Way to go Ben

From throw away comments great things grow.

I said

I am sure there may be a teensey little bit of public money floating around this august organisation.

And Ben Pile went and did this.

An evisceration of the funding behind EREC.

Here is the conclusion.

It is no surprise that the EU and governments, spurious quasi-autonomous organisations and NGOs are in cahoots. It has long been known that organisations such as Friends of the Earth and WWF are paid by the EU to lobby the EU in favour of the policies that the EU wants. And it is no surprise that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes research that benefits the agendas of governments. We all knew this much.

What is surprising is the sheer scale of this shameless enterprise. We all knew that 'grey literature' -- non-scientific and non-peer reviewed 'research' -- found its way into IPCC reports. What surprises is the extent to which 'grey organisations' -- para-govermental institutions with public functions, but little or no democratic accountability or transparency -- are involved in the production of policy and evidence-making, benefitting a narrow industrial sector and serving a particular political agenda.

Taking a look at the comments there seems to be a feeling that this is the tip of the famous iceberg and more work needs to be done.

Ho hum, no rest for the wicked.