But Prof Callum Roberts of York University, one of 86 environmental academics who wrote in protest to Benyon in April, rejects that as "spin" and a "misleading excuse".
Flattau is the author of Tracking the Charlatans (Global Horizons Press, 1998), a rebuttal of ultra-conservative and Libertarian environmentalism critics, which received positive reviews and has been widely circulated in environmental and academic circles.
"Ministers and officials also have close relationships with smaller, independent and newer players in the energy market, with environmental and academic organisations, and in all instances steps are taken to avoid any conflicts of interest".
In London, he holds dinners that bring together environmental advocates, academics and executives.
A loose coalition of environmental scientists, academics, and retired officials opposed the government.
The letter, written by the environmental science academics Martine Maron and Carla Catterall, suggests that opposition to the laws in the face of detailed cases of support by hundreds of scientific experts amounts to ignoring the science.
On the other hand, if your prior bias is toward the idea that there is a massive plot by huge multinational environmental corporations, academics and hippies to deprive you of the right to drive the kids to school in a humvee, you will place a much lower weight on mounting evidence of anthropogenic climate change.
The MSC label, whose criteria were designed by environmental NGOs, academics and commercial interests, often carries a price premium at the shop counter.
This is the fault not of academic environmental research, which is balanced and competent, he says, but rather of "the communication of environmental knowledge, which taps deeply into our doomsday beliefs".
It would be wrong to be dogmatic about this, which is a tendency in some of the academic environmental economics literature.
