Corporate Crude

Environmental campaigners and other humourless persons have expressed concern because an institution which received corporate sponsorship agreed not to discredit or damage the sponsor's reputation. The institution is the Science Museum in London, which claimed not to have been censored by the oil companies, Shell and Equinor, whose money it was taking. This claim was corroborated by Equinor, which stated that the museum had imposed the gagging clause on itself without needing so much as a hint from the benefactor. The museum stated that all its contracts assert its editorial control so clearly and unambiguously that the standard clause in which the museum clearly and unambiguously gave up its editorial control would be taken out of future contracts. Possibly this sudden attack of independence will enable the Science Museum to publicise the climate research by Exxon and others from the 1950s onward, the emergence of which has done so much to demonstrate the business community's dedication to scientific rigour.