Junk Science

Last weekend, Goldman Sachs investors held a vote on an interesting shareholder proposal. The proposal was that Goldman spent too much time, energy, and money investing in socially and environmentally friendly projects. This, they said, was cutting into the bank’s profits. A major part of the problem was Chairman and CEO Hank Paulson’s work with the Nature Conservancy. You can read about the challenge in more detail here. The proposal only received .01% of the vote, so very few people seemed to mind that Paulson tries to help out sometimes.

The leader of the failed shareholder proposal was the Free Enterprise Action Fund. Their spokesman is a man named Steven Milloy. In addition to being a spokesman for Philip Morris and ExxonMobil, Milloy also writes a website called Junk Science. Junk Science lists helpful statistics like how not globally warmed the earth is at any given moment, and vilifies anyone who makes arguments for things like global warming or the dangers of lead paint. There is a website devoted entirely to debunking things Steven Milloy has written on Junk Science. There is also an entire section of Wikipedia devoted to specious things he has said. So, he must be doing something right. And yet, despite enough dubious claims to fill entire websites with corrections, Milloy also has scored a column on Fox News.com. Congratulations on your .01% of the vote, Mr. Milloy. We wish you similar luck on all future endeavors.