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.
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: @ur momisugly 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.