How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American

"It's based on a political strategy,,,"

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Searching for a reason major climate change legislation hasn't passed Congress yet?

You could do worse than start looking around Washington, D.C., with its endless think tanks, lobbying firms and trade groups, many of which have swung into action in the past to block such bills and stand ready to do so in the future.

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The study's author, Robert Brulle, a sociology and environmental science professor at Drexel University, takes a systematic look at what he calls the climate change counter-movement (CCCM), made up of groups that Brulle says have an average annual income of just above $900 million, although much of that money is not even spent on climate change-related activities and is used for other issues.

To be most effective in spreading their message to the public to influence opinion, staffers in these groups "publish books, they give congressional testimony, they go around and make speeches, they serve as sources for newspapers, they write op-eds," Brulle said.

"It's based on a political strategy, which is to develop these arguments and get them out into the public," he said, adding that the environmental movement doesn't have equivalent think tanks. The total impact is hard to tell, but only 46 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence the world is warming, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a 2013 Pew study.

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"It's like guerilla warfare; all you can hope for is to stay [in the debate] long enough for people to wake up," said Richard Lindzen, a professor emeritus of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who said he believes think tanks have "relatively little" influence over the climate debate.

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She conceded that she hadn't read the study but said the Drexel researcher seemed to be more "systematic and intellectual honest about the whole thing" than previous researchers on the topic had been. She said that DonorsTrust does not reveal its account holders, many of them individuals from the business world, but said that "there are plenty of good reasons to be anonymous" when giving money.

She said that groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, which partly works on climate change and environmental issues, are on a "jihad against capitalism," but her group helps its donors "protect their legacy of liberty."

How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American