This is an interesting piece on how climate change denial is funded and how much is spent distorting the science. From between 2003 and 2010 $558 million was spent to deceive people about the fundamental risk climate change presents.
To uncover how the countermovement was built and maintained, Brulle developed a listing of 118 important climate denial organizations in the U.S. He then coded data on philanthropic funding for each organization, combining information from the Foundation Center with financial data submitted by organizations to the Internal Revenue Service. The final sample for analysis consisted of 140 foundations making 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations from 2003 to 2010.
Prominent supporters of climate change denial like the Kochs and ExxonMobil have also taken steps to conceal their funding of the deceptive campaign through bodies like Donors Trust.
Conservative foundations have bank-rolled denial. The largest and most consistent funders of organizations orchestrating climate change denial are a number of well-known conservative foundations, such as the Searle Freedom Trust, the John William Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. These foundations promote ultra-free-market ideas in many realms.
Koch and ExxonMobil have recently pulled back from publicly visible funding. From 2003 to 2007, the Koch Affiliated Foundations and the ExxonMobil Foundation were heavily involved in funding climate-change denial organizations. But since 2008, they are no longer making publicly traceable contributions.
Funding has shifted to pass through untraceable sources. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to denial organizations by the Donors Trust has risen dramatically. Donors Trust is a donor-directed foundation whose funders cannot be traced. This one foundation now provides about 25% of all traceable foundation funding used by organizations engaged in promoting systematic denial of climate change.
Most funding for denial efforts is untraceable. Despite extensive data compilation and analyses, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in contributions to climate change denying organizations can be specifically accounted for from public records. Approximately 75% of the income of these organizations comes from unidentifiable sources.
This is an interesting piece on how climate change denial is funded and how much is spent distorting the science. From between 2003 and 2010 $558 million was spent to deceive people about the fundamental risk climate change presents.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-koch-brothers-reveals-funders-climate.html
To uncover how the countermovement was built and maintained, Brulle developed a listing of 118 important climate denial organizations in the U.S. He then coded data on philanthropic funding for each organization, combining information from the Foundation Center with financial data submitted by organizations to the Internal Revenue Service. The final sample for analysis consisted of 140 foundations making 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations from 2003 to 2010.
Prominent supporters of climate change denial like the Kochs and ExxonMobil have also taken steps to conceal their funding of the deceptive campaign through bodies like Donors Trust.
Conservative foundations have bank-rolled denial. The largest and most consistent funders of organizations orchestrating climate change denial are a number of well-known conservative foundations, such as the Searle Freedom Trust, the John William Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. These foundations promote ultra-free-market ideas in many realms.
Koch and ExxonMobil have recently pulled back from publicly visible funding. From 2003 to 2007, the Koch Affiliated Foundations and the ExxonMobil Foundation were heavily involved in funding climate-change denial organizations. But since 2008, they are no longer making publicly traceable contributions.
Funding has shifted to pass through untraceable sources. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to denial organizations by the Donors Trust has risen dramatically. Donors Trust is a donor-directed foundation whose funders cannot be traced. This one foundation now provides about 25% of all traceable foundation funding used by organizations engaged in promoting systematic denial of climate change.
Most funding for denial efforts is untraceable. Despite extensive data compilation and analyses, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in contributions to climate change denying organizations can be specifically accounted for from public records. Approximately 75% of the income of these organizations comes from unidentifiable sources.
Most funding for denier groups comes from conservatives--hard line capitalists who don't want any interference in their capitalistic ventures or anything that cuts into their profits. Any laws that come down on their business interests are, according to them, a left-wing plot to create a socialist government. Any law that interferes with their exploitation of land, the environment or people for their profits is suspect to them. That is what is behind their habit of demonizing of people who see danger in human caused climate change. The capitalists and wannabe capitalists (who are legion) will deny anything that has even a whiff of what they see as socialism in it.
Most funding for denier groups comes from conservatives--hard line capitalists who don't want any interference in their capitalistic ventures or anythingbthat cuts into their profits. Any laws that come down on their business interests are, according to them, a left-wing plot to create a socialist government. Any law that interferes with their exploitation of land, the environment or people for their profits is suspect to them. That is what is behind their habit of demonizing of people who see danger in human caused climate change. The capitalists and wannabe capitalists (wjo are legion) will deny anything that has even a whiff of what they see as socialism in it.
There's an almost religious like zeal with the committed contrarians, which includes making serious threats against people who question their belief system on the subject.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/25/exclusive-climate-change-philosopher-target-abusive-hate-campaign
“DIE you maggot," reads one of the hundreds of emails from climate science deniers that have dropped into philosopher Lawrence Torcello’s inbox in recent days.
“Fortunately, your kind will be marched to the wall with all the other leftist detritus," says another.
Others accuse Torcello, an assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Department of Philosophy in the west of New York State, of being a fascist, Stalinist and a Nazi.
The catalyst for the bilious outpouring was an article Torcello had written for The Conversation website arguing there was “good reason to consider" that “the funding of climate denial" was morally and criminally negligent.
Are you familiar with “Exxon Secrets”?
It’s a little out of data, so serves as sort of a historical record of the financing that helped stifle
all serious action to curb CO2 while it was much easier than it will be at this late stage of the game. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php
It’s a Greenpeace project and they have a FAQ page Greenpeace USA: For People and Planet
But see, you don’t fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They’ve literally turned “facts and reason” into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here’s the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here’s the biggest coward of all…they’re afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don’t have the skills and technology. You love America? Here’s the most un-American company of all…they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc…
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.The truth will out? What kind of drivel is that? I heard something on the radio the other day. It was a story about President James Madison's wife writing to him about women's rights to vote. It took over 100 years from the time of her writing to when women had the right to vote. If you call that "the truth will out...and make things right" you're nuts. We don't have that long to do something about GCC.
