[T]hanks to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change (full study available at this link), we know exactly how many people are out there taking money from dirty energy interests to try and confuse Americans about climate change to derail overdue action and protect the fossil fuel industries' profits.
Justin Farrell, a professor of sociology at Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the author of the report, studied both the institutional and social network structure of the climate denier movement and found that there are some 4,556 individuals with ties to 164 organizations that are involved in pushing anti-climate science views on the public.
“The individuals in this bipartite network include interlocking board members, as well as many more informal and overlapping social, political, economic and scientific ties,” Farrell wrote in the report. “The organizations include a complex network of think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations, and ad hoc groups.” [...]
What Farrell found was that organizations taking funds from “elite” corporate funders of climate denial like Exxon and the Koch Brothers — groups like the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Heartland Institute — “have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information” than other denial groups. [...]
Will this study, published in a highly authoritative journal, finally compel the newsrooms and boardrooms of the traditional media to take responsibility to undo some of the damage done by their complicity in spreading fossil fuel industry-funded misinformation?
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Bombshell: Alabama cops systematically framed blacks by planting drugs and guns for decades https://t.co/RBptXuC3NU
Whatever differences we as Democrats have regarding President Obama's policy choices in Afghanistan, the one thing we can all agree on is that we're sick of hearing arsonists hanging around the fire they started telling us the best way put it out. Certain media, however, eagerly add kerosene to the flames by endlessly quoting them.
Thus, today, we've got torturer-in chief Richard Bruce Cheney—
who lied us into war and further enriched himself and his wealthy cronies in the process—explaining to Politico how Obama has botched his decision because he actually spent time thinking about it. Therefore, the President is projecting "weakness."
Weakness is added to weakness, Cheney says, by trying some Gitmo prisoners in New York in civilian courts. Uh-huh. By hauling self-described holy warriors into American criminal courts to be tried with thieves and murderers means the terrorists have already won.
It takes no special effort or reading between the lines to see the main theme behind Cheney's remarks: Obama is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin gives us the run-down on the 2016 GOP race for the crazy base, and of the exposure of the network of professional climate deniers. “Magical thinking” about ISIS, and how clueless politicians in multiple countries seem doomed to repeat every mistake every made in dealing with them.
