The same day that the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives, the oil industry examined the loopholes. The bill, which has yet to pass the Senate, would make refiners "buy allowances for carbon dioxide spewed from their plants and from vehicles when motorists burn their fuel. Imports would need permits only for the latter." So, oil companies "will probably cope ... by closing fuel plants, cutting capital spending and increasing imports." In Canada, the bill's passage rattled companies invested in Alberta's tar sands, an especially carbon-intensive oil source. However, "we're delighted that low-carbon fuel standards are not in the Waxman-Markey bill," said an executive with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Meanwhile, Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality -- a former civil rights group that now accepts industry funding, including from ExxonMobil -- bemoaned the bill's impact on "poor and working families" while criticizing measures that would lessen household costs as "energy welfare payments." Lastly, Our Country Deserves Better, an anti-Obama political action committee with links to the PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, has launched a "stop cap & trade" campaign. Fundraising appeal emails from the group call Waxman-Markey a "big government, quasi-socialistic policy" that's "predicated on the fraudulent 'junk science' of global warming alarmism."

As the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill nears a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, environmental groups are "teetering at the edge of existential crisis," writes Josh Harkinson. "Almost all environmental groups agree that Waxman-Markey is far from ideal," but some are supporting it, while others "believe the bill is so deeply flawed it might actually make matters worse." Critics say the bill "lines the pockets of polluters with little to show for it. The most it would cut carbon emissions by 2020 is 17 percent below 1990 levels, nowhere near the 25 to 40 percent reduction sought by scientists and international climate negotiators." Other concerns are that the bill may decrease clean energy production, as it would overrule higher renewable mandates in states like California; it would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants; and it would auction just 15 percent of emissions permits, giving a whopping 50 percent "to the fossil fuel industry for free." Some environmentalists blame the United States Climate Action Partnership, "a coalition of industry and moderate environmental groups," for sticking with a "quietly hammered out" agreement developed during the Bush administration. Others criticize President Obama, "who spoke out in favor of auctioning off pollution permits during his campaign ... but is now thought likely to sign whatever bill crosses his desk." Meanwhile, the industry front group Cooler Heads Coalition is planning efforts to oppose the bill, with "scientific skeptics and legislative critics," reports Greenwire.

At the launch of a public relations and marketing campaign in support of the United Nations' upcoming climate change conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, "We need a global movement that mobilizes real change." The UN's COP15 conference will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from December 7 to 18. The promotional campaign, which is led by the public relations firm Ketchum, is called "Hopenhagen." Other marketing and PR firms involved include Ogilvy & Mather, Colle & McVoy, Euro RSCG and Saatchi & Saatchi. "Hopenhagen" ads "are starting to run this week in Cannes, JFK Airport in New York, Los Angeles International Airport and London Heathrow," reports O'Dwyer's. "An 'aggressive' consumer launch" is planned for September, according to the Guardian. "The campaign will complement the UN's 'Seal the Deal!' campaign in support of a global treaty" to follow the Kyoto Protocol. "Hopenhagen" is "modeled as an 'open source campaign' which will include content from users generated online and off." The campaign website allows visitors to say -- in 45 characters or less -- what gives them hope. "We are happy to welcome the Hopenhagen campaign as part of our wide ranging communications efforts for the conference," said Danish Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy Klavs Holm.

After conducting "focus groups, a phone survey, an online survey" and other public opinion research, the PR firm ecoAmerica released a report on effective talking points "for speaking with the American public about energy climate change, climate solutions, renewable energy and carbon based fuels." As the New York Times noted previously, ecoAmerica's "research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to 'green' their images." The difference is that ecoAmerica and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped fund the report, are trying to promote environmentally-friendly policies. EcoAmerica's report suggests using the phrase "our deteriorating atmosphere," instead of "global warming" or "climate crisis," to appeal to "environmental agnostics." It's also critical of the phrase "cap-and-trade," floating "Clean Energy Dividend," "Clean Energy Cash-Back," "Pollution Penalty" or "Pollution Reduction Refund" as alternatives. "Stay away from debating weather ... science or specific policies," the report cautions. Instead, use "values-oriented language," appealing to "American exceptionalism, American ingenuity," energy independence, jobs and "freedom."