Who can fund it? If there was a coordinated global effort, I'd say started by a celebrity, I'll bet the funding could be found to do all the things I mentioned. Warren Buffett? 1 bil. Bill Gates? 1 bil. Oprah? 250 mil. And that's just three people.
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.
How long did it take the truth to come out about the danger in smoking tobacco, and how many lives were lost in the meantime? Some things are too dangerous to society to wait for the truth to come out of it's own accord. When contamination is found in food or drugs, or when drugs are shown to be inherently dangerous, should we just wait until the truth comes out of its own accord?
Lois
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.The truth will out? What kind of drivel is that? I heard something on the radio the other day. It was a story about President James Madison's wife writing to him about women's rights to vote. It took over 100 years from the time of her writing to when women had the right to vote. If you call that "the truth will out...and make things right" you're nuts. We don't have that long to do something about GCC.
Who can fund it? If there was a coordinated global effort, I'd say started by a celebrity, I'll bet the funding could be found to do all the things I mentioned. Warren Buffett? 1 bil. Bill Gates? 1 bil. Oprah? 250 mil. And that's just three people.
We´re already doing much of that, short of armed rebellion there´s not much more that can be done besides suing the people responsible. And if things continue the way they are now then there probably will be the use of force to remove governments that are unwilling to do anything.
My point about the truth is, it´s impossible to hide something as massive as global climate change, so the frauds trying to fool the public can´t keep it up much longer and will also have to resort to force to impose the kind of madness we´re seeing now.
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.
How long did it take the truth to come out about the danger in smoking tobacco, and how many lives were lost in the meantime? Some things are too dangerous to society to wait for the truth to come out of it's own accord. When contamination is found in food or drugs, or when drugs are shown to be inherently dangerous, should we just wait until the truth comes out of its own accord?
Lois
I agree, I don't support waiting, I think this should have been dealt with at least starting in the late 1980s. I think that part of the solution should be class action lawsuits directed at the fossil fuel sector and anyone supporting climate change denial, it may be time to take this into the legal arena.
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
Funded by who, the people with the most to lose by the changes we need to make are the same ones with some of the deepest pockets. The fossil fuel industry has over $1 Trillion in sales a year world wide.
The truth will out in the end, it just takes time, by trying to play the same game the fossil fuel sector is, we could make the situation worse not better.
How long did it take the truth to come out about the danger in smoking tobacco, and how many lives were lost in the meantime? Some things are too dangerous to society to wait for the truth to come out of it's own accord. When contamination is found in food or drugs, or when drugs are shown to be inherently dangerous, should we just wait until the truth comes out of its own accord?
Lois
I agree, I don't support waiting, I think this should have been dealt with at least starting in the late 1980s. I think that part of the solution should be class action lawsuits directed at the fossil fuel sector and anyone supporting climate change denial, it may be time to take this into the legal arena.
Indeed,yes.
Lois
But see, you don't fight this kind of hate and denial with facts and figures or reasoned argument. They've literally turned "facts and reason" into a leftist plot. The only approach I can think of is massive spending to publically shame the deniers: You hate welfare queens? Here's the biggest one of them all, Exxon. You hate cowardice? Here's the biggest coward of all...they're afraid to tackle climate change because they know for a fact they don't have the skills and technology. You love America? Here's the most un-American company of all...they shipped # dollars offshore away from helping other Americans, etc...
A massive unrelenting campaign of TV ads, movies, celebs, you name it, to publically shame the Kochs and Exxons of the world.
I try that too, but with poor results -
So, as appealing as it seems, I know the problem with that suggestion is that the double standard is too huge -
the denialist side is allowed all the freedom in the world to insult and slander and endlessly repeat known lies -
the science side is expected not just to be perfectly honest (fair enough, that one) but, also to remain politically correct and polite no what the denialist tosses in one's face.
Case in point...
Of Recursive Fury, SkepticForum and science denialist's strategy of harassment
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/03/recursivefury-skepticforum-tactics.html
Check out the insanity Joe Bast of Heartland Institute pounds out with conviction… and Forbes' magazine, supposed an esteemed magazine intended for intelligent adults, is more than happy to print it.
Forbes Follies - Joe Bast Deliberately Excludes And Misrepresents Important Climate Science
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/04/forbes-follies-joe-bast-lies.html
Check out the insanity Joe Bast of Heartland Institute pounds out with conviction… and Forbes' magazine, supposed an esteemed magazine intended for intelligent adults, is more than happy to print it.
Forbes Follies - Joe Bast Deliberately Excludes And Misrepresents Important Climate Science
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/04/forbes-follies-joe-bast-lies.html
As soon as you see the name Fred Singer you know that this is industry funded and controlled distortions that are already costing us many lives and billions of dollars a year.
But happily, an international group of scientists I have been privileged to work with has conducted an independent review of IPCC’s past and new reports, along with the climate science they deliberately exclude or misrepresent.
Our group, called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), was founded in 2003 by a distinguished atmospheric physicist, S. Fred Singer, and has produced five hefty reports to date, the latest being released today (March 31).
So how do the IPCC and NIPCC reports differ?
And when you really think about it, it's the majority of us that need to be getting very aggressive with the deniers instead of the other way around, they're putting all our lives and our very future at risk for profit.
And when you really think about it, it's the majority of us that need to be getting
very aggressive with the deniers instead of the other way around,
they're putting all our lives and our very future at risk for profit.