AZlege going local in its search for corporate anti-science propaganda

The things you see when reading AZ lege committee agendas...

From the agenda for next Tuesday's meeting of the Arizona State Senate Committee on Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility (aka - the "Executive Committee of the Black Helicopter Caucus"):

Intrigued by the name "Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change", I did a little research.

Eye-opening stuff, but nonetheless, not unexpected.

From Sourcewatch's page on the group -

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is one of Mother Jones magazine's 2009 global warming skeptic "Dirty Dozen of Climate Change Denial"^[1]. Founded in 1998 by members of the Idso family, its income has increased in recent years.

{snip}

In August 2011, Center founder and Chairman Craig Idso spoke on "Benefit Analysis of CO₂" (previously known as "Warming Up to Climate Change: The Many Benefits of Increased Atmospheric CO₂") at the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force meeting at the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Annual Meeting.

From Mother Jones, written by Josh Harkinson -

The Idso clan is the von Trapp family of climate change denial. In 1980, paterfamilias Sherwood Idso, a self-described "bio-climatologist," published a paper in Science concluding that doubling the world's carbon dioxide concentration wouldn't change the planet's temperature all that much. In years that followed, Idso and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Office of Climatology received more than $1 million in research funding from oil, coal, and utility interests. In 1990, he coauthored a paper funded by a coal mining company, titled "Greenhouse Cooling."

According to IRS filings from the group (OK, its Form 990 for 2013, available here) and the group's filings with the Arizona Corporation Commission, the "Center" is less a "center" than a "house", in Tempe (turns out that the Idso clan has ties to ASU).

Oh, and considering the group's ties to ALEC, it probably isn't a coincidence that this is taking place during the same week of ALEC's annual recruiting dinner/schmoozefest with the Arizona lege.