Koch
Industries, ExxonMobil disappear from traceable public databases after 2007.
By Douglas Fischer, The Daily Climate
The largest, most-consistent money fueling the climate denial movement are a number of well-funded conservative foundations built with so-called "dark money," or concealed donations, according to an analysis released December 20.
The study, but Drexel University
environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, is the first academic effort to probe
the organizational underpinnings and funding behind the climate denial
movement.
It found that the amount of money
flowing through third-party, pass-through foundations like Donors Trust and
Donors Capital, whose funding cannot be traced, has risen dramatically over the
past five years.
Meanwhile the traceable cash flow
from more traditional sources, such as Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, has
disappeared.
The study was published December 20
in the journal Climatic Change.
"The climate change
countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure
of the world to act on global warming," Brulle said in a statement.
"Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight –
often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians – but behind
the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and
producers."
"If you want to understand
what's driving this movement, you have to look at what's going on behind the scenes."
Consistent funders
To uncover that, Brulle developed a
list of 118 influential climate denial organizations in the United States. He
then coded data on philanthropic funding for each organization, combining
information from the Foundation
Center, a database of global philanthropy, with financial data
submitted by organizations to the Internal Revenue Service.
According to Brulle, the largest and
most consistent funders where a number of conservative foundations promoting
"ultra-free-market ideas" in many realms, among them the Searle
Freedom Trust, the John Williams Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable
Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
Another key finding: From 2003 to
2007, Koch Affiliated Foundations and the ExxonMobil Foundation were
"heavily involved" in funding climate change denial efforts. But
Exxon hasn't made a publically traceable contribution since 2008, and Koch's
efforts dramatically declined, Brulle said.
Coinciding with a decline in
traceable funding, Brulle found a dramatic rise in the cash flowing to denial
organizations from Donors Trust,
a donor-directed foundation whose funders cannot be traced. This one
foundation, the assessment found, now accounts for 25 percent of all traceable
foundation funding used by organizations promoting the systematic denial of
climate change.
A call and e-mail to Donors Trust
was not immediately returned.
Matter of democracy
In the end, Brulle concluded public
records identify only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars
supporting climate denial efforts. Some 75 percent of the income of those
organizations, he said, comes via unidentifiable sources.
And for Brulle, that's a matter of
democracy. "Without a free flow of accurate information, democratic
politics and government accountability become impossible," he said.
"Money amplifies certain voices above others and, in effect, gives them a
megaphone in the public square."
Powerful funders, he added, are
supporting the campaign to deny scientific findings about global warming and
raise doubts about the "roots and remedies" of a threat on which the
science is clear.
"At the very least, American
voters deserve to know who is behind these efforts."
The Daily Climate is an independent, foundation-funded news
service that covers climate change. Find us on Twitter @TheDailyClimate or
email editor Douglas Fischer at dfischer [at] DailyClimate.org. Find more Daily Climate stories in the TDC Newsroom
