{"id":7269,"date":"2014-02-03T12:23:33","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T17:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=7269"},"modified":"2014-02-03T12:38:46","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T17:38:46","slug":"climate-denials-dark-money-smoke-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/02\/03\/climate-denials-dark-money-smoke-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate denial&#8217;s &#8220;dark money&#8221; smoke machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-7273\" alt=\"SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930.jpg?resize=275%2C139\" width=\"275\" height=\"139\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since I was traveling at the time, I failed to note an interesting story that got covered in the science press about the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement.<\/p>\n<p>As reported in articles in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort\/\">Scientific American<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2013\/dec\/20\/conservative-groups-1bn-against-climate-change\">The Guardian<\/a>, and elsewhere, a recent peer-reviewed study published in <a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-1018-7#page-1\">Climatic Science<\/a> by sociologist Robert Brulle supports many claims that have been made by environmental scientists and activists documenting the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement &#8212; a close to $1 billion a year machine of nearly 100 organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Most revealingly (or rather, obscuringly), denialism has been able to cloak its funding sources behind what have effectively become &#8220;money laundering&#8221; operations like <!--more-->DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, &#8220;donor-directed foundations&#8221; whose funders cannot be traced, but which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort\/\">account\u00a0<\/a>for about a quarter of all &#8220;traceable&#8221; (!) foundation funding used by organizations that actively spread the climate denialist message.<\/p>\n<p>Among the study&#8217;s findings, as summarized in <a href=\"http:\/\/drexel.edu\/now\/news-media\/releases\/archive\/2013\/December\/Climate-Change\/\">this Drexel University press release<\/a>:\u00a0<span style=\"font-size: 14px;line-height: 1.5em\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Conservative foundations have bank-rolled denial.<\/strong>\u00a0The 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\u00a0<a name=\"2\"><\/a>Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. These foundations promote ultra-free-market ideas in many realms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Koch and ExxonMobil have recently pulled back from publicly visible funding.<\/strong>\u00a0From 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Funding has shifted to pass through untraceable sources.<\/strong>\u00a0Coinciding 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Most funding for denial efforts is untraceable.<\/strong>\u00a0Despite 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.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/Figure-1.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Figure 1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/Figure-1.png?resize=400%2C324\" width=\"400\" height=\"324\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For more on the climate change denial machine, see DeSmogBlog&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/global-warming-denier-database\">Global Warming Disinformation Database<\/a>, and Greenpeace&#8217;s extensive 2013 report <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/en\/campaigns\/global-warming-and-energy\/polluterwatch\/Dealing-in-Doubt---the-Climate-Denial-Machine-vs-Climate-Science\/\">Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Machine vs. Climate Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And for climate news more generally, the list of links from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sej.org\/library\/climate-change\/staying-up-to-date-publications-follow\">Society of Environmental Journalists<\/a> web site is as good a place to start as any.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;line-height: 1.5em\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since I was traveling at the time, I failed to note an interesting story that got covered in the science press about the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement. As reported in articles in Scientific American, The Guardian, and elsewhere, a recent peer-reviewed study published in Climatic Science by sociologist Robert Brulle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[520594,196,691215,4437],"tags":[58956,5710],"class_list":["post-7269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-politics","category-ecoculture","category-politics_postpolitics","category-science","tag-climate-denialism","tag-global-warming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1Tf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/02\/15\/climate-denialism-as-hysteria\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":0},"title":"climate denialism as hysteria?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dipping once again into the public debate around climate change science -- today it's in the responses to MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel's op-ed in the Boston Globe, to which no less than 15 comments were added in the couple of minutes it took me to write these first couple of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/02\/ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1359,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/10\/26\/the-house-of-cards-house-of-cards\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":1},"title":"the &#8220;house of cards&#8221; house of cards","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"For all my skepticism toward most \"climate skepticism,\" I find the case of Judith Curry very interesting. This recent post at her blog Climate Etc. repeatedly resorts to metaphors like \"'Alice down the rabbit hole' moments\" and \"bucket[s] of cold water being poured over my head\" to describe her experiences\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"house-of-cards.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/10\/house-of-cards.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10614,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/05\/04\/pandemic-epistemology-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":2},"title":"Pandemic epistemology 2","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been haunted by Ed Yong's description of science from the Atlantic article \"Why Coronavirus is So Confusing,\" which I shared a few days ago: \"This is how science actually works. It\u2019s less the parade of decisive blockbuster discoveries that the press often portrays, and more a slow, erratic stumble\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Science &amp; society&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Science &amp; society","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/science\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/amy_site_1_1588171117.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/amy_site_1_1588171117.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/amy_site_1_1588171117.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/amy_site_1_1588171117.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/amy_site_1_1588171117.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1177,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/01\/12\/climate-rage\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":3},"title":"climate rage","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a quick follow-up to the previous post... After the East Anglia flare-up, Paul Krugman was right to ask what fuels the rage behind climate denialism. Anyone who has perused any popular web site on environmental and climate issues will be struck both by the numbers and the utter vehemence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"climategate.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/01\/climategate.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13767,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/10\/15\/the-hurricane-conspiracy-complex\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":4},"title":"The hurricane conspiracy complex","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 15, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The big question around these back-to-back hurricanes in the southeast U.S. is not why they are happening (that\u2019s easy enough to answer), but why so many people find it easier to believe they were artificially generated by the U.S. government, the \u201cdeep state,\u201d FEMA, industry, or some euphemistic \u201cthey\u201d (and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/10\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1145,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/10\/30\/climate-change-supermodeling\/","url_meta":{"origin":7269,"position":5},"title":"climate change supermodeling?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kdz555JBIwY&hl=en&fs=1& Also published at Indications. Having just written a piece for Environmental Communication about the promises and pitfalls of cognitive science-based approaches to communicating about issues like climate change, I can't help commenting on this video and blog post that arrived this morning on my blog reader from identity campaigning,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/kdz555JBIwY\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7269"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7277,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269\/revisions\/7277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}