UK Climate Change Deniers Forced To Clean Up Act?

The GWPF  are an organized group of  AGW denialists based in the UK.  They are fronted by the notorious Benny Peiser,  and are known more widely  for the fact that one of their money men  and spokespeople is Nigel Lawson, dad to the sweet and buxom Nigella.

Earlier this year they were called out, by Bob Ward among others, for being a lobby group and not, as they have always claimed, "an educational charity", as this term is defined by British law.

Earlier this week they basically admitted this charge to be true, and  offered to rejig their website so that a part of it would be separated off and proffer the straight-up lies you are allowed to peddle as a lobby group. The other portion, would, presumably, offer misinformation that didn't quite make the straight-up lie standard.

On Benny Peiser: A Brief Note

From the Independent:

Lord Lawson’s climate-change think tank [the Global Warming Policy Foundation or GWPF] faces being dismantled or even wound down after a formal complaint that it has persistently misled the public prompted the statutory regulator to probe into the group.

Benny Peiser, the GWPF's director, is not happy about this.  He insists that:

“The GWPF has never participated in any campaigning and does not promote any particular line of opinion. In fact, the GWPF does not have an official or shared view about the science or politics of global warming...." 

Readers of this blog may be familiar with Mr. Peiser.  He is on the editorial board of Energy and Environment, once the AGW denialists journal of choice (ie where they could always publish crap the other journals wouldn't take).  He was, in fact,  before he joined the GWPF, co-editor of the journal. So it's worth noting what fellow co-editor Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen  said when he left that position in, roughly, 2011:

A few important announcements need to be made. Firstly, E&E is not the journal of climate sceptics or deniers, as some have asserted, but will continue to publish papers (seriously peer reviewed) and Viewpoints by these people in order to inform the energy ‘community’ - academic as well as professional - that the science debate which underlies so much of its current activities is by no means over. There may well be a need for a pure science journal dedicated to debating the AGW hypothesis and any role for E&E in this debate would disappear if mainstream scientific publications ceased to reject voices that disagreed with the IPCC line. Secondly, I would like to express my deep thanks to Dr. Benny Peiser for having acting as my co-editor for several turbulent years, but he has returned to our Editorial Board and will remain a valuable support. His work at the Global warming Policy Foundation now keeps him very busy in London. Also, a clear distinction between this lobby group and Energy & Environment may be now be desirable. 

The bolding above is mine.  For reference, here's a quick definition of the term "lobby group":

A group of persons working on behalf of or strongly supporting a particular cause, such as an item of legislation, an industry, or a special segment of society

So, the GWPF is called a lobby group in the very magazine that Peiser once helped edit, and to which he still provides editorial services.  We can assume he had no issue with this characterization at the time.  His indignation now rings supremely false.

PS.  To get some idea of what E&E was once willing to publish when Benny helped run the journal, read this.

Miklos Zagoni Wants Off Heartland Institute Expert List

Mr. Zagoni, a physicist and science historian at Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, sent me the following email this morning:

Dear Mr Muprhy,

I got no connection to the HI since four years, and do not want to have.
I am happy if being removed from their list.

Yours sincerely:
Miklos Zagoni


I have forwarded this email to James Lakely at the Heartland Institute.  As an aside, it looks as though I number of people that I have not been in touch with have recently been removed from the list.  They include Benny Peiser, Roger Pielke Jr., Oliver Frauenfeld and David Henderson.  Roger definitely de-listed over the billboard fiasco; Benny probably did (he would have heard about it from the Climate Skeptic Mailing List).  The other two I don't know about.

Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen On The E&E Vs. RealClimate Lawsuit

1) Benny is presumably Benny Peiser.
2) The Lomborg ref is to the fact that he quit the E&E editorial Board last year.
3) To those who think Bill Hughes was not threatening legal action in his original email, well I think this shows that he was, doesn't it?
4) Image should look better if you click on it.

PS. Source is ClimateSceptic Mailing List.