Protecting The Nobles
by digby
In case you had any doubts as to the reliability of the climate crisis “skeptics,” this should put it to rest. This is the very picture of wingnut welfare for a cause. The Guardian reports:
A Greenpeace investigation has identified a little-known, privately owned US oil company as the paymaster of global warming sceptics in the US and Europe.The environmental campaign group accuses Kansas-based Koch Industries, which owns refineries and operates oil pipelines, of funding 35 conservative and libertarian groups, as well as more than 20 congressmen and senators. Between them, Greenpeace says, these groups and individuals have spread misinformation about climate science and led a sustained assault on climate scientists and green alternatives to fossil fuels.Greenpeace says that Koch Industries donated nearly $48m (£31.8m) to climate opposition groups between 1997-2008. From 2005-2008, it donated $25m to groups opposed to climate change, nearly three times as much as higher-profile funders that time such as oil company ExxonMobil. Koch also spent $5.7m on political campaigns and $37m on direct lobbying to support fossil fuels.[…]
“Koch industries is playing a quiet but dominant role in the global warming debate. This private, out-of-sight corporation has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. On repeated occasions organisations funded by Koch foundations have led the assault on climate science and scientists, ‘green jobs’, renewable energy and climate policy progress,” it says.
We know all about Koch industries here in the US:
The groups include many of the best-known conservative thinktanks in the US, like Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Foundation for research on economics and the environment. All have been involved in “spinning” the “climategate” story or are at the forefront of the anti-global warming debate, says Greenpeace.Koch Industries is a $100bn-a-year conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests, with operations in nearly 60 countries and 70,000 employees. It owns refineries which process more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day in the US, as well as a refinery in Holland. It has held leases on the heavily polluting tar-sand fields of Alberta, Canada and has interests in coal, oil exploration, chemicals, forestry, and pipelines.The majority of the group’s assets are owned and controlled by Charles and David Koch, two of the four sons of the company’s founder. They have been identified by Forbes magazine as the joint ninth richest Americans and the 19th richest men in the world, each worth between $14-16bn.Koch has also contributed money to politicians, the report said, listing 17 Republicans and four Democrats whose campaign funds got more than $10,000from the company.
I think this illustrates something very important about the nature of the propaganda machine. The Kochs are oil people and they are trying to protect their industry. That’s obvious. But the most insidious of the right wing funders are more than just crass greedheads intent upon keeping their heaps of money piling high. These people are also protecting a worldview and an aristocracy 0f wealth and privilege. They created and funded those think tanks to cover all bases of the wealth and privilege, not just their own specific industries.
This is a serious clash of worldviews as much as a battle over money. It’s a mistake to reduce it to a simple matter of dollars and cents. It’s that, but it’s more than that.
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