Prof. Brulle (Drexel Uni, Phil) claims IRS helped track secret donations
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Prof. Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist of Drexel University, Phil., has published a study allegedly accusing “deniers” of being sock puppets in the pay of “dark money” from big oil.
According to the story, Prof. Brulle enlisted IRS help tracking a correlation between big oil bogeymen such as the Koch Brothers withdrawing funding from climate studies, and significant increases in funding from other organizations such as the Donor’s Trust and Donor’s Capital Fund.
Quite apart from the outrageous invasion of privacy, if the IRS did actually lend special assistance to the study, the mundane explanation, that lead authors of studies simply turned to other sources when some donors withdrew their support, was not good enough for Prof. Brulle.
Instead, Brulle allegedly asserts the existence of a “dark money” conspiracy – a deliberate attempt to conceal the true sources of funding, by using a network of shadowy donor groups.
“The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” said Brulle. “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, in the form of conservative foundations.
All I can say Anthony, is where is my dark money cheque? I’ve been sending you these scripts for ages, so far not a dime :-).
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Some other viewpoints on this claim.
Dr. Lubos Motl: We received 1 billion dollars
‘Congratulations to all of us. A possible problem – one pointed out to me by the Galileo Movement via Twitter – is that I may find out that we just “may have received” the billion instead of the phrase “did receive” it.’ — ‘The funding of climate skepticism work is at most something of order $10 million a year and much if not most of the most influential work is being done on a budget that is smaller than that by additional orders of magnitude…This figure should be compared to $80 billion that have been paid to promote the climate hysteria pseudoscience, mostly in the recent decade or two…If Suzanne Goldenberg believes that the purpose of this funding is to change people’s minds, well, then I must say that the climate skeptics are more efficient by almost 4 orders of magnitude.’
Marc Morano:
This new study and the media reports surrounding it are pure bunk! The study counts all money raised by all conservative groups as somehow being for global warming issues! But the study itself admits this is not true.
Tom Nelson:
After UK Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg makes a large, fraudulent claim about climate change spending, it gets very quietly ‘fixed’ with the addition of weasel words ‘may’ and ‘up to’
Conservative groups have spent $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change
…This headline on this article was amended on 21 December 2013 to reflect that not all the $1bn referred to will have funded climate change work.
Twitter / kaleekreider: @DanJWeiss @pourmecoffee Bob …
@DanJWeiss @pourmecoffee Bob Bruelle says headline misleading. $1billion is total avail not total spent on climate. I will forward email.
Update: Robert Brulle pushes back on Suzanne’s fraud here.
‘sock puppets in the pay of “dark money” from big oil.’
Great news. Where’s mine? Who’s nicked my pay cheque?
In case the UK branch of Sceptics International Fry The Planet Eat Babies Roast the Grandkids Corp has another PAYG gettogether after Christmas in the pub, I’ll need a few quid to buy my Fish and Chips and bus fare (£7 and £1.90 respectively – a total of about $13US)
Confession: I once had a free cup of coffee – and TWO chocolate chip cookies courtesy of the high rolling GWPF. And I saw Josh the Cartoonist buying McSteve a beer.
For UK, accusations of Big Money for sceptical voices are entirely ludicrous.
Prof. Robert Brulle MAY have received dark money to write this research. The sums COULD amount to several millions of (possibly) USD.
Anthony, you are a PROBABLE Millionaire!
Why is it that I’m thinking that the same rigorous standards are being used to feed these conspiracy theories as the climate alarmists “science”?
“Brulle’s team … listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). They found that 91 organizations have received a TOTAL of $558 million from 2003 to 2010. However, they clarified that these amount were not all spent on climate change studies. However, 75 percent of their funds were “dark money.”
$69.75 million a year average.
And how much does the global warming side receive?
This story says $4 billion – or $10.6 million per DAY – in 2011.
http://www.thegwpf.org/how-much-money-are-us-taxpayers-wasting-on-climate-change-try-106-million-a-day/
Orig link to data – Go to Chapter 15:
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/rdreport2011/
“Four billion dollars to study climate change — and that’s just for this year!
Check the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 2011 budget request, and go tochapter 15: Climate Change in the FY 2011 Budget. The numbers are staggering. In 2011, your government will spend $10.6 million a day to study, combat, and educate about climate change.
The big winner in the climate change money train is the National Science Foundation — they are requesting $1.616 billion. They want $766 million for the Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability program, a 15.9% increase from their last budget. They also need another $370 million for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), an increase of 16%. They say they also need another $480 million for Atmospheric Sciences, an increase of 8.1%, and Earth Sciences, up 8.7%.
Oh, and $955 million for the Geosciences Directorate, an increase of 7.4%.
The second largest request for money in 2011 comes from the Department of Energy. They say they need $627 million for things like funding for renewable energy. The request represents a whopping 37% increase from last year! They want a 12% increase for energy efficiency programs. They want to eliminate $2.7 billion of subsidies for industries that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide.
Let’s get NASA in on the parade! For 2011, NASA wants $438 million to study climate change, an increase of 14%. NASA’s total Earth Sciences budget request is actually $1.8 billion. Some $809 million of that is for satellites, some of which are specifically put in orbit to study climate change. It is difficult to separate out which ones are for climate monitoring and which ones are not, so I won’t include this number in the overall climate change money train. But make no mistake: a significant percentage of the $809 million is exclusively for climate change satellites.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is looking for $437 million for climate research. This is an increase of 21.4% from the previous budget. This includes funds for regional and national assessments of climate change, including ocean acidification. Once again, another meaty bag of money to tap into for researchers, who have nice cars and big houses and need to keep up the payments.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) is also interested in robbing the climate change vault — they say they need $244 million in 2011. Of this total, $171 million is for the Climate Change Adaptation initiative. This program identifies areas and species that are most vulnerable to climate change, and implements coping strategies. Another $73 million is needed for the New Energy Frontier initiative. The goal of this program is to increase solar, wind, and geothermal energy capacity.
Solar and wind power don’t survive without this government funding.
Is that $14 trillion making sense yet?
Of course, there’s more. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants $169 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of 1%. Do you believe that next year greenhouse gases will be reduced by the EPA spending $169 million? I would bet the ranch that greenhouse gases will continue to increase next year, and the year after that, and the year after that despite EPA spending your money.
Is there any government agency that does not get some climate change funding? The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants $338 million for climate change programs. They want $159 million for climate change research, up a whopping 42%. They also want another $179 million for renewable energy, an increase of 41%! The USDA’s climate change efforts are supposed to help farm and land owners adapt to the impacts of climate change. Yes, really.”
Were the two chocolate chip cookies free as well?
Were you accepting a bribe?
I got a grant from Exxon for mine…..
Brulle got the figure all wrong.
It should be a few tens of trillions, not a billion, anti AGW money a year.
Much more than half the world population doesn’t believe in AGW (counting in India and China)
So in the spirit of the article, all their income should all be counted as anti-AGW money.
May I suggest Professor Stephan Lewandowsky as an experienced peer reviewer for this study?
