Thursday, June 29, 2006

NCFocus response to SESF disclosure

Late Monday night I posted on the background and invisible ties of the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation; in the preface I noted that George and Russ had scooped me by posting an SESF disclosure earlier that night (here's a static copy).

Due to the advanced hour and paucity of still-functioning neurons, I said I'd address their disclosure the next day. I proceeded to not get around to it, eliciting a small (and deserved) goad from Russ earlier this evening.
OK Russ, here goes:

I've been trying to be a good citizen journalist and to "trust, but verify"; however, in this case it's difficult.

For one example, take this section of the SESF disclosure:
"[to avoid conflict of interest]
At the beginning of this year (2006) ... [SESF Board members] Mr. McDaniel and I resigned from the CABPRO Board ...[and] last month [CABPRO Board member] Dr. Lyss resigned [from SESF's board]."

CABPRO's newsletters are online (as pdfs) going back to the fall of 2000*; every newsletter lists the current Board members, and there's a brief report on each new Board member as s/he joins. So the above 'disclosure' statement should be easy to check.

Except that the newsletters from this year don't list the board members, or report any changes.


Another example -

I'd expect that the re-activation of SESF at the beginning of 2006 would have been worthy of mention in the CABPRO newsletter, particularly since it entailed the resignations of board members. It would have been interesting to see what the newsletter had to say.

Except that newsletters for the 4 months from Oct. 2005 through January 2006 are absent from the online archive.

And please correct me if I'm wrong, but is there any mention of the SESF in any of CABPRO's online 2006 newsletters? I didn't notice any.


Russ and George, 2 questions -
1. Was any deliberate effort made (by anyone, not necessarily either of you) to obscure the SESF - CABPRO connection?
2. Is there any way I could take a look at the Oct2005/Nov/Dec/Jan2006 CABPRO newsletters?


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Bonus link for readers:

An enlightening quote from the latest CABPRO newsletter (pdf):
"Environmentalism is not about saving the earth for people, but from them."
It's clear that recognition of anthropogenic global warming wouldn't fit comfortably into this worldview.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think you'll receive any answers to your questions? I'm excitedly waiting- maybe I shouldn't hold my breath. The questions seem fairly straight forward.

Anna Haynes said...

It's possible that they haven't seen it - when I posted it I didn't think to send them an email notification (and yes this _was_ thoughtless of me).

I've just now sent them one.

Anna Haynes said...

Just an update: my email was received.
Responses, if I got any, were not on the record.

Bruce, blue doesn't suit you; get back to breathing.

FYI to others: The NCFocus comments section is open, and should the SESF principals wish to comment here, they'd be welcome to.