the
Strategic Defense InitiativeThe Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
.
More recently, the Institute has focused on disputing mainstream
scientific opinion on climate changeNational and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming...
. Funded by
ExxonMobilThe Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil....
and chaired by a former official of the
American Petroleum InstituteThe American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the main U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, representing about 400 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry...
, the George C. Marshall Institute has been described by the
Union of Concerned ScientistsThe Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy group based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists...
as a "clearinghouse for global warming contrarians", and by
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
as a "central cog in the denial machine." Historian
Naomi OreskesNaomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego and an author. She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmantal issues such as global warming, and the history of science.-Background:...
states that the institute has, in order to resist and delay regulation,
lobbied politicallyLobbying is the practice of influencing decisions made by government . It includes all attempts to influence legislators and officials, whether by other legislators, constituents, or organized groups. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a...
to create a false public perception of scientific uncertainty over the negative effects of second-hand smoke, the carcinogenic nature of
tobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or...
smoking, and on the evidence between
CFCA chlorofluorocarbon is an organic compound that contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine. Also discussed in this topic are the hydrochlorofluorocarbons , which contain hydrogen in addition to carbon, chlorine, and fluorine. Most commonly, the term refers to a family of volatile derivatives of...
s and
ozoneOzone or trioxygen is a simple triatomic molecule, consisting of three oxygen atoms. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic O
2. Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant with harmful effects on the respiratory systems of animals...
depletion.
GMI is one of only a few conservative environmental-policy think tanks to have
natural scientistsIn Science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the universe, which is understood as obeying rules or laws of natural origin...
on staff. The institute is named after the
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
military leader and statesman George C. Marshall.
Global warming
Since 1989 GMI has been involved in what it terms "a critical examination of the scientific basis for global climate change policy." Although it says "There is a sufficient basis for action because the climate change risk is real," it is strongly associated with attempts to emphasize scientific uncertainty about global warming, and to prevent regulatory action on global warming. The Institute was described as a "central cog in the denial machine" in a
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
cover story on global warming.
Noted skeptics
Sallie BaliunasSallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...
and (until his recent death)
Frederick SeitzFrederick Seitz was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics. Seitz studied under Eugene Wigner at Princeton University, graduating in 1934. He, along with Wigner, came up with the concept of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell...
(a past President of the
National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine."The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code....
from 1962 - 1969) are on its Board of Directors,
Patrick MichaelsPatrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Climatology, is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a retired Research Professor of Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia...
is a "visiting scientist" and
Stephen McIntyreStephen McIntyre is the editor of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data. He is most prominent as a critic of the temperature record of the past 1000 years and the data quality of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies....
,
Willie SoonWillie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics...
and
Ross McKitrickRoss McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. McKitrick gained his doctorate in economics in 1996 from the University of British Columbia, and in the same year was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of...
are "contributing writers".
Richard LindzenRichard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than...
served on the Institute's Science Advisory Board. Four members of GMI's Board of Directors have been involved with
SEPPThe Science & Environmental Policy Project is an Arlington, Virginia, United States-based advocacy group founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer...
. GMI is a former member of the
Cooler Heads CoalitionThe Cooler Heads Coalition was originally a project of the National Consumer Coalition, a project of the nonprofit organization Consumer Alert.. The Cooler Heads Coalition is now financed and operated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Its objective is described as "dispelling the myths of...
.
In 1998 Jeffrey Salmon, then executive director of GMI, helped develop the
American Petroleum InstituteThe American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the main U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, representing about 400 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry...
's strategy of stressing the uncertainty of climate science. In February 2005 GMI co-sponsored a Congressional briefing at which Senator James Inhofe praised
Michael CrichtonJohn Michael Crichton or Michael Crichton was an American author, producer, director, screenwriter, and medical school graduate, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
's novel
State of FearState of Fear is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for...
and attacked the "
hockey stick graphThe hockey stick controversy started in 2003 by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick as a dispute over the reconstructed estimates of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature changes over the past millennium,...
".
Responding to the GMI's criticism of the
Arctic Climate Impact AssessmentThe Arctic Climate Impact Assessment is a study describing the ongoing climate change in the Arctic and its consequences: rising temperatures, loss of sea ice, unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and many impacts on ecosystems, animals, and people...
, Senator
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
(
RThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. In the U.S...
-
AZThe State of Arizona is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in size by the four Phoenix metropolitan area cities of Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, and Scottsdale.Arizona was the 48th and...
) stated: "General Marshall was a great American. I think he might be very embarrassed to know that his name was being used in this disgraceful fashion."
Conflict of interest
Matthew B. Crawford, author of
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, left the GMI as executive director after 5 months when he realized that the institute was "fonder of some facts than others". He outlined a
conflict of interestA conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other.A conflict of interest can only existif a person or testimony...
in the funding of the institute, claiming that his job "consisted of making arguments about global warming that just happened to coincide with the positions taken by the oil companies that funded the think tank.".
Exxon-Mobil was a funder of the GMI until it pulled funding from it and several similar organizations in 2008. In 2002, the GMI received $80,000 from Exxon-Mobil, up from $60,000 in the previous year. Since 1998, the institute received a total of $715,000 in funding from Exxon-Mobil.
Funding sources
Between 1985 and 2001, the institute received $5.5m in funding from five foundations, including the
Earhart FoundationThe Earhart Foundation is a foundation that funds research and scholarship. It is a major contributor to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.- History :...
,
Sarah Scaife FoundationThe Sarah Scaife Foundation is one of the American Scaife Foundations. It is controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. The foundation does not award grants to individuals. It concentrates its efforts towards causes focused on public policy at a national and international level...
and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
GMI used to restrict its funding sources to private foundations and individual donors, but in 1999, Salmon wrote that "Fifteen years of experience with a policy of refusing grants from industry has taught us that our reasons for adopting this restriction were both right and wrong. We were right about it costing us money. But we were wrong to think the policy would permit us to avoid the charge of being a corporate funded think-tank." He said that "the positions we had taken over the last decade and a-half were so crystal-clear that it would be absurd to claim that the Marshall Institute was tailoring its position to fit the needs of some corporate interest", and accordingly, "From now on the Marshall Institute will accept grants for general program support from corporate foundations and in some cases directly from corporations. The Board has also determined that before we accept a grant it must be clear to us that the corporate foundation or corporation offering us funding must have a prior record of supporting well-known environmental groups, or groups with a record of opposing the deployment of ballistic missile defenses."
In 1999, GMI received grants from the Exxon Education Foundation. The institute's CEO William O'Keefe, formerly an executive at the American Petroleum Institute and chairman of the
Global Climate CoalitionThe Global Climate Coalition was a group of mainly United States businesses opposing immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The group formed in 1989 as a response to several reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A major scientific report on the severity of global...
, is a registered lobbyist for
ExxonMobilThe Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil....
. The GMI was described in a 2007 report by the
Union of Concerned ScientistsThe Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy group based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists...
as an ExxonMobil-funded "clearinghouse for global warming contrarians".
ExxonMobilThe Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil....
still currently provides funds to the Institute .
William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, and once Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the American Petroleum Institute, questions the methods used by advocates of new government restrictions to combat
global warmingGlobal warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century...
.
- "We have never said that global warming isn't real. No self-respecting think tank would accept money to support preconceived notions. We make sure what we are saying is both scientifically and analytically defensible."
External links