Another source – the White House itself – 2013 Climate Change funding $22 BILLION – yes with a “B” for 2013 and $21.5 Billion next year:
“The White House reported to House Republicans that there are 18 federal agencies engaged in global warming activities in 2013, funding a wide range of programs, including scientific research, international climate assistance, incentivizing renewable energy technology and subsidies to renewable energy producers. Global warming spending is estimated to cost $22.2 billion this year, and $21.4 billion next year.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/28/global-warming-gets-nearly-twice-as-much-taxpayer-money-as-border-security/#ixzz2oNaJU7X6
Yep – $69 million average over 8 years compared to $20+BILLION according to the White House Report to Congress …. that sure is a blockbuster finding Mr. Brulle.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/12/23/talking-point-born-1-billion-action-climate-change/
Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, represents a couple dozen non-profit organizations whose 501c(3) applications have been in limbo at IRS for over 3 years. He ought to send a subpoena to Robert Brulle and Drexler Univ, for information on who at IRS provided them with information, information at first blush seems to have been provide illegally.
Twitter: @JaySekulow, @ACLJ
Hard not to laugh when The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are listed as funding the denial machine. And the Chamber of Commerce of The US’ entire revenue is part of the conspiracy?
Pull the other one – it’s got icicles on it.
still waiting for my check
“Prof. Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist of Drexel University, ……”
Presumably a suckler at the public teat. Oh the irony.
And they still complain about “Conspiracy Theories” on the “Deniers” side of things!
The problem with this model of the Warmist Universe in which Dark Funding is thrown at anti-warmists by big oil is that they do not tell me where to apply for this funding for my new blog:
“Skeptical Contrarian Denier”. This information would both give credibility to their arguments and help me luxuriate in the fossil fuel lifestyle to which I want to become accustomed.
I kind of like that now humans know the future with 95% certainty. This sort of thing used to be the domain of palm readers and crystal ball oracles. Now, it’s mainstream science.
According to this link: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/ar2012_low_res.pdf the WWF Network had an income of EUR 593 million in 2012 – about $810 million. The “dark money” of “$558 million from 2003 to 2010” does not seem quite so impressive now.
Also, if they want to find out about “dark money” shouldn’t they be talking to Tides? Do these people really not know how the AGW side is funded or are they choosing not to look?
And just who exactly has been receiving this dark money? I tried to follow the trail, mostly through melodramatic and misleading Guardian articles. Assuming the story is true, which I seriously doubt, then my estimate of how much annually alarmists outspend sceptics has dropped from 1,500 to 1, to 1,000 to 1.
In my wanderings I came across this delightful statement from His Alarmism James Hansen.
Environmental groups….fear of losing funding…..following a false energy policy? Perish the thought. how could that be true? Sarc off/
“Hansen called the policy of scaling back nuclear power ‘a big mistake’ and claimed that ‘environmental groups for fear of losing funding would prevent a successful fight against climate change by following a false energy policy.'”
All you deniers, stop confusing the issue with facts.
These people are an expensive joke! What if “deniers” have been paid a couple of £/$billion? So what? The climate evangelists have been paid many times that to try to prove something that has not been happening for 18 years.
An explanation of the mindset of these people is given in Christopher Booker’s excellent “Sunday Telegraph” column. I have copied and pasted it below:
“The most interesting response to my item last week on how the BBC’s coverage of so many issues is shaped and distorted by a one-sided “narrative” was from a reader directing me to a passage on “group-think” in The Blunders of Governments, by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe. They quote the brilliant analysis of the symptoms of this phenomenon by the Yale psychologist Irving J Janis in his book The Victims of Group Think. Janis shows how group-think creates in those caught up in it a false sense of “consensus”, which is unable to accept any alternative viewpoint or evidence that contradicts it.
His portrayal of how the victims of group-think get so carried away by the moral rightness of their cause that they cannot tolerate any dissent from it helps us to understand not just the collective psychology of the BBC but many other examples in our time: not least that “consensus” on global warming.
His account of “the illusion of unanimity”, and how group-thinkers regard anyone daring to question their belief-system as an “enemy” to be discredited, superbly characterises the mentality of that small group of “climate scientists” at the heart of driving the warming scare.
This was never more clearly brought home than by those Climategate emails, showing how they were ready to fiddle their data to promote what they themselves called “the cause”, and to suppress the views of any scientists they saw as a threat to their illusory “consensus”.
We all casually use the term “group-think”, but I had not known how comprehensively Janis explains so much that is puzzling about this world we live in. I am grateful to David Samuel-Camps for alerting me to it.”
What is the legal definition of a “climate change denial organisation”? What are the minimum reqirements to match Bruelle’s definition? I suppose Bruelle has no definition at all for that and IMHO he is travelling on some sort of “define-as-you-please”-ticket.
the perfect counterpoint. Canadian conservative/libertarian media personality, Ezra Levant – with whom i do not always agree – investigates the hypocrisy of David Suzuki, with lots of scathing stuff on taxpayer-funded CBC along the way. a must watch:
Approx 54 mins: FULL EPISODE: Ezra Levant confronts David Suzuki
The White House reported to House Republicans that there are 18 federal agencies engaged in global warming activities.
Now there is a statement I could sorta believe in. Except it is probably more than 18. But only if you buy into waste = global warming.
Readers may be interested in the EU’s policy of funding green groups to lobby..the EU!
The gravy train is never-ending
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10532853/European-Union-funding-90m-green-lobbying-con.html
‘environmental sociologist’ so a comedy duo then !
But we can at least all sleep easy in our beds when we learn that the same sources of ‘dirty money ‘ becomes, by a miracle that makes water truing into wine look like a poor magic track , cleaned beyond godliness when its seen to support ‘the cause ‘ as seen in the funds Shell, BP etc pay out to the IPCC, CRU etc
The real problem is that they simply cannot understand how they have failed, with what they though was ‘everything ‘ on their side the idea that small group of people with little funding , who they have often labelled as ‘fools’ , can beat them is one they cannot deal with. And so the ‘need’ for conspricy dark or otherwise comes about.
Frankly their failure to understand what went wrong and their highly negative and counter-productive approach to correct their failings , is something we should be more than happy about .
The more they resort to childish name calling , out right lying and the use of smoke and mirrors, the less political traction they have .
The paper is available here:
http://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing%20Delay%20-%20Climatic%20Change.ashx
As I’m skimming for first time I suspect it’ll be due a “5 Lewandowsky” rating.
Worthless and ridiculous. Because, sociologist.
Exactly. I’ve been an active denier since 2007, where’s my money?
Sorry, you can’t claim anything. Show your Hockeystick-Carving-Diploma first.
Elaborate Orwellian bulls***.
And exactly what has that money supposedly been spent on? A few dozen skeptical blogs?
And…. an ‘environmemenal sociologist’….?
Funding must be pretty dang good over there if they can afford to throw cash at specialized sociologists!
Must have cost a fortune to pay the seas to have their rate of rise decelerating.
