James Hoggan is the president of the public relations firm James Hoggan & Associates. Over the past two decades, Jim has earned a reputation as one of Canada’s leading public relations professionals. His clients have included A&W Foods, the North West Cruise Ship Association, Vancouver Port Authority, Canadian Tire, Business Objects and Canadian Pacific Rail.

He is the author of the PR Tips that regularly appear on the front page of the business section in The Vancouver Sun, and In 2003, James Hoggan & Associates won the Public Relations Society of North America’s most prestigious award – The Silver Anvil for the best crisis communications campaign in North America.

James Hoggan is Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation, an executive member of the Urban Development Institute and Future Generations and a Trustee of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education. He helped establish the Suzuki Foundation Business Council on Sustainability to encourage collaboration between the environmental and business communities. Jim’s interest in climate change and his commitment to practicing ethical public relations converged recently in the creation of the popular website DeSmogBlog. The blog exists to identify unethical PR tactics and to expose the PR people who are trying to confuse the public about climate change.

The Calgary-based industry front group Friends of Science (FOS), moribund since a Globe and Mail story revealed last year that FOS funding came largely from the oil and gas industry, has resurfaced promoting an "annual luncheon " at which Carleton Professor Tim Patterson will offer a lecture entitled "The Sun as the Primary Driver of Climate Change?"

If any DSBlog readers attend, please ask Dr. Patterson why all his solar forcing graphs end in 1980. (See next post for the answer.)

A report in the Globe and Mail (Canada's reputable national newspaper), reports today on the slick funnelling of oil industry money into an astroturf campaign to attack climate change science

(note: the story only appeared in the Globe's print edition, but an online copy is available at the author's own website here).

The following excerpt explains how (the group is question is called the Friends of Science and "Mr. Jacobs" is a retired oil-explorations manager who is one of the group's founders).