Of foxes and henhouses

Abstract

Paul Ehrlich, never known for mincing words, recently gave a bold if double-edged defense of one of Stanford University's most controversial programs: the $225 million Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), whose biggest sponsor is ExxonMobil. “I don't think the dirtiness of money makes a big difference”, said the well-known Stanford ecologist. “It's how it's spent. I think a good thing to do is to take dirty money and spend it right.” The setting was a conference for environmental journalists held on the campus of Stanford University. “Democracy Now!” radio host Amy Goodman, who was moderating a panel of energy experts, had asked whether Exxon – which for many years has funded a campaign to muddy the mainstream scientific consensus on global warming – was a suitable project overseer. After all, the long and mainly industry-sponsored US “debate” about the causes and impacts of global warming has helped our government to justify putting off serious action. Goodman is not alone in her concern. Last March, film producer and eco-philanthropist Steve Bing reportedly withdrew a $2.5 million donation to Stanford after reading Exxon advertisements exploiting the 5-year-old partnership. One of these was a New York Times ad, signed by project director Franklin Orr, which cited a “lively debate” about the timing and magnitude of the climate's response to the presence of more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. At last fall's annual meeting of the Society for Environmental Journalists, Ehrlich defended Orr as someone who “would never sell out”. “If you sold out at Stanford, the rest of the university would jump all over you”, Ehrlich said. Yet he couldn't resist adding that he, personally, wouldn't have accepted Exxon's money – “if only from a public relations standpoint” – comparing it to taking money from napalm manufacturer Dow Chemical during the Vietnam war. It's not just Stanford. Princeton University has a climate program funded by Ford Motors and the global energy giant BP, and last February, BP chose the University of California at Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois to lead a $500 million research effort initially focused on biofuels. All of these deals have been controversial. But will they remain so? A few weeks after the conference, I dropped by the GCEP office to hear more from the project's executive director, Sally Benson. Benson describes GCEP's goal as keeping the “innovation pipeline filled…and to drive down costs, so we can really imagine shifting our energy system to depend on renewable energy flows as opposed to depletable energy stocks”. Her portrayal of GCEP's current investment portfolio seems aligned with this worthy ambition. Some 31% is devoted to solar research, with another 20% in hydrogen production and storage. Stanford faculty members present ideas for projects, which are then peer-reviewed by scientists from around the world. From Benson's description, GCEP's four sponsors – Exxon, Toyota, General Electric, and the oilfield services firm Schlumberger – don't seem to be unreasonably influencing its agenda. I had worried that the projects would be tilted toward technologies designed to help us live with fossil fuels, rather than to help us leave them behind. True, 17% of the portfolio is invested in research into carbon sequestration and storage, which assumes we'll be burning coal in power plants for decades to come. But given the investment already sunk into coal plants in the US, China, and India, that's probably inevitable. Benson reassured me in part, yet I left her office with the distinct impression that the henhouse wasn't quite as safe as she'd portrayed. At the conference, for instance, Benson said Stanford researchers had “a great deal of independence” in their work. Yet in our interview, she acknowledged that a “management committee” with representatives from each of the four corporate sponsors must approve all new research. “They do have the final say, but I think the proof is in the pudding”, she said, referring to the fact that the committee has yet to turn down a proposal. In addition, the sponsors get an automatic, exclusive license to any of the university's discoveries, without having to pay royalties. The companies also get the prestige of being linked with one of the world's top academic institutions. Having given away all of this, I would have expected Stanford to bargain for more. A public apology by Exxon for its past misconduct would have been nice. A person can dream…