Even if it was true, so what? Wealthy people are allowed to have opinions too, and make donations to who they want, subject to the law. It’s called philanthropy. On the warmist side, the Grantham Institute for Climate Change in the UK was partly founded on the money from a wealthy individual. And his name is Jeremy Grantham.
I’m with Bullocky. Prof. Robert Brulle and Prof. Lewnydumski are a perfect match. Psycho-socio-climatology meets dumpster diving.
A good example of how easy it is for this field to just exaggerate and distort everything.
The reason there are skeptics in the first place is because of this propensity to default to non-truthfulness as a first response. It is who they are.
And we are just supposed to accept the propositions of the science. From people who are perfectly fine with non-truthfulness.
This is exactly how the poltical narrative of the Left works. Some does a study which has, arguably, a shred of truth. As Morano notes, weasle words are inserted. The published study is picked up be a few opinion-activist journalists along with inserting straw men and what if’s. When the first media “reports” hit the public, the MSM follows along and echos the study and “as reported” treating it as fact. Then it’s repeated. And repeated. And repeated. The takeaway is not what’s “reported” but what’s repeated, ala Goebbels. “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”
Actually, the “big oil” straw man used by Brulle is part of the “repeating”. Try countering with “Everyone believes this is just another lie from the warmests”.
Obtw, one really should believe the claim about the IRS.
I got a “free” T-Shirt from Energy Citizens, for an afternoon of my time. Does that count?
So Prof. Brulle can surely help me get my dark money for being sceptical. After all I’m certain that neither he nor his university take any money from energy companies. Right?
Drexel Univiversity with almost 2 billion in assets much of it received from dark money paid no income taxes last year by using a tax loop hole.
I’d be embarrassed to write something like that. But, I’m not an environmental sociologist and am in the pay of industry. Great silly early morning reading.
Was Prof. Brulle able to identify the Accounts Payable address for this dark money? I have backlog of invoices to submit.
I don’t like this at all, primarily because there are fools who believe this nonsense.
The prospect of being seen as a sort of Doctor Frankenstein, and greeting a mob with burning torches at the front door of my modest castle, doesn’t exactly appeal to me. But…O well, I’ll do my best to invite them in and charm them with hospitality and reason. And if the fools who swallow Robert Brulle’s paranoia prefer empty-eyed hate to my amazing charm, I will have gone down standing for Truth.
We all have to go sometime, and I’d hate to look back during my final moments and realize I made up data and perpetuated untruths just to lick government boots for filthy lucre. I don’t do this, and wouldn’t even know where to begin. I wonder how it is that Professor Brulle knows so much about the subject. Has he done it?
Likely his school does receive funding from people who have a vested interest in promoting Alarmism. Maybe he assumes that, because he can’t survive without such funding, it must be the way of the world. (A sort of “projection,” if you want the psychological term for this sort of insanity.)
Confectionary manufacturers last week stated they had no involvement whatsoever in the production of chocolate teapots.
This claim has been hotly disputed by Professor Brulles**t, using only an abacus stated he has incontrovertible proof that millions of chocolate tea pots, which are causing catastrophic global warming, are being produced in facilities deep within disused mine shafts throughout the known world.
Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all.
http://www.drexel.edu/culturecomm/contact/facultyDirectory/brulle/
I do not see any expertise in climate science in training or research
It looks like he made up a academic program so he would have a job as he looks like the only professor involved.
>>The takeaway is not what’s “reported” but what’s repeated, ala Goebbels. “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” <<
@cedarhills: compared with the IPCC techniques of distortion and omitting, Goebbels was bungling.
hopefully the search for the darkmoney will lead to the discovery of all the missing dark matter
Hysterical, paranoid, tripe – but I think the word Bulls**t best describes this rubbish. How can somone so educated be so stupid. Perhaps him and Greg Laden will be meeting up this christmas to put the world to right.
“The White House reported to House Republicans that there are 18 federal agencies engaged in global warming activities…”
There are 18 federal agencies working to warm the globe?. That’s a fairly brave admission
To all those complaining that they are not getting any of this ‘Dark Money’ for being a skeptic, it is your own fault, if you are willing to do it for free because of some delusional belief then why would the oil companies pay you ?!
But ignoring the issue of how much is going to advocate climate science rejection, how much to union bashing and how much to promote deregulation of the financial system, the really interesting question is how healthy is it for a democracy to have large funds lobbying politicians where the donors are secret?
Is secret money ethical, why should not all funding be transparent as it is on the other ‘side’?
I was delighted to see the standard photo at the top of the Garundia article. The classic:
“Water-vapour-coming-from-a-stack-with-the-Sun-behind-it-making-it-look-black”
(like the black money??).
“Delighted” because it immediately says, “This is article is political rubbish”. Like so many others.
Irony, not logic and facts seem to be in demand in the CAGW camp lately. This in today’s Washington Post, a story headlined ” Half the U.S. is already covered with snow” at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/half-the-us-is-already-covered-with-snow/2013/12/20/84203c36-682d-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html
quotes a Trenberth as follows:
“If you warm up the atmosphere, you can actually get heavier snowfalls in winter” because warmer air can hold more moisture, Trenberth said. “That’s one of the ironic things about global warming.”
Perhaps when average global temperatures keep going down the quote will be something like,
“If you warm up the atmosphere, it can give off more heat and actually get colder. That’s one of the ironic things about global warming.”
You see, it is simple high school physics that warmer things can cool faster than cold things.
Oke so they look at an a mound of money, Look at names from the donate rs and say oke dose are skeptic. They don’t see how much of the money goes to climate so the number could be much lower then they think.
But is this not a thing like what we in Holland call so the ward is he trust his customers.
Who pays me for being here? Not the Koch Brothers but my pension fund. Late Hal Lewis explained why so many retired scientists use the money of their pension funds for writing a few words of protest: ‘ It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity’ and ‘ I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.’
Mystical (and wishful) thinking on their part, not unlike the “missing” heat of the past 17 or so years hiding in the deep oceans. They just can’t understand why their cherished CAGW Belief is failing, so have to come up with convoluted and mysterious conspiracy theories. In other words, they lie in an effort to explain why their lies aren’t working. Lying is all they know to do; it has become an integral part of them, and their souls will pay a price for that.
Maybe the Dark (unpublished) Money is locked away with the Dark (unpublished) Data!
Can we get Dr Peter Gleick to take a ‘peek’?
and if true….
does it prove anything about climate ?
Except they think in science the idea that prevails is the one who received money…
you want to falsify a theory? just pay…oh sorry that s the way science works…
It must be something else than science..ideology? politics?
You know what guy if you want big oil to give money to anybody just stop using oil. Oh no, you want that some people buy oil from big oil company , then big oil gives you money to promote the idea that people should not buy oil.
Do cawg advocate really believe that people will stop using fossil fuel?????
Well I’m definitely in the pay of big oil. On a recent trip to the supermarket I received a five per litre discount coupon off fuel. Now as we know according to the greenies any reduction in tax or fees on fossil fuels is a subsidy, so I’ve been subsidised to the tune of £1.80 on my last fill up.
