Phil von Hake interviewed in Sunday Denver Post
re: "Utility raises $150,000 for global-warming critic"

July 30, 2006

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_4110078

Article Launched: 07/30/2006 01:00:00 AM MDT

Utility raises $150,000 for global-warming critic
By Ameera Butt
Denver Post Staff Writer

The Intermountain Rural Electric Association, a utility based in Sedalia, raised at least $150,000 for Pat Michaels, Virginia's state climatologist, a global-warming skeptic who was running out of money to fund his research.

"We here at IREA believe that it is necessary to support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists and bring a balance to the discussion," said Stanley Lewandowski Jr., IREA's general manager, in a July 17 letter to 50 other utilities.

Lewandowski's letter said IREA gave Michaels $100,000 and that other utilities he had contacted had pledged additional contributions.

Many scientists have raised concerns about global warming, arguing that coal-fired utilities and other polluters are contributing to dangerous climate change on a global scale. Michaels, a University of Virginia professor, disputes those claims.

Phil von Hake, a Denver communications consultant and renewable-energy advocate, criticized IREA's contribution to Michaels.

"This is a unilateral decision by IREA's management to take their customers' money and use it to fund a skeptic of nearly universal scientific consensus of an issue," he said. "All they ever say that they care about is keeping their customers' rates as low as possible, so where are they getting this $100,000 from? They're getting it from their customers."

Some IREA customers also raised concerns about the contribution.

Laura Embleton, an Aurora resident who gets her electricity from IREA, said, "I think when a board starts getting into policy discussions without having any input from their members, then that's a problem.

"I think spending $100,000 to shore up a policy position when they haven't talked to the members is a problem," she said. "I think that's a pretty good sizable budget that they could be using to create better infrastructure."

Embleton said IREA should have spent the money on cleaner-burning coal, solar energy or wind energy.

Lewandowski's letter criticizes scientists and others who say there is a consensus that global warming is damaging the environment. It also disputes the conclusions of the film "An Inconvenient Truth," in which former Vice President Al Gore asserts that dangerous climate change is rapidly melting glaciers and causing other damage to the planet.

The letter names other scientists who Lewandowski says dispute the notion that global warming is causing catastrophic changes.

Lewandowski was unavailable for comment Friday afternoon.

"Intermountain Rural are placing a great deal of emphasis on just a few people's research and quotes," von Hake said, "whereas environmental groups and energy groups can quote hundreds of different scientists from around the world with dozens of studies that show, one way or the other, that climate change is real and that it is being caused by humans."

Staff writer Ameera Butt can be reached at 303-820-1233 or abutt@denverpost.com.