The most recent newsletter from the Calgary-based oil-industry front, the Friends of Science, offers two bits of heartening news:

First, FOS reports that “Our financial support is presently approaching an all time low.” This suggests that FOS will soon run out of money to send “Climate Catastrophe Cancelled” videos that are misrepresented as works of “science” endorsed by the University of Calgary. Which leads to the second piece of good news.

FOS, which has spent much of the year pitching and then putting off a “national meeting” on the debate about climate change has postponed it yet again. FOS explains: “The
University of Calgary in early September unexpectedly cancelled its support of the meeting which had to be subsequently postponed for an indefinite period.”

The university’s most recent “unexpected” effort to distance itself from FOS followed a February 2007 statement in which U of C Vice President for External Affairs Roman Cooney said: “The University of Calgary has long-standing and publicly-stated concerns about Friends of Science using the University of Calgary’s name to infer that it has the University’s endorsement. Our response has included cease-and-desist directives to the Friends of Science from the University’s legal counsel. Most recently, following a reference to the University of Calgary in a newsletter from the head of Friends of Science … and under caution of legal action, I insisted that the Friends of Science provide the attached letter to clarify its relationship to the University of Calgary.”