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), a peak lobby group for the oil industry and an opponent of strong government action on global warming, has awarded the JN Pierce Award for Media Excellence to the editor-in-chief of The Australian newspaper, Chris Mitchell. (The Australian is published by News Limited, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.) The media release announcing the award stated that "over the past twelve months The Australian's in-depth coverage of a range of public policy issues affecting Australia’s upstream oil and gas industry has been of a consistently high standard." Journalist Paddy Manning, who worked at The Australian between 2004 and 2007, scathingly comments, "Gobsmacking. A disgraceful admission." He notes that "despite a spectacular about-face on climate change in 2007 by News Corp's chairman Rupert Murdoch, no media group can match the Murdoch press for consistently fomenting global warming skepticism and arguing against climate change mitigation measures."

"The advertising firm behind the heavily-aired 'America's Power' campaign, R&R Partners - Advertising, has come out with its own brag-sheet detailing the ad work it did for the coal industry's main front group," the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), reports Kevin Grandia. According to R&R's public relations account supervisor, Rob Van Raaphorst, the firm "educate[d] our audiences on the importance of coal in their daily lives," using "grassroots" outreach, "earned media, paid media and advocacy tactics that created a 'surround-sound' effect." The "grassroots" outreach included "street teams, walking billboards, mobile billboards and recruitment and mobilization of an ACCCE Army ... at presidential primaries, debates, conventions and other key campaign events." R&R also worked on a $400,000 website, CleanCoalUSA.org, "to establish Coal-Based Generation Stakeholders as a recognized advocacy group and source for information about clean-coal technologies."

According to ExxonMobil's 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report, the oil giant is still funding global warming skeptics. Following an unprecedented rebuke from Britain's Royal Society in 2006, Exxon said it would stop funding -- in the Society's words -- groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change." However, Exxon funding is still flowing to the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, the home of skeptics Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. Baliunas "built her denial career downplaying the significance of the destruction of the ozone layer," at the George C. Marshall Institute, an Exxon-funded think tank. Soon has "become one of the go-to skeptics, appearing as a key speaker" at the Heartland Institute's conferences questioning climate change. Though the "Observatory is the research arm of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics," writes Greenpeace's Kert Davies, it "has little to do with either the Smithsonian or Harvard," while "Smithsonian has distanced itself from Baliunas, who discredits their name."

The Guardian, a major British news publisher, is hosting The Guardian Climate Change Summit 2009, which it states aims to "explore how business can build and maintain a commitment to tackling climate change through the recession and beyond." The conference, which is sponsored by the energy company E.ON UK and the Food and Drink Federation, includes a session titled "communications & reputation: avoiding greenwash at all costs." Another panel includes Dr. Paul Golby, the chief executive officer of E.ON UK, which faces strong opposition to its proposal to build the Kingsnorth power station. In a 2008 opinion column, published in the Guardian, Golby claimed that the plant would be "built ready to be fitted" with carbon capture and storage equipment. E.ON U.K's parent company, E.ON, plans to build another dozen new coal-fired power stations across Europe.

In September 2001, the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank, appointed Matthew B. Crawford as its Executive Director. At the time, the think tank boasted that Crawford had "won numerous academic fellowships, including the Bradley Fellowship, The H.B. Earhart Fellowship, and the University of Chicago Century Fellowship; he was the John M. Olin Postdoctoral Fellow in the Committee on Social Thought." The think tank, which has long promoted the work of prominent climate change skeptics, claims that it provides "unbiased technical analyses on a range of public policy issues." However, Crawford recently wrote that "certain perversities became apparent as I settled into the job. It sometimes required me to reason backward, from desired conclusion to suitable premise. The organization had taken certain positions, and there were some facts it was more fond of than others. As its figurehead, I was making arguments I didn't fully buy myself. Further, my boss seemed intent on retraining me according to a certain cognitive style -- that of the corporate world, from which he had recently come. This style demanded that I project an image of rationality but not indulge too much in actual reasoning."