Only a few more trips and I’ll have been subsidised enough to afford Deller’s latest book. What more proof do you need that big oil funds the denial machine? /sarc off.
@knr
“The real problem is that they simply cannot understand how they have failed, with what they thought was ‘everything ‘ on their side the idea that small group of people with little funding, who they have often labelled as ‘fools’ , can beat them is one they cannot deal with. And so the ‘need’ for conspiracy dark or otherwise comes about.”
This is more or less what I was thinking. The alarmists are convinced that they have the facts on their side and, as a result, are completely baffled as to why they are losing the argument. There must be a reason other than the simple fact that they are wrong, there must be.
“Prof. Robert Brulle MAY have received dark money to write this research. The sums COULD amount to several millions of (possibly) USD.
Anthony, you are a PROBABLE Millionaire!”
And they are 95% shure again?
Back when cell phones were analog (instead of just hackable withnanfemtocell), there was an embarrassing phone call recorded byna scanner radio and broadcast by the democrats. The audiomwas juicy, but the recording was a felony.
The IRS? He should be sued, the IRS called before congress, etc. So, the warmists will destroy the constitution merely to investigate? Where is Glenn Greenwald?
The EPA has a SWAT team and might be no-knocking at your door.
When there is no credibility left to loose … pinocchio science.
In other news – Big Oil now nicely lined up behind the ‘scientific consensus’. The five largest oil multis are all in support of global policy actions and a global tax and emission trading sheme. The clandestine denialist climate counter-movement, secretly funded by the black budgets of even more secret, super-rich, corporate pollutocrats (Kochmobil & the ExxonBrothers), has failed . The system works.
Rising greenhouse-gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems. Since most of these emissions are energy-related, any integrated approach to meeting the world’s growing energy needs over the coming decades must incorporate strategies to address the risk of climate change.
Exxonmobil featuring AR4 of the IPCC
We believe that the most effective way to encourage companies to find, produce and distribute diverse forms of energy sustainably is to foster the use of markets that are open and competitive, and in which carbon has a price.
While a global price would be most economically efficient, regional and national approaches are a necessary first step, provided temporary financial relief is given to domestic industrial sectors that are trade exposed.
BP: “Climate Change is real and you better come up with a way to tax it.”
To manage CO2, governments and industry must work together. Government action is needed and we support an international framework that puts a price on CO2, encouraging the use of all CO2-reducing technologies.
Shell-biofueling anti-climate action.
…and action!
Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum are listed as financial supporters of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University and, if I remember correctly, they were significant donors in CRU’s early years. What exactly has it done to further climate research skepticism while in the pay of Big Oil?
When there is no credibility left to loose … pinocchio science.
In other news – Big Oil now nicely lined up behind the ‘scientific consensus’. The five largest oil multis are all in support of global policy actions and a global tax and emission trading sheme. The clandestine denialist climate counter-movement, secretly funded by the black budgets of even more secret, super-rich, corporate pollutocrats (Kochmobil & the ExxonBrothers), has failed . The system works.
Rising greenhouse-gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems. Since most of these emissions are energy-related, any integrated approach to meeting the world’s growing energy needs over the coming decades must incorporate strategies to address the risk of climate change.
Exxonmobil featuring AR4 of the IPCC
We believe that the most effective way to encourage companies to find, produce and distribute diverse forms of energy sustainably is to foster the use of markets that are open and competitive, and in which carbon has a price.
While a global price would be most economically efficient, regional and national approaches are a necessary first step, provided temporary financial relief is given to domestic industrial sectors that are trade exposed.
BP: “Climate Change is real and you better come up with a way to tax it.”
To manage CO2, governments and industry must work together. Government action is needed and we support an international framework that puts a price on CO2, encouraging the use of all CO2-reducing technologies.
Shell-biofueling anti-climate action.
…and action!
Didn’t Big Oil also fund the most recent AGU meeting?
These IDIOTS think that scepcism will disappear if ‘oil funding’ stopped for sceptics. It won’t. Tell the people of the UK they must push their government to act when they notice the most glaring failure for them: Warmer winters. Force them to pay more for winter heating to tackle global warming and they start going grrrrrrrrrrr. Tell them they didn’t read that Antarctica sea ice is near record levels, tell them that they didn’t read about the nearly 50% growth of Arctic sea ice over 2012 September extent. Tell them never to believe their own lying eyes. Tell them not to investigate themselves the claims of the Climastrologists. There are many things you need to tell people, because they just can’t weigh things up.
Now on to the funding. Where is MY oil cheque? I have been at this for years and not ONE broken penny. Could it be I don’t need to be paid to be sceptical about dangerous warming? Nahhhh. Where is this oil money? Let’s take a closer look:
A list of fossil funded green bodies which also features Dana Nuttercelli of the Guardian’s employer, the fossil fuel services company called Tetra Tech. Al Gore features too over the sale of his TV station to fossil fuel funded Al Jazeera. Pachauri is there with his now renamed Glorioil – a residual oil extraction technology company he set up while still head of the IPCC. The Climate research Unit is also there having been set up and funded by BP and Shell back in the early 1970s. The list goes on and on.
Not only do green groups take fossil fuel funds they also invest in them. These are not amounts invested in stocks just to gain a seat on the shareholders’ AGM meeting. We are talking millions.
So, next time someone calls you a fossil fuel funded shill, show them my comment. I’m sure there is much more conniving by these eco-hypocrites.
The paper assumes that the funding determines the activity and not the activity attracting the funding. In short Brulle assumes that everybody has no integrity and everyone can be bought.
Of course, he cannot look into the hearts of man and tell if they are naughty or nice – not even at this time of year.
But he can see his own motivations. And those motivations cannot contradict his assumptions. Therefore we know that Brulle will fabricate anything for money.
So who funded this research that is, near certainly, fabricated.
I may have spent up to $1B on Christmas presents this year….
This is basically down to this, Global Warming/Climate Change has become the end all be all next to homeland security for bilking the general public out of their money. Gotta need for your budget? Just describe your funding request under Climate and all will be yours. How can any tax payer argue against climate change?
I suggest all of us ‘Den*ers should e-mail or phone Prof. Robert Brulle, of Drexel University, Phil., asking where our Dark Money is and how we can get it…
For what it is worth his education is:
BS – Marine Biology, U.S. Coast Guard Academy
MA – Sociology, New School for Social Research
MS, – Natural Resources, University of Michigan
PhD – Sociology
Research and Teaching Interests
Critical Theory
Social Movements
Social Change
Environmental Sociology
Robert Brulle is a Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science in the Department of Culture and Communications, and an affiliate Professor of Public Heath in the School of Public Health at Drexel University in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He has also taught at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, at the University of Uppsala, Uppsala Sweden, and George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. In addition, in 1996 and 1997, he served as a consultant to U.S. National Research Council/Marine Board regarding their studies of maritime risk…..
You would think that Suzanne Goldenberg had learned something about premature smear. Here she is when she found out some simple facts.
And not all of that was spent on climate education I guess.
