Political Science #2

Professor Howarth's PR support from the Park Foundation, an environmental activist group, raises some fascinating problems.

Earthjustice, Earthworks, the Delaware Riverkeeper, Otsego 2000, the Community Environmental Defense Council, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy are all similar groups, many supported financially by The Park Foundation. The Park Foundation had net assets of $246 million in 2009 and spent $23 million, some $17.6 million to grants and contributions to environmental groups, most in opposition to gas drilling.

These are not lobbyists. These are huge political and economic groups, with private interests and aims, masquerading as concerned citizens. Their annual expenses were recently reported as over 126 million dollars.

Now this information was not reported by a source friendly to these economic groups ( http://eidmarcellus.org/2011/11/28/homespun-or-just-spin/ ) but, if anywhere near true, science and technology are increasingly becoming the instruments of simple propaganda and our ability to make rational decisions about any of these questions will become increasingly compromised.