As afficionados of The Lord of the Rings will no doubt know, the dark lord Sauron created orcs as corrupt mirror images of the elves. He created goblins in similar fashion, with dwarves in mind. This thought came to mind when readers pointed me to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a new think tank on the block here in the UK, which I can't help but see as the goblin version of the GWPF.
Set up by a group of green charitable foundations, the ECIU is to be run by our old friend Richard Black, not quite fresh from his previous role as an 'impartial' journalist at the BBC. The list of advisers is also interesting, featuring a dazzling array of well-known names and not a few vested interests as well.
They describe their mission as follows:
What we can do is to support communicators of all kinds in ensuring that both the evidence and the holes in it are conveyed as clearly and accurately as possible, and so put the debates we need to have in their full context.
It will be interesting to see how much impact they make, as they will presumably be recycling the same stuff as all the other green groups and crony capitalists.