Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian is thrilled that it has finally found some cashflow to “deniers”, from a now destitute coal company which sought to defend its business model from politically motivated attacks.
Biggest US coal company funded dozens of groups questioning climate change
Analysis of Peabody Energy court documents show company backed trade groups, lobbyists and thinktanks dubbed ‘heart and soul of climate denial’
Peabody Energy, America’s biggest coalmining company, has funded at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on manmade climate change and oppose environment regulations, analysis by the Guardian reveals.
The funding spanned trade associations, corporate lobby groups, and industry front groups as well as conservative thinktanks and was exposed in court filings last month.
The coal company also gave to political organisations, funding twice as many Republican groups as Democratic ones.
…
The company’s filings reveal funding for a range of organisations which have fought Barack Obama’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and denied the very existence of climate change.
“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” said Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigation Center, who has spent 20 years tracking funding for climate denial. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”
…
Peabody refused to comment on its funding for climate denial groups, as revealed by the bankruptcy filings.
“While we wouldn’t comment on alliances with particular organizations, Peabody has a track record of advancing responsible energy and environmental policies, and we support organizations that advocate sustainable mining, energy access and clean coal solutions, in line with our company’s leadership in these areas,” Vic Svec, Peabody’s senior vice-president for global investor and corporate relations, wrote in an email.
…
Greens have long been confused at the success of climate skepticism. Given the lavish funding organisations like the WWF receive from government sources and green activists, they are desperate to find out where we get our funding from.
Consider the following – the budget breakdown for the WWF FY2015;
| INDIVIDUALS | $98,329710 | 34% |
| IN-KIND AND OTHER | $69,496,505 | 24% |
| GOVERNMENT GRANTS | $48,459,713 | 17% |
| OTHER NON-OPERATING CONTRIBUTIONS | $19,682,814 | 6% |
| CORPORATIONS | $10,712,311 | 4% |
Read more: http://www.worldwildlife.org/about/financials
So what sort of funding did skeptics receive?
Earlier this year, bankruptcy filings from the country’s second-biggest coal company, Arch Coal Inc, revealed funding to a group known mainly for its unsuccessful lawsuit against the climate scientist Michael Mann.
The $10,000 donation to the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E) was made in 2014, according to court documents filed in Arch’s chapter 11 bankruptcy protection case.
Last October, court filings from another coal company seeking bankruptcy protection, Alpha Natural Resources, revealed an $18,600 payment to Chris Horner, a fellow at E&E.
Read more: Same link as the first article
Just one green group, the WWF, last year received just under eleven million dollars from corporations, and just under fifty million dollars from government. Yet greens think a handful of skeptics receiving a few 10s of thousands of dollars is news.
The truth is very few climate skeptics receive funding. I have never received a penny for what I do. We do what we do, because we believe our efforts will help make the world a better place.
It is bizarre and I think more than a little telling, that today’s well paid green executives find it difficult to accept that the people who oppose their climate propaganda are mostly volunteers.
Leading green groups might have been founded by volunteers, but most of those volunteers have long since retired. Perhaps the lavishly rewarded executives of today’s establishment green organisations have forgotten that doing what is right, helping to create a better future for our kids, is more important to some people than the size of your bank balance.
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When the Guardian does it, it should be spelled anal-ysis
The Grauniad is also probably more than grateful for the extra web traffic generated by this article.
Hell, they need it.
The smart global-warmers-on-the-make are beginning to realise that there is a significant market on ‘the other side’, and so write their articles as inflammatory click-bait. They need sites like WUWT.
I never go there anymore. It took all of three rational comments with links to peer reviewed skeptical science to get banned. I click no more.
When the Grauniad does it, it shuld be speld “enalisys”
The hacks at the Graun are infamous for their bad spelling.
Reading the Grauniad is closer to urinalysis.
But only 10% or so of the average activities of these groups is devoted to the climate issue. The rest is devoted to various pro-business causes that a company like Peabody would want to fund regardless. This is shown by the fact that most of the funding these groups receive comes from companies not in the fossil fuel business.
For a list of 20-plus things that would be happening (but aren’t) if climate contrarians were actually well-organized and well-funded, see my WUWT guest-thread, “Notes from Skull Island” at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
Hey not fair, why does Willis get his hollowed out volcano lair before I get mine? 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/21/did-john-kerry-just-threaten-climate-opponents-with-state-security/
The Left is still seething over Citizens United. It galls them that corporations can speak in opposition to their agenda.
It offends them that it is legally permissible to disagree with them at all. Regardless of who or how.
This is why they are working so hard to make the 1st amendment dependent on government permission.
It offends them because most of them don’t know what they’re talking about and it’s embarrassing. They couldn’t possibly be wrong so we must be using highly organized trickery. It’s pretty funny actually! We’re skeptics. Most of us are automatically leery of running with the crowd. A conspiracy of sceptics is like a herd of cats. We never drink the kool aid. That’s for the sycophants and suckers. No shortage of either!
It’s so bizarre that we should feel defensive that someone funded voices with a valid critique of the Alarmist position. They really do occupy the linguistic high ground!
+1000
No, the climate extremists are like ISIS, demanding that no one but themselves get to have a voice in the public square.
How dare the NGO parasites and hacks think they have the right to determine where people spend their money or what positions they take on political issues.
Eff ’em.
Not Allah but La la speaks to them!
Consider the following – the budget breakdown for the WWF FY2015;
INDIVIDUALS $98,329710
IN-KIND AND OTHER $69,496,505
GOVERNMENT GRANTS $48,459,713
OTHER NON-OPERATING CONTRIBUTIONS $19,682,814
CORPORATIONS $10,712,311
.
