Mowing the astroturf

"You cannot wake a man who is pretending to be asleep."

Great line, huh?
It's from ProgEcon , introducing "Who's still cool on global warming?" , a Toronto Star profile on the climate change denial industry, featuring our old friend Tom Harris of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project :

"Harris argues that there's nothing wrong with industry funding. For the most part, it doesn't support research," he adds, paying only for communications instead.
"All the companies want is to see information coming out about research that supports their side."

"Doesn't support research"? Well, at least they're upfront about it.

Meanwhile, DeSmogBlog links to "Trust us, we're the media" from the Georgia Straight, with a quote from this American Petroleum Institute internal memo calling for a :

“campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry’s views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify”.

Hey Astroturfers - Try harder.

From CTV : Strategic Council Poll - Most willing to sacrifice for environment

93% of those surveyed said they were willing to make some kind of sacrifice to solve global warming
76 % are willing to pay to have their houses retro-fitted to become more energy efficient
73 % would reduce the amount they fly to times when it is only absolutely necessary
72 % would pay more for a fuel-efficient car
62 % are willing to have the economy grow at a significantly slower rate
61 % would reduce the amount they drive in half.

The poll also found that 64 % of survey respondents said they were not ready to pay significantly higher prices for gasoline or home heating fuel.

Meaning that 36% of people who'd just had their dinner interrupted said they would be willing to support a significant oil and gas price increase out of their own pockets.
That's huge.