Harry...living in Maine...you simply MUST hang with my folks. My mom dropped teh same article on me today. anyway.....before you start jumping up and down and dissing science....
The NRSP project is led by Executive Director, Tom Harris, who, in November 2002, while in the employ of the
PR firm APCO Worldwide, organized a press conference titled "International Climate Experts Speak Out Against Climate Change Myths." [6]. The press conference was sponsored by Talisman Energy Inc. and Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil's Canadian subsidiary). [7] Many of the same scientists and advisors now linked to the NRSP were present, including Tim Ball.
NRSP describes its "first priority project" as being "Understanding Climate Change: A proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol and other greenhouse gas reduction schemes while promoting sensible climate change policy."
The Natural Resources Stewardship Project is a Canadian non-profit organization presenting itself as undertaking "A proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol and other greenhouse gas reduction schemes while promoting sensible climate change policy."
In politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations (
PR) campaigns that seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the "AstroTurf" (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate "fake grassroots" support.
The goal of such campaign is to disguise the agenda of a client as an independent public reaction to some political entity -a politician, political group, product, service, event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organised professional groups with financial backing from large corporations.