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Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

Northern Light

Northern Light

The Light of Truth
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Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, operating out of a generic town house in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Donors Capital caters to those making donations of $1m or more.

"We exist to help donors promote liberty which we understand to be limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise," she said in an interview.

The ready stream of cash set off a conservative backlash against Barack Obama's environmental agenda that wrecked any chance of Congress taking action on climate change.

"These groups are increasingly getting money from sources that are anonymous or untraceable. There is no transparency, no accountability for the money. There is no way to tell who is funding them," Davies said.
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Cat's out of the bag. The funding demonstrates that the conservative agenda is not about actual science, but preserving their business model.

And although these think tanks have influence over government, the people donating to them can remain anonymous. Clandestined financial cabals such as these are the reason why democracy is threatened in most of the western world. They can use their massive fortunes to sway government without the public ever knowing who they are.

As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
 
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Northern Light said:
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks | Environment | guardian.co.uk



Cat's out of the bag. The funding demonstrates that the conservative agenda is not about actual science, but preserving their business model.

And although these think tanks have influence over government, the people donating to them can remain anonymous. Clandestined financial cabals such as these are the reason why democracy is threatened in most of the western world. They can use their massive fortunes to sway government without the public ever knowing who they are.

As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
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Would you say the IPCC is an unbiased/apolitical source for global climate trends?
 
ksu_aviator said:
The reason I ask is because the IPCC was caught using false data. While you claim that these organizations are biased, you don't provide any instances of false data.

BREAKING NEWS: scientist admits IPCC used fake data to pressure policy makers | Watts Up With That?
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Anthony Watts:

Anthony Watts (blogger) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Heartland Institute published Watts' initial report on weather station data, titled Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?[11]

Watts has been featured as a speaker at Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change, for which he acknowledges receiving payment.[48]

Documents obtained from the Heartland Institute and made public in February 2012 reveal that the Institute had agreed to help Watts raise $88,000 to set up a website, "devoted to accessing the new temperature data from NOAA's web site and converting them into easy-to-understand graphs that can be easily found and understood by weathermen and the general interested public."[49][50][51] The documents state that $44,000 had already been pledged by an anonymous donor, and the Institute would seek to raise the rest.[48]

Watts explained the funding by stating, "Heartland simply helped me find a donor for funding a special project having to do with presenting some new NOAA surface data in a public friendly graphical form, something NOAA themselves is not doing, but should be. I approached them in the fall of 2011 asking for help, on this project not the other way around."[52][53] and added, "They do not regularly fund me nor my WUWT website, I take no salary from them of any kind."[52][54]
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The Heartland Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian[2] public policy think tank based in Chicago, which advocates free market policies.[3][4][5][6] The Institute is designated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and has a full-time staff of 40, including editors and senior fellows.[7] The Institute was founded in 1984 and conducts research and advocacy work on issues including government spending, taxation, healthcare, tobacco policy, hydraulic fracturing[8] global warming, information technology, and free-market environmentalism.
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Lol... you supported his case by using a source who's been proven to do exactly as his case states. Failure of a magnitude 7.
 
Northern Light said:
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks | Environment | guardian.co.uk



Cat's out of the bag. The funding demonstrates that the conservative agenda is not about actual science, but preserving their business model.

And although these think tanks have influence over government, the people donating to them can remain anonymous. Clandestined financial cabals such as these are the reason why democracy is threatened in most of the western world. They can use their massive fortunes to sway government without the public ever knowing who they are.

As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
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Okay Let's begin with the democrats putting in safeguards that prevent anonymous/fake name contributions from overseas to their campaigns..........
 
Lol..."climate change".

Sorry the Libs didn't get to impose another arbitrary and capricious tax to fix.....nothing.

Conservatives saw Al Gore's computer generated lies and immediately were aware of a scam on a international basis.

As Gore made hundreds of millions off the scam of carbon trading and the primary scientific associations that were funded by LIBERAL DEMOCRATS fudged data we knew all along that it was just another scare tactic and money grab by the Democrats.

