| Notes |
"In October 1995, John Blundell – the newly appointed director of free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – opened his second major conference Environmental Risk: Perception and Reality at the four-star Stakis St Ermin's Hotel on Caxon Street in London.
The advertised speakers included Blundell’s old friend Fred Smith, the founder of the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), who had flown over from the United States along with the coal-funded sceptic scientist Dr Patrick Michaels.
Piers Corbyn, a former Marxist student radical and increasingly eccentric climate sceptic, was also among the panellists with Mike Fisher, IEA trustee and the son of the libertarian think tank founder Antony Fisher.
The conference was the first major event where climate denial was promoted in England, but they were included among a series of other environmental issues for which scientific findings had prompted public health officials to recommend tough new regulations.
A Lavish Affair
The £160-a-ticket event was a brilliant example of the strategy set out by the American tobacco companies where industries united in their opposition precisely because single-issue campaigns by vested interests would be distrusted by experts and members of the public.
One attendee remembers: “It was fairly lavish for an academics type of conference … a decent amount of money was splashed on it.”
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2015/02/11/you-never-guess-who-attended-britains-first-climate-denial-conference |