By Sandra Dunham
While scientists have relentlessly researched and reported on the unmistakable impact of humans on climate change, an equally relentless counterargument has claimed that climate change does not exist, and/or that climate change is naturally occurring with no human effect. Have you ever wondered how people can persist in the counterargument in light of so much evidence to the contrary?
Recently, IFLScience’s Who Funds the Climate Change Denial Movement? shared the findings of Robert Brulle’s “ Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations .” Brulle reported that U.S. foundations made more than $558 million in grants and donations each year to fund the climate change denial movement. Unsurprisingly, many of the foundations have strong links and financial support from the fossil oil industry. Almost 80 percent of the foundations are charitable, meaning that their self-interested contributors receive a charitable tax receipts for their contributions.
This article appears in the November 2019 version of Critical Links.