Tom Harris (mechanical engineer)

Tom Harris is a Canadian mechanical engineer, executive director International Climate Science Coalition,^[1] former executive director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project^[2] and a global warming skeptic. From May to September 2006, he was Ottawa operations director of the High Park Group, a public relations and lobbying firm active in the debate over global warming, whose clients include the Canadian Electricity Association, the Canadian Gas Association as well as those focused on the promotion of alternative energy.^[3] The Natural Resources Stewardship Project has been accused [by whom?] of being an astroturfing organization set up by High Park Group to promote the interests of its clients.

Speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

At the "2008 International Conference on Climate Change" hosted by the Heartland Institute, Tom Harris gave a speech in which he discussed what he called "information sharing" and "coordinated local activism":^[4]

[...] We need regular high-impact media coverage of the findings of leading scientists — not just one or two publications, but we need to have hundreds all over the world. We need to have a high degree of information sharing and cooperation between groups, so that when Vincent Gray for example has an article published in New Zealand, we can take the same piece and we can (say) submit it to newspapers all over North America and Europe.

Then we have a nicely well-coordinated response, where letters to the editor and phone calls are made. "Congratulations on publishing that article!" You know, it's interesting because I've had many of my articles opposed so strongly, by environmentalists through phone calls and letters to the editor, that they just simply dry up, they just won't publish us again. So this does have feedback, I mean, these are people that run these newspapers, and they're scared, and impressed, and encouraged, depending on the feedback they get.

We have to have grassroots organizations doing exactly that kind of thing: coordinated local activism.

References