The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)
The underlying study is misleading, and the article’s characterization of the findings is outright deceptive. The article claims that “nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement.” That billion dollars is the <i>total funding</i> flowing into a variety of conservative and pro-market organizations, which advocate on a wide variety of issues.<p>The underlying study and the article also lump all of these organizations into a “climate change denial” movement. That’s totally false. The official position of organizations like Heritage Foundation is not to deny that climate change is happening. Their position is, basically, the potential risks of climate change are overstated and extreme solutions are not worth the cost. That is not a climate denialism position, it’s a costs-and-benefits analysis. The IPCC’s own estimates of the business as usual scenario show modest economic impacts even under a business as usual scenario out to 2100. (Large in absolute terms but relatively small in terms of the total world GDP.)