Green energy.....what a joke.

Germany built a solar power plant that can generate 2.2 Gigawatts of power.

Germans pay an extra 10% on their utillity bills for the upkeep of a power plant that delivers 5% of their total capacity.
 
I always have a critical logic and well common sense challenge with OP's like this. If it's really "secret" and everyone knows about it, they aren't very good at what they do are they?

A few other, well, elementary school level questions. When we can't predict tomorrow's weather, how, when the earth is billions of years old and we have 150 years of recorded data, are we able to predict future weather? So many people claim global warm.....er.....wait now it's climate chang......er....no now it's anthropogenic global climate change, is "scientific" and if you don't buy the (Uncle Joe's fav word) mularkey they offer you are a "science denier", yet those same people accept "consensus". How is this rationalized?? Please explain to me, using "scientific" principles (btw for the low information voters here, "consensus" is antithetical to "science"), how having the conclusion prior to even forming a hypothesis, let alone using ALL data available and not just seven trees that support your pre drawn conclusion, how you expect to be credible. What caused the end of the last ice age? How much CO2 was emitted during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius?

<scratching head>
 
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I knew, just knew that tanks would be involved. The NRA is behind this. This is way, way more than just another conspiracy theory.
 
ksu_aviator said:
But the confession came from within IPCC. My point is, both sides are politicized.
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NASA is not in it for the politics. Here is how the situation pans out in the case global warming isn't happening:

1. Global warming is not happening: We just end up taking measures which not only clear the air of pollution but also provide cleaner working environments for human beings, healthier ecosystems, etc.

2. Global warming isn't happening: We just keep dumping toxic waste into waterways, polluting the air, filling the earth up with garbage, destroying ecosystems.

If it's not happening and we take the wrong option, we still lose.
 
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Northern Light said:
As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
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Why? If there is a large number of forward-thinking progressive eco-friendly think tanks getting large flows of cash to promote an agenda they find sensible, why can't the other side do just the same?
 
Fiddytree said:
Why? If there is a large number of forward-thinking progressive eco-friendly think tanks getting large flows of cash to promote an agenda they find sensible, why can't the other side do just the same?
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Because one side is based on real science and the other side is pumping out pseudoscience to support a political agenda.

When is what's good for present and future generations going to take precedence over what multinational corporations want?
 
Northern Light said:
Because one side is based on real science and the other side is pumping out pseudoscience to support a political agenda.

When is what's good for present and future generations going to take precedence over what multinational corporations want?
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They are both political agendas, which is why I support both existing, without paranoid rhetoric.

When is what's good for present and future generations going to take precedence over what multinational corporations want?
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When we stop conflating "good for present and future generations" with being against moneyed interests.
 
Oceandan said:
A few other, well, elementary school level questions. When we can't predict tomorrow's weather, how, when the earth is billions of years old and we have 150 years of recorded data, are we able to predict future weather?
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You don't know the difference between a METEOROLOGIST and a CLIMATOLOGIST. For that matter, you don't seem to actually know what they study. Your question is kind of like confusing a BIOLOGIST with an ARCHEOLOGIST. Climatologists, don't predict the weather. They study weather conditions over a period of time. Climatology is based upon the empirical findings of Earth sciences like oceanography. Meteorologists in their own right don't 'predict' the weather either. That's what you could argue 'weathermen' do. Meteorology studies the ATMOSPHERE. This is so basic, it's almost ridiculous that I have to explain it. If you don't even know the differences between different sciences and what the sciences actually study, not what you think they do why not just go to your closest dictionary and look them up?

Information is key.
 
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Northern Light said:
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks | Environment | guardian.co.uk



Cat's out of the bag. The funding demonstrates that the conservative agenda is not about actual science, but preserving their business model.

And although these think tanks have influence over government, the people donating to them can remain anonymous. Clandestined financial cabals such as these are the reason why democracy is threatened in most of the western world. They can use their massive fortunes to sway government without the public ever knowing who they are.