.
Shouldn’t that be a point before the final three digits?
The Climate Liars are merely doing what they always do, which is projecting. Climate propaganda receives easily a hundred times whatever pittance Skeptics/Climate Realists – the side of truth gets, and they know it. It is part of their continued effort to quell the cognitive dissonance created by the fact that they are losing. They are desperate to explain why, so they will grasp at any straw in their attempt to do so.
It takes millions of dollars to propagate a lie, but the truth is free…
If climate scientists produce wrong results to keep getting grants, why would other scientists receiving fossil fuel money be more honest or accurate? They’d surely keep up the ‘no warming’ results to keep getting Peabody funding?
It’s a tactic that uber-orgs such as the EU and UN do, they fund groups to create a false impression that the public support their politically motivated dogma, then cite the results as evidence of that so-called support to legitimise their actions. It’s a circular process, but wholly contained within their fantasyland.
To get some idea of the funding that environmental organisations receive you just need to look at one of the donors, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. http://www.hewlett.org/grants/search?order=field_date_of_award_value&sort=desc&keywords=environment&year=&term_node_tid_depth_1=All&program_id=All
The Hewlett Foundation gives environmental groups more money in a single year than DeSmog claims the Koch’s have donated to sceptics ever.
These are other interesting links to see where the money goes in a more general sense:
http://www.followthemoney.org/
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/subsidy-tracker
And to think they used to make such great scientific calculators.
Thank you Peabody and thank you Arch for all the work you’ve done to make the world a better place. Your efforts FAR outweigh the sum total good green groups ever have or ever will accomplish. And that’s the truth.
If we are going to spend money on research, lets find out why the United States has been left out of global warming. The listed high temperature per US state shows that the vast majority of record high temps have been set before 1970 and none since 2000. The majority of those in the 30,s. I have arthritis and would love some warmer temps.
Look – a Squirrel!
“Green” NGOs receive funding because they do good work. If scientists that question global warming did good research, they would have no problem getting funding.
Now that’s a circular argument if I ever saw one.
The problem is that the “good work” that the government funded scientists has nothing to do with science, but rather is good at advancing the interests of those who funded it.
So you believe that there is a worldwide conspiracy between governments and their climate scientists? Good luck with that.
I see. So there is a worldwide conspiracy between governments and their climate scientists to falsely hype anthropogenic global warming? Good luck with that!
I see. So there is a worldwide conspiracy between governments and climate scientists to hype anthropogenic global warming? Good luck with that!
[You are allowed only one login_ID. You are not permitted per site policy to use several identities — and you have already used 4. .mod]
No, the green blob is a mass movement, like political Islam or communism. While there are leaders, they did not create the movement. The EPA commissioned a study in the early 1970’s on the origins of the environmental movement, and the researchers could not find any one cause or leader. Try reading the old book by Eric Hoffer “The True Believer”.
Notice how the guy who claims that any money transferred between an energy company and any skeptic is proof of a conspiracy whines when someone uses the same logic against him.
As to the conspiracy between NGOs and governments, it’s been well documented.
But, but, but….
… I thought you alarmists said sceptical scientists were handsomely reward by evil Big Oil and King Coal?
You can’t have it both ways!
BTW “‘Green’ NGOs receive funding because they do good work.” Ho, ho!
Notice that he said they do good work. Not that they do good science.
Yeah, like the “research” that claimed Polar Bears were going extinct. Or the “research” that said the corals were dying. Or the “research” that claims millions of people are dying from “climate change”. Or the “research” that said the oceans are “acidifying”.
Nothing like a faux intellectual such as Arcticobserver to reconfirm that climate kooks are… kooks.
If by “good work” you mean tell their funding sources exactly what they want to hear, in a slick way that has the veneer of “science”, then yes, they do “good work”.
Standard Liberal Projection – in the psychological sense: Accuse your foes of all the sins that YOU commit.
Over at her place Jo Nova quite rightly says, “The biggest mistake the coal companies made was not getting more serious and funding more skeptics.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/06/peabody-big-coal-yeti-finally-spotted-funds-heart-and-soul-of-climate-denial/
Since we have already been convicted, we might as well go ahead and do the crime.
+1
A shameful remark…
So what?
The vile green extremists are seeking to jail us.
We still have the right to free association, free speech and free spending of our money.
Eff ’em.
It may not be the money per se but rather that the lavishly funded groups cannot imagine how skeptics can be so successful on a shoe string. Skeptics are obviously far better with money and numbers, which casts doubt on the alarmists, whose math and money skills seem to be lacking. If you don’t understand math, global warming looks far more plausible.
Insult to injury: The Climate Liars, in many cases are spending OUR money (via taxes, mandates, and higher electricity costs) to further spread their lies and propaganda.
Follow the money, why?
The research and arguments should be judged on their own merits. The funding is only relevant when bad research and arguments form the basis for exploitation, sabotage, or injury.
The reason money enters into it is that CAGW isn’t really science, but rather, an ideology. And it takes a lot of money in addition to other things to prop it up. It is both supremely ironic then, when they point to the paltry sums skeptics get, as “proof” that that is the reason the skeptic/climate realist argument is not only surviving, but winning. It’s laughable.
From the ClimateGate Emails:
From: Tatiana M. Dedkova
To: K.Briffa
Subj: schijatov
DateReceived: 3/6/1996 9:41 AM
[blockquote]Also, it is important for us if you can transfer the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day) will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid big taxes… [/blockquote]
How come that they have not been investigated/audited?
Is IRS sleeping at the switch?