The more sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a new item in DeSmogBlog's sidebar. It's our big donation button!

There is no doubt that we have caught the attention of US think tanks and well-known climate change deniers like Steve "the Junkman" Milloy, the Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Senator James Inhofe.

But now we're ready to take our US operations to the next level. Our goals are to increase our research capabilities, hire a Washington insider and enhance our US political and media monitoring.

UPDATE 1: We're at 128 signatures and growing, not bad for the 1st day. I know a lot of DeSmog's friends are going to post stories, so the numbers should keep rising. Remember to email it to your friends!

Yesterday we reported that News Corp. CEO and Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch announced that his company would join the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Murdoch stated: "Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent but we certainly can't afford the risk of inaction..."

The first thing Murdoch and News Corp. can do to show that they are truly committed to fighting global warming is ending its reporting of misinformation about the science behind global warming on the Fox News Channel.

And the best thing you can do to help make this happen is by signing DeSmogBlog's online petition (click link) and then send it to all of your friends and have them sign it as well. Ask them to forward it on to their friends.

If you're so inclined, you can Digg this story.

With the announcement today by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch that the media conglomerate is joining the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the big question here at DeSmogBlog is whether this means Fox News will end its peddling in global warming junk science.

Steve Milloy (aka. "The Junkman") is a regular Fox News columnist and tireless campaigner in the war agianst climate science. A quick read of Milloy's website and you will find the usual laundry list of long-held global warming denier arguments.

The tactical link between ExxonMobil's funded denial of climate change and the tobacco industry's organized denial of the health risks of its product have been documented in these pages before.

But this new paper (pdf.) by the Union of Concerned Scientist brings such discipline and rigor to this argument that its conclusions are undeniable: Exxon is spending a fortune to prop up a convenient lie; and it's using the same tactics and many of the same people that the tobacco industry used.

This paper should be required reading for every policy maker.

Update: here's what Exxon has to say.

Update: here's what the CEI has to say.