Here is a Newsweek editor of 2007 commenting on his own publication!
It’s worse than we thought!
“According to the story, Prof. Brulle enlisted IRS help tracking a correlation between big oil bogeymen such as the Koch Brothers withdrawing funding from climate studies, and significant increases in funding from other organizations such as the Donor’s Trust and Donor’s Capital Fund. ”
a) The State using its tax authority to destroy and slander opposing opinions is nothing new in the latter days USA; just like the continuing extrajudicial killings about which the DoD does not report anymore.
b) Anything that the IRS publically says must be judged with the same amount of caution as any number uttered by the BLS (manufactured unemployment data to help Obama’s re-election); the Fed (claimed they monetize 85 bn a month when it was 94 bn a month so far in 2013); or the CPI (hedonic adjustments etc, downplaying inflation), or the BLS (don’t compute U6 anymore because it looks too bad).
If this researcher claims that IRS data is pristine, we can add in USA government science into the “dark pool” of desinformation. He pisses into the pool of science.
I haven’t read the comments above. So now I will read them; we will probably already have paid USA government troll patrols above (the Cass Sunstein sockpuppet strategy).
And how much money are any of these people who complain about a contrarian movement getting from the Tides foundation,the Hewlett and Packard foundations and from the Rockefeller brothers
Even though Suzanne Goldenberg changed the headlines it’s still wrong and misleading.
They don’t spend up to. I will wager my right arm on that one. Suzanne, if you are reading this think again about your headline. It’s still misleading, they don’t spend up to. Sheesh! They don’t need to either.
M Courtney says: @ December 24, 2013 at 5:37 am
….In short Brulle assumes that everybody has no integrity and everyone can be bought.
Of course, he cannot look into the hearts of man… But he can see his own motivations. And those motivations cannot contradict his assumptions.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In short he is projecting his own lack of integrity on the rest of us because he can not fathom the fact there are actually some people who are honest and love science for it’s own sake. People with curiosity and the willingness to do research without pay.
Poor man he has a withered soul, or is that a wethered sole.
That funny, here in the states, the teamsters have traced much of the Kochs money, if you go to their blog, and see much goes to just funding universities, for the research of global warming, not the denial, after all they are big in oil and furnaces, and electrical, and trucking and other programs that would be aided if you had to have a “new” or “used” but what lines their pocket is what they care about, and that don’t line mine. But if you can influence the vote of a congress critter, make a plea for business that they control, to ease the regulation, change the effect of a law to stop a competitor, they will spend a billion on it.
Robert Brulle tweets:
Robert Brulle has thus attained first hand knowledge of a known phenomenon: Media outlets routinely publish blatant lies to promote the interests of ‘global warming’. As he now knows from his own experience, this includes lying about the content of research papers.
Having been confronted with this fact, will “environmental sociologist” Robert Brulle dedicate his next research to determining why Big Media tell these lies and the extent to which their lies affect public opinion? Will he enlist the help of the IRS to putting a dollar amount to the free propaganda that is being provided to the ‘global warming’ movement by Big Media?
Not gonna hold my breath waiting for that. Brulle wouldn’t do it, and the people who fund Brulle would not stand for it.
Speaking of which, my own research indicates that Drexel University has a total endowment in excess of $540 million. Now, they are a multiple focus institution, so not ALL of that is spent providing a home for ‘global warming’ propagandists like Brulle, but it is fair to say they have that much at their disposal…
” I did not attempt to analyze the internal spending of these organizations, and so I can say nothing about the total amount spent on climate change activities. I hope that this clarifies the findings of my research. Best Bob Brulle”
Well, the Government Scientist is still using the assistance of Obama’s neofascist State to destroy and discredit the opposition.
Here is more from the Government Scientist; he’s trying to discredit Obama’s opposition for a while now, here on the State Broadcaster NPR:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/environment/climate-of-doubt/robert-brulle-inside-the-climate-change-countermovement/
What the hell is a “environmental sociologist”? and what have they done for scociety?
Why is tax data being used to begin with and how did he get access to it?
Tax forms should be used to determine tax liability only are to remain confidential while they are held during the statue of limitations period.
Sounds more like big government going after those who object to big government.
Nixon is looking so 3rd rate these days.
Goldberg has the same ethical commitment as Peter Gleick. The ends justifies the means: we’re out to save the planet.
“Environmental Sociologist”? WTF? Someone who is free to “Make stuff up”?
What the hell is a “environmental sociologist”?
An activist soggy pseudo-scientist, as opposed to an activist hard pseudo-scientist.
For twenty-some reasons why contrarians are not well organized and well funded, see my year-old WUWT guest-thread, Notes from Skull Island, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/ )
Conspiracy theories. Where is Lewandowsky & Co when there are real conspirancy theories being pushed down? Oh yes, looking the other side.
Nothing to see here, move along?
The warmist are losing the argument. They know it. As they have heavy PR in the work it must be that this PR campaign met another stronger “skeptic” PR campaign to lose the argument. It is all about PR in their mind, nothing about data, logic and reproducibility.
There must be an explanation why they lost the arguments as they have “the science” on their side.
Their arguments are appeal to authority, consensus science and adjusted data to fit the theory.
The idea that skeptics want to see scientific evidence, raw data with verifiable adjustments and methodology and no amount of PR would move them from this position is too much for some alarmist to accept.
It must be a conspiracy, it must be dirty money at work, they must be the braves Davids fighting for “the truth”, “the science” to prevail against evil billions of dirty money.
This “skeptic money” fits with their way of seeing & perverting reality, the fossil fuel subsidies story:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/12/7/men-of-no-meaning.html
the renewable being cheap reliable and creating jobs and no, not increasing the cost of electricity:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/12/18/why-energy-prices-are-rising.html
It is a paradigm of warmist to fit data to their theory, so no surprise to see this billion dollar story.
The important work of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_sociology
“Suzanne, if you are reading this think again about your headline. It’s still misleading, they don’t spend up to. Sheesh! ”
Hey, it’s supposed to be misleading. As everything she reports on climate is supposed to be misleading. The editor made a concession by adding some weasel words so that it was not an outright the lie originally written by Goldberg.
Box of Rocks says:
December 24, 2013 at 6:13 am
“Nixon is looking so 3rd rate these days.”
Nixon didn’t even start a war.
Somebody ought to let Lewandowsky know.
Does Brulle believe the moon landings were a hoax?
Box of Rocks says:
December 24, 2013 at 6:13 am
Why is tax data being used to begin with and how did he get access to it?
_______________________________
There was quite a stink recently about how this (Obama) administration had been caught using the IRS as a political weapon, but the smell was soon lost in the malodorous smorgasbord of Benghazi, Obamacare and so on.
The IRS would not do that. (They only serve themselves and government directly.) These amounts of money do not and cannot exist. So, they tenure fraud at Drexel? Redundant question I guess. He’s an environmental sociologist. Cough.
My pile of “dark money” appears to be a little, uh, light.
