"A sting operation by the environmental group Greenpeace suggests that some researchers who dispute mainstream scientific conclusions on climate change are willing to conceal the sources of payment for their research, even if the money is purported to come from overseas corporations producing oil, gas and coal. Over a period of several months, two Greenpeace employees posed as representatives of energy companies and offered to pay prominent commentators on climate change to write papers that extolled the benefits of coal and carbon emissions. The Greenpeace workers also asked that the payments not be disclosed. Disclosure of funding for scientific research has been a flash point in the fight over climate change, especially in the case of published scientific research. The effort by Greenpeace, which has a long record of using aggressive tactics to make environmental statements, was to “unravel the story” of industry ties to denial of climate change, said Lawrence Carter, one of the Greenpeace employees involved in the subterfuge. “It shows a way that fossil fuel money can get into funding these climate skeptic campaign groups,” he added."
"The trip may comply with the letter of the law, but it’s still raising questions, especially given Christie’s George Washington Bridge scandal. Jameson Doig, an emeritus Princeton University professor who wrote a book about the Port Authority, said Christie’s relationship and receiving of gifts from Jones “sends the wrong signal if Christie or any of his top aides appear to have a conflict of interest in their relationship to the Port Authority.” “The governor ought to do all he can to avoid that conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict,” Doig, a member of a panel on overhauling the agency’s ethics rules and structure, told the Wall Street Journal. The trip may have violated no laws, but it may prove to be a bigger blow to his image than just that orange sweater that became a social-media meme."
