4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change
New research for the first time has put a precise count on the people and groups working to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S., according to a paper published today in Nature Climate Change. ExxonMobil and the family foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch emerge as the most significant sources of funding for these skeptics. As a two-week United Nations climate summit begins today in Paris, it's striking to notice that a similarly vast infrastructure of denial isn't found in any other nation.
The role of ExxonMobil and the Kochs in influencing climate denial hadn't been empirically studied before now, according to Justin Farrell, an assistant professor of sociology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the author of the new paper. He said the flow of money from group to group and person to person is often opaque to researchers.
ExxonMobil has maintained for years that it does not fund denial of climate change. A spokesman pointed out that the company's $100 million founding commitment to Stanford University's Global Climate & Energy Project was made in 2002, right in the middle of the period covered by the Nature Climate Change study. Representatives for any of the Koch family foundations could not be reached for comment.
Farrell said he focused on ExxonMobil and the Koch foundations because "they are reliable indicators of a much larger effort of corporate lobbying in the climate change counter-movement." He examined Internal Revenue Service data showing which groups in the network of climate contrarians accepted funding from ExxonMobil or Koch foundations between 1993 and 2013. Recipients from those two sources tend to occupy central nodes in what he calls a "contrarian network." Groups funded by ExxonMobil or the Kochs "have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information," Farrell wrote.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/unearthing-america-s-deep-network-of-climate-change-deniers
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