Tom Harris Pops Up Down Under
In an article titled the Sad Demise of On-Line Opinion, Australian Clive Hamilton, writes:
"The editors' appeal to the principles of good journalism to defend the publication of denialist anti-science, but have failed their readers by breaking another tenet of journalistic ethics. The lead author of 'The UN climate change numbers hoax", Tom Harris, is described by On Line Opinion at the end of the article as "an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition'.
What readers were not told is that Harris is a paid lobbyist for energy companies, that he has tried to change his Wikipedia entry to conceal the fact that he is or has been employed by the PR company High Park Group, and that at least one other website has pulled his articles because he is a paid political lobbyist."
None of this information is hard to find. See, for example here."
If it is all right to do so here, there are two questions I would like to ask.
As almost everyone knows but few openly discuss, wealth and power buy freedom. What is all too obvious but often cloaked in silence is this: A small minority of individuals in the human family with great fortunes and virtually all large corporations exercise their great wealth and the power it purchases in ways that allow all of these self-proclaimed masters of the universe to live lavishly as well as to willfully refuse assumption of the responsibilities which necessarily come with freedom.
1. How do rich and famous people, who live large and have huge ecological footprints, as well as corporate `citizens' that cast giant shadows over the Earth today, so easily get away with socially irresponsible behavior?
2. The exercise of freedom without the requisite assumption of responsibility by citizens can lead to psychopathic behavior; the exercise of freedom by those individuals and corporations with great wealth who consensually-validate each others refusal to accept responsibility for their excessive, pernicious and amoral behavior is sociopathic, is it not?
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001