Funding denialism, documented

From the Dec 2013 issue of the journal Climatic Change:

Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations

Robert J. Brulle

Abstract

This paper conducts an analysis of the financial resource mobilization of the organizations that make up the climate change counter-movement (CCCM) in the United States. Utilizing IRS data, total annual income is compiled for a sample of CCCM organizations (including advocacy organizations, think tanks, and trade associations). These data are coupled with IRS data on philanthropic foundation funding of these CCCM organizations contained in the Foundation Center’s data base. This results in a data sample that contains financial information for the time period 2003 to 2010 on the annual income of 91 CCCM organizations funded by 140 different foundations. An examination of these data shows that these 91 CCCM organizations have an annual income of just over 900million,withanannualaverageof64 million in identifiable foundation support. The overwhelming majority of the philanthropic support comes from conservative foundations. Additionally, there is evidence of a trend toward concealing the sources of CCCM funding through the use of donor directed philanthropies.

The journal is peer-reviewed, I believe.

The full paper, sadly, costs a lot of money to see, but there is a bunch of supplementary online material (PDF) available for free.

The Guardian has a good article about the paper. Here's how it begins.

Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.

The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found.

News of the unsurprising, and mighty discouraging news at that, but a shoutout to Prof. Brulle for making the effort to document the atrocities, and a vote of sympathy to him for the character assassination he will doubtless be suffering in the next few weeks.

(h/t: Wired UK, via Ars Technica)

Now that "Climategate" has been conclusively demonstrated to be ...

... six pounds of bogus in a five-pound bag, to everyone except the wingiest True Believers in Denialism, at least, can we get back to talking about it as adults?

Probably not! Nonetheless, there is no reason for you to wait for all of the children to grow up before reading this excellent article in the flagship of science journals, Nature, "The real holes in climate science."

Doubtless, some of the children will seize upon the headline only and will crow EVEN A RESPECTED PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATION ADMITS THERE ARE HOLES!!!1!. So, just to get you started, in case you're not immediately inclined to click over, here is a bit worth quoting:

A fuller reading of the e-mails from CRU in Norwich, UK, does show a sobering amount of rude behaviour and verbal faux pas, but nothing that challenges the scientific consensus of climate change.

As is this:

Such holes do not undermine the fundamental conclusion that humans are warming the climate, which is based on the extreme rate of the twentieth-century temperature changes and the inability of climate models to simulate such warming without including the role of greenhouse-gas pollution. The uncertainties do, however, hamper efforts to plan for the future. And unlike the myths regularly trotted out by climate-change denialists (see 'Enduring climate myths'), some of the outstanding problems may mean that future changes could be worse than currently projected.

And here I add some emph:

Researchers say it is difficult to talk openly about holes in understanding. "Of course there are gaps in our knowledge about Earth's climate system and its components, and yes, nothing has been made clear enough to the public," says Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and one of the moderators and contributors to the influential RealClimate blog. "But this climate of suspicion we're working in is insane. It's really drowning our ability to soberly communicate gaps in our science when some people cry 'fraud' and 'misconduct' for the slightest reasons."

And don't miss the closing line of the article, which I truly encourage everyone to read.

By the way, if you're of a mind to print out the article, perhaps to pass around, there is also a PDF version.

(h/t: Starwatcher162536 | x-posted)

Three good reads ...

... for those who aren't determined to remain denialists no matter what:

1. Johann Hari: Deniers - apologise for Climategate
   
   
2. Bradford Plummer: The National Academies Take On Global Warming
   
   
3. (The source for the above two) The Editors at The Poor Man Institute: Also: fuckin’ magnets – how do they work?
   
   

(x-posted)

I Blockquote, You Decide

This will not be a startling revelation to anyone who reads this blog, but just for the record …

If you'd like to see an interesting contrast in how the NYT and Fox News cover the same story -- about the results of an investigation into part of the "Climategate" kerfuffle -- I posted them in full in the Bh.tv forum.

Prior to that, I posted in full the story as reported by New Scientist and the British tabloid, the Telegraph.

NYT: FTW

James Fallows has an instructive post up that looks at the difference between the reporting of the NYT and the WaPo on the issue the denialists would like to call "Climategate."

(h/t: graz)