Scientific Alliance

In 2001, Foresight Communications helped launch the Scientific Alliance which claims to offer a rational scientific approach to the environmental debate "in response to the growing concern that the debate on the environment has been distorted by extreme pressure groups". However, the Alliance is seen by many as a corporate-friendly front group forwarding its own extreme agenda. It is also perfectly prepared to attack the scientific consensus on issues that do not fit with that agenda - for example, climate change.

The Alliance is anti-environmental, anti-organic and pro-GM. It is also pro-nuclear and dismisses climate change. It runs conferences along with other corporate front groups. In November 2002 it organised a conference on GM called Fields of the Future. The conference chairman was Lord Taverne of Sense about Science, and Tracey Brown of Sense about Science helped to find speakers for the event. In 2003 Bill Durodie, who like Brown is part of the Living Marxism network, joined the Scientific Alliance Advisory Forum. One of the speakers at Fields of the Future was Professor Brian Thomas from Horticultural Research International. An article based on Thomas's speech appeared on both the Scientific Alliance website and that of Spiked, a website run by the former editor of the magazine Living Marxism (later LM). Tracey Brown and Bill Durodie are also Spiked/LM contributors. At the recent Labour Party Conference, the Alliance held a pro-nuclear meeting with the Nuclear Industry Association.

History

The founders of the Scientific Alliance were Mark Adams and quarryman Robert Durward, the director of the British Aggregates Association another client of Foresight. Durward says he is "a businessman who is totally fed up with all this environmental stuff... much of which is unjustified, such as the climate change levy. We also have the aggregates tax, which will put the UK quarry industry out of business." Two years after its launch The Scotsman newspaper reported that on contacting the Alliance to ask about Durward's role, 'after some uncertainty, the switchboard it shares with a number of other firms denied any knowledge of Mr Durward’s existence. Matthew Drinkwater, the one person responding to calls to its offices, could also be contacted by ringing the offices of Foresight Communications.'

Scientific Alliance's phone number was also the contact telephone for both the BAA and Cloburn quarry in Lanarkshire. The domain name for the Scientific Alliance was also registered to Cloburn quarry.

The Scientific Alliance maintains an Advisory Forum which includes the following:

• Professor Tom Addiscott
• Dr Sallie Baliunas Dr Jack Barrett, Professor Sir Colin Berry, Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Bill Durodie, Professor Mick Fuller, Dr Jeremy Hodge, Dr Judith Irwin, Professor Emeritus Michael Laughton, Martin Livermore, Professor Vivian Moses, Dr Benny Peiser, Professor Anthony Trewavas, Professor William Wilkinson and Professor Michael Wilson.

Some of the key links are as follows:

Martin Livermore of Independent Science Communications, a PR consultant formerly with Dupont, is also a Fellow of the International Policy Network.

Professor Michael Wilson of Horticulture Research International is advisor to Lord David Sainsbury's company Diatech and one of the world’s leading climate sceptics.

Professor Vivian Moses of King's College London runs the pro-biotech organisation CropGen and is therefore linked to Lexington Communications

Mike Wilson and Vivian Moses are also part of Sense About Science.

Wilson, Moses, Livermore and other leading GM proponents, including Tony Trewavas, ex-living Marxists Bill Durodie and Philip Stott serve on Alliance's Advisory Forum

Dr. Sallie Baliunas, George Marshall Institute Senior Scientist, is also associated with Global Climate Coalition; the right-wing Hoover Institution; ESEF; Anapolis Center, and the American Enterprise Institute. Also the Wise Use group, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow and Tech Central Station

Foresight Communications is a PR firm established by Mark Adams in January 2001. Besides Scientific Alliance and British Aggregates Association, its client list includes the New Party for Britain (also known as the People's Alliance). The New Party - also the name of Oswald Mosley’s first party - is so right-wing that the Tory leader in Scotland, where it operates, has called it 'fascist and undemocratic'. Like the Scientific Alliance, this 'People's Alliance', was established by Durward and Adams.

According to The Scotsman, Durward has spoken out on many issues, including the 'witch-hunt' against drunk drivers, the 'media-fuelled circus of Kyoto', and the 'bluster emanating from the collective witch-hunt referred to kindly as the green movement'. He has also written,'Perhaps it is now time for Tony Blair to try the "fourth way": declare martial law and let the army sort out our schools, hospitals, and roads as well. Who knows, they might even manage to put the ‘great’ back into Britain.'

The website of the Scientific Alliance seems designed to downplay any sense of extremism. Its colours are muted. The prose style is generally measured and its logo combines a microscope with a pair of scales. However, a careful reading of the views it projects reveals something less than balance.

On organic farming, for instance, the Scientific Alliance says:

'Many scientists maintain that the organic movement follows ideological principles which are not supported by science. Indeed, Dr Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has argued that if all farming were to be organic, productivity would be so low that almost all forests around the world would have to be destroyed to make way for agricultural land. If the whole world went organic, it could support only 3-4 billion people, with a high risk of pest and disease epidemics.'

Organic farming, then, if widely adopted, would bring ecological catastrophe, mass starvation and in all probability pest and disease pandemics. Not mentioned is the fact that, since leaving Greenpeace nearly 20 years ago, Patrick Moore has spent much of his time countering environmental concerns as a paid front man for Canada's lumber industrialists. As well as running a website, the Scientific Alliance regularly organises conferences on environmental issues.