🙁
I read the paper. Here’s a summary:
Find all organisations that have ever donated a cent to the side of this argument that you don’t like, then assume they are “bankrolling” a “movement” in the face of clear evidence that the major individuals who are achieving something important (e.g. Anthony Watts) are simply promoting their sincerely held beliefs, and also put down their entire budget as part of the “bankroll” even if they only once ever gave a penny. Then, don’t give any actual evidence, don’t “show your working”, just tell us ABOUT what you did (We used this method and that theory etc.) Show a hazy connection diagram. Then write a damning conclusion.
In short, it’s rubbish and merely adds to the proof that peer review has become worthless in modern science.
Over the years I’ve received hundreds of envelopes in the mail announcing I “could have won 10 million dollars”. According to the logic of this university paper, I’m now a billionaire many times over.
Pretty damning evidence of the true value of an environmental sociology degree.
What a laugh. Warmers lounging in swimming-pools of taxpayer-cash accusing others of “dark” money.
Apparenty this idiot Phildelphia professor (are there any other kind in that city?) selected his “dark” agents as “big oil” , despite the fact that big oil is really not concerned in the politics of global warming, which involves, by and large, power production, not fuel for transportation, which is what big oil supplies, plus oil for plastics, medicine, etc.
I’m almost surprised that he didn’t say that “Deniers” drink the blood of the warmist’s children as part of our dark Eucharist. (some get pretty close to that)
This study should have been called “The Protocols of the Elders of Climate Denial”.
and that’s partly meant as a joke, and partly an observation that this kind of unsubstantiated dark rumor mongering has a very long and sordid history.
Rick says:
December 24, 2013 at 6:20 am
The important work of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_sociology
_______________________________
Wow. Be sure to wipe your cyber feet off after visiting that site!
Not only are Warmists VERY well funded they also have the backing of the vast majority of the ‘pressititutes’ and politicians. The public, being the deniers they are, aren’t so much.
The one thing Warmists scientists fear the most is a public debate on TV with each side debating the topics and lasting say 2 hours. They would be pulverized by doubt and uncertainties and the public will see the light. Climategate had that kind of effect and lost them a lot of ground.
Of course by way of contrast, there are the activities and identities of internat’l NGOs, and all that transluscent, bright cash, and sincere, unscripted scientists, hard at work saving the planet, as pure as the driven snow, while simultaneously (and of course democratically) representing “women” and “indigenous groups,” everywhere, without really having to have any contact or support from them at all.
“I did not attempt to analyze the internal spending of these organizations, and so I can say nothing about the total amount spent on climate change activities. I hope that this clarifies the findings of my research. Best Bob Brulle”
================
Hang on. So you have no idea how much if any went to climate change activities.
US government spending in 2013 is $ 6 trillion. So, it could be argued that climate alarmist groups in the US spent up to $6 trillion dollars in the US alone on climate change activities.
So Col Mosby,
How much money has come from dirty coal? Isn’t that the real enemy?
When will the basic illogical nature of “big oil” claims be addressed? “Big oil” is hugely invested in green and benefits from scarcity (natural or contrived by Greenshirt restriction). Economics #101 before post-normal politics displaced it.
I may have missed it but don’t forget the expenditure planned by the Department of Defense to go to all renewable fuels
Considering the provenance of “dark matter” and “dark energy,” “dark money” is a felicitous term: something that exists only in the imagination of a grant receiver.
>The AGU (American Geophysical Union) would like to take the time to thank all of our generous sponsors who support the 2013 Fall Meeting and the events at the meeting. And guess which company is at the top of the list?<
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
How a Talking Point Is Born: $1 Billion Against Action on Climate Change
http://www.volokh.com/2013/12/23/talking-point-born-1-billion-action-climate-change/
Funny, still waiting for my check…
Update from Canada Post Deepak Choprah: It’s in the mail… 😉
Too often, as is obvious here, those who proclaim the loudest for transparency are the least transparent and you can use this formulation for words like, fairness, freedom, justice, fill-in-your-own-word. Considering how much money goes to the Green propaganda machine – from governments, private companies, and the now extreme environmental groups, 1 billion laughable dollars, even if remotely true, is a drop in the bucket in the PR war. These people are now desperate and every few months need to re-feed their Green base with new (easily countered) head garbage to keep them fired up for ACGW, which is now obviously all in their minds; the garbage serves as fuel to keep their dreams/nightmares alive.
If Lewandowsky and Cook were not such frauds, they would find this “study” to be a great example of truly deranged conspiracy kookiness. Instead, they are probably coaching Prof. Brulle on how to product place this sort of dreck so that the President will tweet about it.
Such crap, the global warming industry gets magnitudes of order more money than skeptics, even if one believes the figures in this “study.”
Climate scientists and their sycophants in academia and the media are some of the greediest and hypocritical people on the planet…
Coach Springer at 6:44 am
The IRS would not do that.
Can you be so sure that some friend within the IRS would not do it? Lois Lerner took the 5th on much larger issues.
If someone tells huge, grandiose lies in one area of science, you can bet they will do so in others.
Or, it’s huge, grandiose lies all the way down?
Or, “go home, sociology, you’re drunk!”
Lois Lerner was the IRS director for the Exempt Organizations Division at the time of the research! This will deserve House scrutiny
JohnWho says: December 24, 2013 at 6:44 am
My pile of “dark money” appears to be a little, uh, light.
Thank you for the laugh. Now for the $64K question: What’s the difference between an Environmental Sociologist and a Social Environmentalist? Answer. The former appears awkward at an Al Gore soiree.
He didn’t “enlist the IRS”, he used publicly available records (Form 990, and probably others) to analyze the flows of money. Please change your subhead and article.
Why shouldn’t I be skeptical of people who play hard and loose with the facts? People like Goldenberg can’t believe that anyone would support a cause without getting paid for it. They wouldn’t.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
December 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
“He didn’t “enlist the IRS”, he used publicly available records (Form 990, and probably others) to analyze the flows of money. Please change your subhead and article.”
Why does Brulle not analyze the 1000 times bigger money flow that the State pumps into the warmists coffers? Because he has the task to stamp out any opposition.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
December 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
Since you apparently couldn’t be bothered to RTFA:
“He listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).”
Let me help you with that tricky English language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphrase
& since you asked so nicely to have the article changed based on your own ignorance of the source of the words you object to, please remain silent when your intellectual & philosophical superiors are speaking (hint: that’s basically everyone else who posts, writes, or comments here).
Rattus Norvegicus says:
December 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
He didn’t “enlist the IRS”, he used publicly available records (Form 990, and probably others) to analyze the flows of money. Please change your subhead and article.
The information should not be available to the public – period.
The reason for the original data collection was to ascertain the level of taxes to be paid,
Once that was accomplished the only reason hold the data is for legal reasons.
There is no valid reason snoop through another person’s tax records unless you are researching the opposition so you can shut them down.
““The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” ”
YES!!
