Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Suzanne Goldenberg the British environment correspondent based in Washington DC, award winning writer and author of Madam President, about Hillary Clinton’s historic run for White House, has published an article on Mother Jones titled ‘Billionaires Secretly Funded Vast Climate Denial Network’ referring to how  the conservative dark-money group ‘Donors Trust’ contributed huge sums to battle against climate-change science. Goldenberg states “Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120 million to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change … helped build a vast network of think tanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarizing “wedge issue” for hardcore conservatives. The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, operating out of a generic town house in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Donors Capital caters to those making donations of $1 million or more. …By 2010, the dark money amounted to $118 million distributed to 102 think tanks or action groups which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations. The money flowed to Washington think tanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore. The ready stream of cash set off a conservative backlash against Barack Obama’s environmental agenda that wrecked any chance of Congress taking action on climate change. Those same groups are now mobilizing against Obama’s efforts to act on climate change in his second term. A top recipient of the secret funds … put out a point-by-point critique of the climate content in the president’s State of the Union address.”

Inspired by Suzanne Goldenberg, Mother Jones ow.ly/i0XBB Image source YouTube ow.ly/i0ZjU

My fellow scientists ready to engage in battle (March 14th)

Michael E. Mann the 46 year old US physicist and climatologist director of the Earth System Science Centre has discussed with Suzanne Goldenberg the vast conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to harass scientists and befuddle the public. “They see scientists like me who are trying to communicate the potential dangers of continued fossil fuel burning to the public as a threat. That means we are subject to attacks, some of them quite personal, some of them dishonest… It is now part of the job description if you are going to be a scientist working in a socially relevant area like human-caused climate change… Literally a day doesn’t go by where I don’t have to deal with some of the nastiness that comes out of a campaign that tries to discredit me, and thereby in the view of our detractors to discredit the entire science of climate change… It took the scientific community some time I think to realize that the scientific community is in a street fight with climate change deniers and they are not playing by the rules of engagement of science. The scientific community needed some time to wake up to that…Those of us who have had to go through this are battle-hardened and hopefully the better for it, I think you are now going to see the scientific community almost uniformly fighting back against this assault on science. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I do know that my fellow scientists and I are very ready to engage in this battle.”

Inspired by Suzanne Goldenberg http://ow.ly/9v7RH image source Greg Grieco http://ow.ly/9v7Fg