09 Aug 2006 Think Progress Libels Us

I won’t be investing in whichever insurance company provides libel insurance for Think Progress, that’s for sure.

In an online article published today, about a C-Span appearance by Bonner Cohen, Think Progress writes (under the heading, “Corrupt Establishment,” no less) that Bonner “is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, where he is paid by the fossil fuel industry to distort the facts about global warming and other environmental issues.”

Here is a screen shot of their website, taken earlier today:

The article is false and defamatory. People who are paid by us are paid by us; certainly not by the fossil fuel industry (total donations to to us: less than one percent of our revenues, and for most of our history, zero percent). No one here has ever been instructed to “distort the facts” about any issue, global warming or otherwise, not by management and certainly not by outsiders. Despite the wild-eyed imaginings of an assortment of conspiracy theorists with more Internet access than actual information, no one is even trying.

Disagreeing with Think Progress, by the way, does not constitute “distorting the facts.”

I gather Think Progress has some kind of an issue with diversity of opinion, but democratic republics cannot survive without it.

The Think Progress article is off-kilter in other ways, too. Although Bonner Cohen is a senior fellow here, the article does not note that Bonner was on C-Span for another think-tank entirely. He was on C-Span to discuss his new book, “The Green Wave: Environmentalism and Its Consequences,” which he wrote for, and which is published by, the non-profit Capital Research Center.

The Capital Research Center describes the book this way:

The Green Wave: Environmentalism and Its Consequences describes how activists created an ideology that now dominates public debate — and a movement of nonprofit groups that is well-organized and well-funded. Whether the issue is energy exploration or agricultural production, public land use or private property rights, business ethics or government policies, advocates for “the environment” insist that their concerns must always come first. And they usually get their way.

Bonner Cohen’s The Green Wave is must-reading. It masterfully exposes the inner workings of the nonprofit groups and foundation philanthropies that set the environmental agenda — and shape our daily lives.

The book can be purchased online here.

I have not read the book yet, but I ordered one, and look forward to reading it.

Finally, Think Progress has a distorted description of a rather silly call made to C-Span and Bonner’s perfectly reasonable answer to it.

I’d wonder why Think Progress doesn’t just stick to the facts, but I suspect I know the answer: They may think it puts them to disadvantage in debate. If so, they will learn that, in the long run, the truth will still win out.

Think Progress would be better off if it recognized that sooner rather than later.