As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
Click to expand...

But the people who are trying to prove climate change is man made get funding too right? Does that make them any different than these people who are getting funding to prove that its not man made? I fail to see how getting funding to do research automatically proves the thing they are researching is wrong...
 
Hatuey said:
You don't know the difference between a METEOROLOGIST and a CLIMATOLOGIST. For that matter, you don't seem to actually know what they study. Your question is kind of like confusing a BIOLOGIST with an ARCHEOLOGIST. Climatologists, don't predict the weather. They study weather conditions over a period of time. Climatology is based upon the empirical findings of Earth sciences like oceanography. Meteorologists in their own right don't 'predict' the weather either. That's what you could argue 'weathermen' do. Meteorology studies the ATMOSPHERE. This is so basic, it's almost ridiculous that I have to explain it. If you don't even know the differences between different sciences and what the sciences actually study, not what you think they do why not just go to your closest dictionary and look them up?

Information is key.
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If Climatologists have learned ANYTHING, its that the earth is in a constant state of flux. There is not period that the earth has existed that it has not been moving from one extreme to the other. This time is no exception. What kind of grand hallucination are we living in, that we think our very existence would stop the earth from changing. You expect that even though the earth has seen so many changes in climate, that since we can measure a few degrees difference and the sea level doesn’t remain constant, then its because of us. Wow you must have a really over inflated sense of self importance if you think you have that kind of power.
 
Dpetty said:
If Climatologists have learned ANYTHING, its that the earth is in a constant state of flux. There is not period that the earth has existed that it has not been moving from one extreme to the other. This time is no exception. What kind of grand hallucination are we living in, that we think our very existence would stop the earth from changing. You expect that even though the earth has seen so many changes in climate, that since we can measure a few degrees difference and the sea level doesn’t remain constant, then its because of us. Wow you must have a really over inflated sense of self importance if you think you have that kind of power.
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Your little pea in a giant bowl argument is boring me. It's not up for questioning that man is having an impact on the environment. All you have to do is look at the impact a city has on surrounding areas. Ruined waterways, entire ecosystems disappeared, sterile animal species etc. Now, please look up what 'climate studies' actually maintain being the reason for 'sea levels changing' or whatever other simplistic interpretation of the icecaps melting you have. You'll see that the reasons actually stated don't say nonsense like 'Man is doing it!' - Do you know what a heat trapping gas is?
 
Hatuey said:
Your little pea in a giant bowl argument is boring me. It's not up for questioning that man is having an impact on the environment. All you have to do is look at the impact a city has on surrounding areas. Ruined waterways, entire ecosystems disappeared, sterile animal species etc. Now, please look up what 'climate studies' actually maintain being the reason for 'sea levels changing' or whatever other simplistic interpretation of the icecaps melting you have. You'll see that the reasons actually stated don't say nonsense like 'Man is doing it!' - Do you know what a heat trapping gas is?
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Oh no, im boring you? Watch out everybody, Hatuey is getting bored!!!!! I never said man doesn’t have an effect on the ecosystem, but your comparing a ruined waterway, to global warming. You build a city, you remove the ecosystem that existed in its place, you cant always have both unless your advocating we live in trees. I know what "climate studies" attribute to rising sea levels, but they also attribute the same thing to the dwindling polar bear numbers, which as it turns out, aren’t dwindling at all. Its not realistic to think we can exist in our environment without causing a change in it. Our very existence dictates that! That doesn’t mean that every change our environment experiences is our fault, or that it wouldn’t happen with or without us.
 
Dpetty said:
Oh no, im boring you?
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No, reading is key here: Your argument is boring me. It's absurdly simplistic to anyone who has even the slightest definition of what 'climatology' actually means. It's stupid to anyone with a layman's knowledge of what 'climate change' is. Finally, it's discarded as 'retarded' by most climate scientists who are not on the payroll of an oil company. Now, your strawman arguments aside, do you know what a heat trapping gas is, yes or no?
 
