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Climate Sceptic Thinktank Received Funding From Fossil Fuel Interests (theguardian.com) 90

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An influential thinktank that has led the backlash against the government's net zero policy has received funding from groups with oil and gas interests, according to tax documents seen by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy. From a report: Though the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning. The thinktank has always refused to disclose its donors, but tax documents filed with US authorities reveal that one of its donors has $30m of shares in 22 companies working in coal, oil and gas. Over four years the GWPF's US arm, the American Friends of the GWPF, received more than $1m from US donors. The vast majority of this, $864,884, was channelled to the UK group, with some being held back for expenses.

Of the $1.8m the GWPF has received in charitable donations since 2017, about 45% has come from the US. It received $210,525 in 2018 and 2020 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation -- set up by the billionaire libertarian heir to an oil and banking dynasty. The US-based foundation has $30m-worth of shares in 22 energy companies including $9m in Exxon and $5.7m in Chevron, according to its financial filings. Between 2016 and 2020, the American Friends of the GWPF received $620,259 from the Donors Trust, which is funded by the Koch brothers, who inherited their father's oil empire and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding the climate denial movement. "It is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy," said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
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Climate Sceptic Thinktank Received Funding From Fossil Fuel Interests More

Climate Sceptic Thinktank Received Funding From Fossil Fuel Interests

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  • There's nothing wrong with taking money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday May 05, 2022 @02:16PM (#62506830) Homepage Journal

    from people with an ax to grind. It's not wrong to take money to do a particular job for them. It's not even wrong to serve as a mouthpiece for them.

    Not disclosing that is a bit smarmy, and downright lying about it is wrong, and lying about that when you are lobbying or working with public officials to create policy should be illegal.

    • "There's nothing wrong with taking money from people with an ax to grind. It's not wrong to take money to do a particular job for them." -Old contract killer proverb
    • There is the other side of the coin, you are a lot more likely to get govmt funding for a weather science proposal if you attache 'global warming' to it somehow.

      • Unlikely.

        The people who grand funding are PhDs etc. and not some desk chair bureaucrats.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        Well you're going to get more research grants for cancer than for toe fungus. Is that somehow proof that medical research is corrupt?

        • Bias doesn't equal corrupt. But it does stifle science because a lot of worthwhile proposals are passed over for whatever is the science-du-jeur.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hey! ( 33014 )

            Are you judging from papers you have read?

            • I don't need to. Why don't you talk to some actual scientists that write grant proposals?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by hey! ( 33014 )

                I'm an engineer, not a scientist, but I've spent much of my career working with scientists; I've participated in many research proposals and have helped scientists respond to peer review comments, so I think I understand the character of the process better than most laymen.

                As for the issue itself, I'm married to a geophysicist -- although not a climate scientist -- and have been reading her subscription of Eos since the early 1980s, roughly around the time the current consensus on anthropogenic climate chan

                • I said no such thing, just that goverment funding is biased to whatever is politically and/or scientifically popular, global warming is just a subset of that. Get a grip.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by hey! ( 33014 )

                    What you said then is cognitively empty. How do you know a research topic is popular? It receives funding. It's circular.

                    We're back to toe fungus and cancer.

                    • Actually I have a good example. When the SSC funding was pulled in 1993, physics departments around the country were shuttered and I would suggest that the physics community hasn't fully recovered decades later. The SSC was hardly 'toe fungus' but among other things was cold war research meant to bolster the US prestige vs the USSR.There were lots of politics behind and in the end damaged the science community.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by hey! ( 33014 )

                      Which has nothing to do with climate change and research. I remember the SSC decision. The problem was that the projected cost had increased from 4.4 billion to 12 billion (24 billion in 2022 dollars). That's a huge cost overrun for a civilian program and with the project only a little more than complete you if you had similar cost overruns and delays you could be talking about a lot more money.

                      You're right there was an element of national prestige involved in deciding to start the program, but that's alw

    • Go to OpenSecrets, search for your favorite politician and do the same. DoJ should be investigating all of them since most of our current leadership has been on the take for 30-50 years without even disclosing it.

      If itâ(TM)s not wrong for our elected leaders to do, who cares about unelected interest groups with no real influence?

  • An influential thinktank that has led the backlash against the government's net zero policy

    This article is about the US, right?

    Since when did we pass a national "net zero policy" through congress and signed into law?

    I now I miss a lot of things, but this seems like something I would have heard on the news?

    • I know I miss a lot of things

      I gotta start proofreading better before I hit the post button.

      • I gotta start proofreading better before I hit the post button.

        And you gotta start reading to the end of the article before you hit the post button.

        "It is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy," said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment."