Does it matter one dot how much funding the sceptics have raised to fight the cult of global warming. The important issue is the science itself regardless of the cost of presenting each sides scientific findings to the world. As with most of the GW hysterical ‘scientific’ publicity these days, having lost the scientific debate the policy of the cult is to attack any aspect of scepticism with anything but the science. I challenge Professor Brulle, and Suzanne Goldenberg to put some substance behind their assertions. If they cannot do this then it is rather like accusing someone of theft and then not being prepared to say what has been stolen.
Box of Rocks and Rattus Norvegicus
This story leaves me nauseous. I hope Rattus is correct that Prof. Brulle only used public info available to all, but I wouldn’t think it possible. It seems he had access to the “Lois Lerner IRS
attack those who disagree.” IRS. If the “Tea Party” was not safe from scrutiny how long will it be before the “Skeptic Party” starts being persecuted. This scandal, above all others, reflects the disrespect of the current administration with our constitution.
I`ll only believe the reality of dark money,when they find the Higgs pound.
The abstract for Bruell’s article is located here. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7
Click the link for Supplementary Materials 10584_2013_1018_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (2116KB)
Go to S1-Coding Instructions, Step 5 at the bottom of page two. Read “The fifth step is to review the most recent copy of the organizations’s IRS 990 form.”
Here is a sample Form 990 for the Fred C & Mary R Koch Foundation Inc. to see what kind of information is on these forms.
“He listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).”
Here Rattus is right. The author of the story wrote the above – it is NOT what the author of the paper – Dr. Brulle wrote. The paper notes they used PUBLIC IRS documents.
Agree with him or not – fair is fair … and it is grossly unfair to attack the paper and its offer over false claims that the linked STORY author (and the author of this WUWT post) could have easily verified by simply READING THE PAPER.
It frustrates me immensely when people launch off on unsubstantiated tirades as here, clearly, without taking the time to read the original work.
The paper is silly junk. Attack the paper and its content – with factual claims. Attacking the paper and author over entirely false claims made in a ‘media’ review simply makes us all look stupid, and reinforce the stereotype.
I wrote Dr. Brulle a fairly direct critique. He responded quickly – and offered a copy of the Supplemental for review. I’ll read thru it and I’m sure will still strongly disagree with his actions and claims, but I will give him credit for responding in the face of criticism.
quote “the White House itself – 2013 Climate Change funding $22 BILLION”.
So many good things could have been done with this money.
Instead they use it to increase the price of living.
One wonders if A.J. Drexel is turning over his grave given his contributions to banking, industry, and education considering what Drexel has become with the likes of Robert Bruell on their staff.
As a benefactor of AJ Drexel’s founding the University, I graduated with an engineering degree in the early 60’s, At that time Drexel Institute of Technology was primarily an Engineering school for sons (a few daughters) of the blue collar community who could not afford to go to the more expensive universities. There were no frills, no Dormitory for men, a terrible football team, and a marginal basketball team. The key was the Cooperative program that allowed the student to earn the next quarter’s tuition while learning the trade full time for a quarter in industry along with a cadre of highly dedicated Professors who were working in the classroom. No need for a government loan or subsidy. No place for an environmental sociologist in a hard core Engineering curriculum.
I understand that Drexel’s tuition today is 40k$ to 50k$ thanks to the government getting involved and subsidizing activities like climate change (Is that how Bruell got funding to criticize productive industry?) . The Cooperative program can no longer pay the high tuition rate.
Some background on AJ Drexel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexel_University
“Drexel University (DU) is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers over 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees.[6] At the graduate level, the university offers over 100 masters, doctoral, and professional programs, many available part-time.”
His business has a patriotic past.
“To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S. Government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907”
Merry Christmas to all.
Unpublished data, secret identity of peer reviewers, confidentiality of IRS files.
Uncheckable, unverifiable information is the currency of the mischievous.
So which side believes in conspiracy theories???
Gotta love how the same bad guys with Exxon and the Koch Brothers always being mentioned except when their money pays for pro-AGW groups and research.
I believe one of Josh’s calendars is in order, ……
Are there any studies about the number of blog commenters who ask “Where’s my cheque?” whenever someone makes claims about Big Oil funding climate scepticism?
A. Scott says:
December 24, 2013 at 1:11 pm
“Agree with him or not – fair is fair … and it is grossly unfair to attack the paper and its offer over false claims that the linked STORY author (and the author of this WUWT post) could have easily verified by simply READING THE PAPER.”
What is grossly unfair is that the sociologist hack gets funded for his political attacks.
“It frustrates me immensely when people launch off on unsubstantiated tirades as here, clearly, without taking the time to read the original work. ”
It amuses me immensely that now the polito-scientific wing of the warmist propaganda machine has to argue against the media wing of the same machine.
” … Here Rattus is right. The author of the story wrote the above – it is NOT what the author of the paper – Dr. Brulle wrote. The paper notes they used PUBLIC IRS documents.”
Source of the documents is not the problem since it the law. Per Se.
There are two problems.
One can only be fixed by Congress and that is use of data used to generate tax payments. A taxpayers data is between himself and the IRS.
The other problem is using the ‘public’ documents to attack and silence your critics. Dr.(?) Brulle is not attempting to further the debate. He has no point or body of knowledge that will add to the debate. He is merely abusing his First Amendment rights to silence a group of people and to allow his ‘research’ to be used as a weapon for said purpose.
His research lacks merit and is useless since it adds no scientific value to the question of man’s role in polluting the atmosphere and the resulting unintended consequences – if any.
This country has already experienced a president that will turn and use ‘his’ government against his own people. That is not purpose of our republican government.
The role of Federal government is to ensure that the government is not used against it’s own people. Nothing more, nothing less. Our Constitution place limits on federal government for a reason.
Sadly our founding fathers lack the foresight to place in the constitution penal penalties for those who seek to destroy and pervert the constitution for their own personnel gain.
Green progressives believe that EVERYONE is as corrupt as they are.
“environmental sociologist”
Really? That’s really his “field of study”? And they actually PAY him money to do that? Astounding.
Rattus Norvegicus
December 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
He didn’t “enlist the IRS”, he used publicly available records (Form 990, and probably others) to analyze the flows of money. Please change your subhead and article.
The statement that Prof. Brulle used publicly available documents does not rule out the possibility that he received special assistance with his study. I treated this suggestion in the HNGN post with caution, because the claim is incredible – but also deeply worrying if there is any shred of truth to it.
We have already seen the spectre of US IRS abusing their power to target Conservative groups. Obama promised to put a stop to it. The possibility this abuse is still occurring is worthy of investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal
I thought the IRS only took requests from the executive branch to make various taxpayers’ lives a living hell, not that they shared numbers with anyone.
More seriously, I bet the IRS assistance was through charitable organizations providing Form 990 detailing the organizations finances. These are meant to be public and are available from various charity review sites on the Web.
Completely misnamed; it’s light money, and still feeble.
===============
Is Dark Money like Dark Matter, it really does not exist? Then, it is true the denier funding that they claim really does not exist!!!!!