When I examine conflicting opinions on an issue I look at the consensus of the experts and I look at who funds the opposing sides. That is why I give more credence to what 95% of the scientists say, and do not trust the opinions of those who are funded by interests that oppose regulations (i.e the oil and coal industries).
 
Hatuey said:
No, reading is key here: Your argument is boring me. It's absurdly simplistic to anyone who has even the slightest definition of what 'climatology' actually means. It's stupid to anyone with a layman's knowledge of what 'climate change' is. Finally, it's discarded as 'retarded' by most climate scientists who are not on the payroll of an oil company. Now, your strawman arguments aside, do you know what a heat trapping gas is, yes or no?
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Yes i know what heat trapping gas is, and i also know that we didnt invent it. I know that we can turn off every source of man made heat trapping gas, and will not eliminate it from our atmosphere. You call my argument simplistic and the only thing you can reply to is that your bored. Big deal. Climate change is as natural as natural selection. For all you know, the earth would benefit from a few extra degrees. Speaking of strawman arguments (a fallback argument) lets hear what you have to say next. Another rehash no doubt.
 
Fiddytree said:
They are both political agendas, which is why I support both existing, without paranoid rhetoric.
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Of course both can exist. That's freedom of speech. I'm referring to which should be given more weight, which is obviously wherever the science rings true. Environmental protections are necessary for public health and to ensure that everything isn't destroyed. The right-wing think tanks exist to ensure that big businesses don't have to change and can continue with their destructive profit model. They pump out study after study to try and contradict the science, all funded by the oil industry and other business lobbies; next to none of their "studies" achieve peer review, but that doesn't matter because they can still spin it in the media.

Fiddytree said:
When we stop conflating "good for present and future generations" with being against moneyed interests.
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Then we are in disagreement. Corporate lobbying is one of the biggest threats to our democratic way of life. It doesn't matter which party you look at, they are all getting their pockets lined with political donations. But let's call them what they actually are: bribes. How can every-day activism compete with companies that have the wealth of nations under their belt? It's out of control.

For the record I don't support huge lobbying from leftist environmental groups OR right wing industry groups. The government should be determining its support based on what is best for the nation as a whole and scientific assessment, not who is giving them the most bribes.

I just happen to be on the side of environmentalism because the peer reviewed science is overwhelmingly indicative that if we don't change our economic model, there are going to be serious consequences for future generations, as well as other species on this planet. Our path is not sustainable, and our government's ability to make clear decisions based on this fact should not be obstructed by bribery.
 
Hatuey said:
You don't know the difference between a METEOROLOGIST and a CLIMATOLOGIST. For that matter, you don't seem to actually know what they study. Your question is kind of like confusing a BIOLOGIST with an ARCHEOLOGIST. Climatologists, don't predict the weather. They study weather conditions over a period of time. Climatology is based upon the empirical findings of Earth sciences like oceanography. Meteorologists in their own right don't 'predict' the weather either. That's what you could argue 'weathermen' do. Meteorology studies the ATMOSPHERE. This is so basic, it's almost ridiculous that I have to explain it. If you don't even know the differences between different sciences and what the sciences actually study, not what you think they do why not just go to your closest dictionary and look them up?

Information is key.
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LOL See what I mean. Ask a question, the low information voters tell you, you don't even know the difference between a meteorologist and a climatologist! Uhm, Hatuey, we're talking about weather. Now you can claim in your ignorance, climatologists study climate. Do they have access to more information than's recorded? How long have climatologists been studying climate? What information are they using? I don't care what you call them, but that's the thing about liberals, they just keep making up terms. The climate is the weather. Your argument is a strawman. It's a HOAX! There is NO anthropogenic affect on the weather. No amount of "consensus" amongst your made up "scientists" will change same.

Btw....answer for me please how much carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere when Mount Vesuvius erupted as compared to amounts released since the start of "the industrial age".
 
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