        • And you gotta start reading to the end of the article before you hit the post button.

          "It is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy," said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment."

          Ahh..thank you.

          But then again, this is slashdot...."read the article"?!?!

          Are you insane...?!?!

          ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kunwon1 ( 795332 )
      You'd miss a lot less if you stopped playing the 'credulous buffoon' card so readily. I know that's a lot to ask from a conservative, but at least try to keep up with the rest of the class

      https://www.whitehouse.gov/bri... [whitehouse.gov]

    • This article is about the US, right?

      Nope. From the fine summary:

      "It is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy," said Bob Ward...

      GWPF is a British organization, lobbying the British government.

      And from the very beginning, it's been quite clear that the global warming policy they favor is more of it.

      "I'm shocked! Shocked that fossil fuel funds are being transferred through this establishment!"

  • Congress couldn’t agree on what shape the earth is.

    https://www.sustainability.gov... [sustainability.gov]

    Executive order 14057

  • The Power of Big Oil (Score:4, Interesting)

    by poobah75 ( 2883043 ) on Thursday May 05, 2022 @02:50PM (#62506912)
    PBS has a brand new three part documentary about the oil industry's efforts to sow the seeds of doubt about the climate science.
    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/front... [pbs.org]

    After watching this documentary, the "Global Warming Policy Foundation" is likely a paid participant in the fight against the truth. Inaction is winning for the carbon intensive industries.

  • So... there's a "climate-sceptic thinktank" out there that ISN'T funded by entrenched chemical, mining, logging and/or fossil-fuel interests? These things don't come from organic grassroots activism, they come from lobbying and astroturfing and they've existed for decades. Shell Petroleum used to provide environmental education packs to schools and probably still does. These companies are SHAMELESS when it comes to misleading the public, bribing elected officials and other nefarious deeds including outright

  • Forbes reports [forbes.com] that the fossil fuel industry funds environmentalism and explains why: Environmentalists shut down nuclear plants which creates demand for fossil fuels.

    Over the last three years, the five largest publicly-traded oil and gas companies, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP, and Total invested a whopping one billion dollars into advertising and lobbying for renewables and other climate-related ventures...

    All of which raises the question: why, if renewable energy advocates like Greenpeace, AOC and Thunberg are such defenders of the climate, are they advocating the replacement of zero-pollution nuclear plants, which will require burning more fossil fuels?

  • If the government gets money from oil & gas and funds your study, don't you then get money from big oil & gas?

  • No thanks, I have a complete sewage recycling system
  • It doesn't seem to me like enough money to sell your soul over. If I'm going to sell out my principles and start shilling for some "axis of evil" cause I'd want a lot more than that to be rolling in, even if the purpose is bilking MAGAs.
  • Many Climate Change Think Tanks receive funds from individuals with vested interests in Carbon Trading companies, alternative energy sources, and solar power. Some donations even came from institutions or individuals that receive GRANTS to do Climate Change studies! One person who inherited money from their great grandfather even donated sums while working at a SOLAR PANEL company!

    Look, I can write this click-bait with either side of the debate!

    Next, you'll tell me that people donate money to the causes

    • No, the problem is described right there in the summary: " the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning. The thinktank has always refused to disclose its donors... "

      It's not that they are funded by fossil fuel money, it's the fact that they denied receiving such money, but wouldn't disclose where their funding did come from.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jnaujok ( 804613 )
        And they're not funded by fossil fuel money, except at two or three steps removed. GWPF is still not receiving funding from oil companies. They are receiving money from people who might ALSO be invested in fossil fuels or who might have vested interests in the results that the GWPF puts out. The larger question would be whether they received those funds before or after their first published white papers. In other words, did they write the white papers because of the money, or did they get more funding beca
  • It's still oil and gas companies, who claim they are trying to be more climate friendly, who are funding this are still the problem. They claim now to want to go green while still at the same time making huge actions to prevent it.

  • Scientists funded by government are motivated to argue for more government, because government is good for them. Everyone has biases, look for reproducible peer reviewed studies and ignore the rest regardless of source.

    • Also, ignore peer-reviewed articles because most of them are wrong and the reviewers tend to be biased, often based on who wrote the paper.

  • I keep thinking about such groups and individuals who fund climate change denial. And that they are obviously shrewd and smart, and once 'converted' could help the world in endless ways. But they don't stop. I think it is time to single them out and start litigation from the World Court (if that is a thing - if not then it should be).

  • Someone has discovered how politics works.

  • This is news, how? Youâ(TM)ll find that climate change think tanks are funded by green groups. This is implying something nefarious when yeah, things are more likely to supply money to other things thatâ(TM)s validate them.

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