Dark Matter was a kludge thought up by the Big Bangers to explain away the fact that there was too much real matter in the Universe to fit the needs of their model. The original dark matter was simply matter too cool to emit visible light, thus dark or cold matter. The Big Bangers pretend that the cold matter does not exist but is instead undetectable-in-any-way matter that exerts gravity on the real matter. And, as the Big Bang never happened, Dark Matter becomes totally irrelevant.
Think about it. They have cobbled up huge funding for the giant supercollider in Cern to detect matter that does not exist. It’s just another huge scam to beg money from the people to make money for themselves. Even the much touted Red Shift and Hubble constant are bogus as there are more ways to red shift light than just high speed recession of the light source.
Ric … a read of the paper shows your comment to be correct … and 990’s are public data.
Not sticking up for the paper in any way – but again we look silly when we make unsubstantiated claims , which a simple read of the paper would resolve
A. Scott
From the article I referenced:-
… This might sound like mere coincidence but Brulle’s team provided more evidences. He listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). …
It might be that the “help” was simply Brulle obtaining copies of specific public documents. Or Brulle might have received additional assistance from the IRS, who have very recently demonstrated their zeal for specifically attacking Conservative organisations..
I handled this point cautiously, because it is not clear from the HNGN article exactly what happened. Brulle might have said something which was misinterpreted, or HNGN might be making sh*t up. Or maybe Brulle did receive assistance from the IRS above and beyond what they might have provided to say a Heartland request for assistance.
This is, or should be, a very sensitive time for the IRS. Their reputation for impartiality is in tatters. The onus of proof is currently on the IRS to demonstrate that they are now behaving in a fair and impartial way.
A suggestion by someone who is accusing a number of Conservative organisations of deliberate deception, that they received help from the IRS in preparing their accusation, IMHO quite reasonably attracts suspicion.
President Obama publicly apologised for the IRS abuse of power earlier this year, for their selective targetting of Conservative organisations, and promised to put a stop to it.
Higley7 you sound like a complete idiot, with your not even wrong attack on dark matter.Kludgey?
Dumkopf! You sound just like the warming cranks, wrong and proud of it
Produce reams of transparent nonsense, and leak lotsa evidence of low-life abuse of scientific ethics, thereby discrediting Warmism just enough to deep-six it. Leaving Big Fossil standing as the only viable way to survive, much less prosper. Truly a conspiracy!
Dark Money! I love it. Just like Dark Matter and Dark Energy it’s stuff that by definition no-one can find and excites none but the gullible.
Fluoridation, Mandrake. Fluoridation.
Since Professor Brulle is a sociologist, his time would have been more logically and productively spent in researching the origins of the ‘sceptics are funded by Big Oil’ smear – especially as Russell Cook has already done his homework for him:
http://gelbspanfiles.com/
I mention this as I know that professors are very busy people, and original research must be a dreadful chore for them.
David G says:
December 24, 2013 at 10:13 pm
“Higley7 you sound like a complete idiot, with your not even wrong attack on dark matter.Kludgey?
Dumkopf! You sound just like the warming cranks, wrong and proud of it”
Higley was right that dark matter is a protective hypothesis for a failed theory; only that he got the reason wrong, which was rather that the rotation of the galaxies could not be explained without the protective hypothesis of Dark Matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky
I think the IRS should investigate why the dark money is not getting to the people it is intended to! YOu would think that all the dark money is coming from the Hanoi Jane charity!
If CAGW is supported by demonstrable scientific proof, a head start of a decade or two, support budgets of 100s of billions from just the US government alone, 97% of all scientists, three decades of 90% of the media heralding the cause, support of every university (without exception- a challenge to find one), scientific organization (without exception) and government scientific agencies (maybe with the only exceptions a couple in Russia), then we johnny-come-latelys, even with some dark cash must be the smartest evil geniuses the world has ever known to bully these guys off their game. Man, I’m feeling very underpaid and under-appreciated. How can a handful of skeptics outsmart and out maneuver all this? Are these people really saying that smart, resourceful, talented, persuasive people are on the contrarian side of the issue and that the climate consensus are so unconvincing and talentless, that they can’t take advantage of having such an enormous upper hand? I think the general public is also underpaid and under-appreciated. They ain’t buying either. Prof Brulle, having named yourself an environmental sociologist, I can understand your angst.
This should be the realm of atmospheric physics aided and abetted by solar physics, geology and marine biology.
However it is now an industry and a religion all rolled into one.
That someone called an “Environmental Sociologist” should even exist pretty much sums up the entire scam.
The whole nonsense would fall apart in days if the media did it’s job.
I firmly believe the public are ignorant of what government global warming activities are costing them. Saying the Federal Government spends 22 billion dollars this year on global warming is for most just numbers. Such expenditure should be made personal. Every American is being charged $66 to change the climate not one jot. The average family is being charged $264 which may be better spent on food or a vacation. If you attribute the charges to just taxpayers you may find the bill for a taxpaying household is closer to $1000; a considerable sum to be paid based on crooked data. Doing the same sums for my own Australian government would result in similar wasteage of taxpayer funds. The hip pocket nerve is an effective weapon if and only if individuals are aware of their pain. The media might get interested if the news is less about the science and more about the cost.
Wiki has described Brulle’s job as under…..”Environmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of the environment. Although the focus of the field is the relationship between society and environment in general, environmental sociologists typically place special emphasis on studying the social factors that cause environmental problems, the societal impacts of those problems, and efforts to solve the problems. In addition, considerable attention is paid to the social processes by which certain environmental conditions become socially defined as problems.”
Rather than looking for “Dark Money”….we would all be better off if we understood why we pay people to do the aforementioned….a job description that beggars belief!
It’s in the energy sectors interest to keep the fear levels high. It keeps the prices up. It would be odd if they were on the side of the rationalists.
When it comes to leftist (warmer) accusations, I am a firm believer that these accusations are in fact confessions. It would seem that in addition to the Billions of $$$ we know about, there may be many times that being slipped in to their war on civilization.
Charles Koch must have my address wrong because I’m not finding any checks in the mail.
cba, calls it, this projecting of ones sins onto your perceived enemies, is classic climatology.
Brulle should turn himself in, as he has confessed to ripping the taxpayer off.
This is standard “progressive” fare: accuse your opponents of doing exactly what it is that you, yourself are doing. The thinking is that it deflects attention and somehow inoculates the accuser from the same accusation.
Talk about perpetuating the negative stereotype of things that are “dark”. Dare I proclaim the use of “dark money” as racist?!!! All money is created equal.
Where’s my check?
The $900M is not a “headline”, it is plainly stated in the abstract of Brulle’s article in the Climatic Change web site: “An examination of these data shows that these 91 CCCM organizations have an annual income of just over 900 million, with an annual average of 64 million in identifiable foundation support.”
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7#page-1
Mr Brulle’s article,” Not Just the Koch Brothers: New Study Reveals Funders Behind the Climate Change Denial Effort” appears on Opednews, and I pointed out his omission of comparative financing for AGW hype, $558 million for ” deniers”, vs. over $50 Billion funding the IPCC and climate change hype. I was immediately blocked from the site, my profile up for review by the editors. So much for objectivity over at Opednews.