National Centre for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) president Amy Ridenour is in high dudgeon, accusing ThinkProgress of libel for posting the Bonner Cohen clip that the deSmogBlog noticed yesterday. Ridenour says it is "false and defamatory" for ThinkProgress to have suggested that the NCPPR or its associates are under the paid influence of the fossil fuel industry, from which Ridenour reports "total donations to us: less than one percent of our revenues, and for most of our history, zero percent."

Posted first by thinkprogress.org, check this spin-job by the literally unbelievable Bonner Cohen. Like many other former tobacco industry apologists, Cohen has reshaped himself as an expert on the science behind climate change.

Here's the whole interview, and below is a good example of Bonner's spin, and a comparison to his old arguments on second-hand tobacco smoke: 

Caller: "I do believe in global warming... how do you foresee the future if we keep going with the pedal to metal so to speak?"

Bonner: "Your grandchildren would be best served, when considering climate change that we not allow ourselves to be driven by idle speculation, not by computer models. Simply look at the scientific data and see if in fact we are experiencing anything out of the ordinary."

".... what i think is vitally important is that for everyone, that we make the decisions that we make with respect to our environmental and energy policies based on the best available scientific data that we have. We cannot afford to do that based on speculation alone."