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Cooler Heads Coalition

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The Cooler Heads Coalition was originally a project of the National Consumer Coalition, a project of the nonprofit organization Consumer Alert.. The Cooler Heads Coalition is now financed and operated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Its objective is described as "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis". In 2004, its stated position was that "the science of global warming is uncertain, but the negative impacts of global warming policies on consumers are all too real."

Projects

Among other projects, the Coalition operates a website and blog, and publishes the e-newsletter Cooler Heads Digest.

The Coalition offers a primer on global warming that includes information on the economics, public debate, and science of global warming. The primer argues, in part, that government-imposed limits on energy use negatively impact the well-being of people worldwide, curtailing economic growth and prosperity. It also offers a series of videos on energy and global warming topics.

Criticism

The Coalition has been criticized by Greenpeace for ties to energy industries that would be affected if the United States enacted any legislation targeted at reducing CO2 emissions. The Coalition has been accused by the liberal magazine Mother Jones of astroturfing. For example, writing in October 2004 for The American Prospect, Nicholas Confessore described the Coalition as "an Astroturf group funded by industries opposed to regulation of CO2 emissions.".

Membership

Notable members of Coalition currently include:

Origins

Consumer Alert was founded in 1977. It described itself as "a national, non-profit organization for people concerned about excessive growth of government regulation at the national and state levels. We are dedicated to informing the public about the consumer benefits of competitive enterprise and promoting the utilization of sound economic, scientific, and risk data in public policy decisions."

The National Consumer Coalition was formed by Consumer Alert on February 4, 1997; it conducted research and educational activities on a variety of issues, including housing, transportation, food, health and safety, the environment, utilities, tax policy, financial issues, and telecommunications. A major issue of the National Consumer Coalition in the late 1990s was opposition to a federal mandate that airbags be installed in automobiles sold in the United States. The NCC argued that manufacturers should be allowed to install switches in automobiles so consumers can turn the airbags off. After federal permission for such switches was given, the NCC sought to persuade automakers to install the switches.

The founding principles of the National Consumer Coalition were stated as follows:

"The members of the National Consumer Coalition (NCC) do hereby endorse the following principles for a society of free and responsible consumers:

  • A market economy benefits consumers by expanding consumer choice and competition and fostering innovation, which lowers costs and improves consumer health and safety.
  • Individual consumers have different values and varying needs in the marketplace and shop for goods and services based on those, such as quality level, price, service, and convenience.
  • Informed consumers are better off making their own decisions in the marketplace and holding responsibility for those decisions.
  • Consumers exert clout in the marketplace by their decisions to buy or not to buy and to choose where to spend their money.
  • Government policies that restrict consumer choice and stifle competition harm consumers by substituting policymakers' values for individual values and raising the costs of goods and services to consumers."

In 2001, the National Consumer Coalition launched the website www.NCCprivacy.org, saying it would cover four issue areas: online privacy, medical privacy, financial privacy and government surveillance.

In 2004, the National Consumer Coalition joined with the Free Congress Foundation to ask Congress not to eliminate "sunset" provisions calling for the expiry of regulations in the Patriot Act that Consumer Alert's James Plummer called "violations of consumer privacy."

Consumer Alert and the National Consumer Coalition ceased operations in 2005.

References

  1. About GlobalWarming.org
  2. The Cooler Heads Coalition February 2004, website as of April 27, 2006, as archived at archive.org
  3. A Global Warming Primer | cooler heads
  4. Global Warming Economics FAQs | cooler heads
  5. cooler heads
  6. David Adam, "Oil industry targets EU climate policy" The Guardian, December 2005.
  7. "Wingnuts in Sheep's Clothing" , Mother Jones magazine, December 1997
  8. "Tapped", American Prospect Online, October 19, 2004, at archive.org
  9. About GlobalWarming.org, retrieved May 2, 2008
  10. Note: the list of members as of June 2004, as recorded at archive.org, at http://web.archive.org/web/20040616132324/www.consumeralert.org/ncc/members.htm , is no longer available: the owner of consumeralert.org has blocked access by requesting archive.org not to make the archived copy of the page available any further.
  11. http://web.archive.org/web/20040611161801/www.consumeralert.org/index.htm
  12. http://web.archive.org/web/20060209133458/www.consumeralert.org/wst_page2.html
  13. http://web.archive.org/web/20040622144909/www.consumeralert.org/ncc/releases/launch.htm
  14. Dead Link: (Blocked by site ownder) http://web.archive.org/web/20040615021402/www.consumeralert.org/issues/airbags/index.htm
  15. http://web.archive.org/web/20040620025557/www.consumeralert.org/issues/airbags/update.htm
  16. http://web.archive.org/web/20040616025353/www.consumeralert.org/ncc/proclaim.htm
  17. New web site launched NCCprivacy.org - National Consumer Coalition - Brief Article | Consumer Comments | Find Articles at BNET.com
  18. Free Congress Foundation And National Consumer Coalition’s Privacy Group Urge Congress Not To Blindly Jettison PATRIOT Sunset Provision
  19. Note: Its website, www.consumeralert.org, and three other websites operated by the organization (as cited in Consumer Alert's 2004 tax return), including the website of the Cooler Heads Coalition, went offline in 2006. Consumer Alert's 2004 tax return, the last one publicly available, cites its address as "in care of" the Washington DC law firm Collier Shannon Scott (since merged into Kelley, Drye & Warren, LLP).

External links

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