Inst for Religion and Democr

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11/14

unambiguous video title states that “Climate Policies kill. People will die”, while others scream how moves to cut greenhouse gas emissions “devalues human life” and “kills thousands” in Britain.

All this extremist language comes from the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a US-based Christian evangelical group that rejects climate science and is preparing to release a new documentary in the coming weeks.

Cornwall has been posting preview clips under the banner “Greener on the other Side: Climate Alarmism – Fact, Not Fear” on its YouTube page.

The views in the clips are extreme but represent a grab bag of climate science denialist talking points, ignoring the mountains of evidence gathered from multiple sources over many decades of the impacts of loading the atmosphere and the oceans with carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

The clips cut across energy policy and climate science and claim, amongst other things, there is no evidence to support cuts to the use of fossil fuels which are beneficial to the planet.

In one segment, the alliance's supposed climate experts promote creationism. “There has to be a designer – a creator behind this,” says David Legates.

The Cornwall Alliance is preparing to release the full DVD at the end of November under the title “Where the Grass is Greener”, only days before another climate science denial documentary, Climate Hustle, gets its premiere in Paris.

The two films also share a number of experts, including statistician William Briggs, climate denial activist Tom Harris, Australian “sceptic” Bob Carter, British peer Lord Christopher Monckton and blogger Anthony Watts.

But the similarities between Greener on the Other Side and Climate Hustle do not stop there, because both films share the same director in Chris Rogers and were produced by his company – CDR Communications.

Rogers’ CDR Communications was also behind another Cornwall Alliance extremist video effort in 2010 — Resisting the Green Dragon — that claimed environmentalism was a “false religion” and that it was a cover story for a “global government” power grab.

Rogers is also the chairman of The James Partnership, the umbrella arm that includes the Cornwall Alliance as one of its projects and pays the salary of Calvin Beisner, Cornwall’s founder and spokesperson.

While Cornwall Alliance will be unlikely to gain traction for its DVD outside of evangelical Christian circles, Marc Morano has much greater ambitions for Climate Hustle.

Climate science denialist Morano is the bombastic communications director for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

As DeSmog reported, after a “red carpet premier” of the film that Morano modestly claims will “rock the climate debate”, CFACT wants a US cinema release for the documentary, followed by DVD sales and then distribution in schools and colleges.

In the most recent trailer for Climate Hustle, CDR Communications staffer Anna Milograno is credited as the editor, with Rogers as the producer and director.

In two earlier trailers, CDR Communications staffers Ian Jelliffe and Jay Kim were also credited, alongside “:{director of photography Joseph Rossell”.

Rossell is a research analyst at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) who has been writing stories attacking climate science on his IRD blog Juicy Ecumenism and also on the NewsBusters website. NewsBusters is a project of the Media Research Center (MRC), which describes itself as “America’s leading media watchdog in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.”}:

Morano has previously credited MRC as helping to produce Climate Hustle by providing access to archive news footage. Morano once worked as a journalist at Cybercast News Service, another MRC project.

Both MRC and CFACT have previously accepted grants from oil company ExxonMobil, which is currently under investigation by the New York attorney general for allegedly lying about the risks of climate change to the public and investors.

In the latest Cornwall Alliance film, Paul Driessen, CFACT's senior policy advisor, says: “I'm often accused of taking fossil fuel money - I'm still waiting for the check from ExxonMobil”.

Understanding the links between Morano, Climate Hustle and evangelical religion reveals an irony. Morano and other climate science deniers will frequently attempt to disparage climate science by comparing it to a kind of religion, implying that they are blinded by faith.

Yet the very people Morano employed to produce his new documentary are fundamentalist Christians with a warped view on science. The one being blinded by faith, it seems, is Morano himself.

Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) describes itself as "an ecumenical alliance of U.S. Christians working to reform their churches' social witness, in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings, thereby contributing to the renewal of democratic society at home and abroad."[1]

Founding Document

Board of Directors

In May 1998, Group Watch last updated its file on the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Background

According to Group Watch, "The Washington DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) was founded in 1981 by Michael Novak,Richard John Neuhaus, and Penn Kemble. It began as project of the Foundation for a Democratic Education, the financial arm of the cold war group, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority.

It was founded to counter progressive mainline Christian organizations, the National Council of Churches (NCC), and the NCC's international counterpart the World Council of Churches(WCC). Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor, admitted that the IRD had a specific 'political agenda' and at the top of it was Central America and opposition to liberation theology.

"The IRD says it is a centrist organization of clergy and laity formed 'to promote spiritual renewal within the Church, and to work for a more balanced and responsible discussion of foreign policy issues.' In her book, The Neo-conservative Offensive, Ana Maria Ezcurra says that 'the IRD insitutional, financial and personal relationships suggest the presence of a specific strategy toward the religious field.' She suggests it is a strategy designed to delegitimize church leadership in the eyes of its constituents and to cause schisms in church boards and agencies. The IRD claims it is 'not just another research organization,' but disseminates information and 'assists religious groups who are developing foreign affairs programs and who want to avoid the excesses of the Right and the Left.' Author Sara Diamond--an expert on the religious right--claims that this is a misleading statement. Diamond writes, 'The Institute is comprised almost entirely of long-time neoconservative ideologues and recycled academic cold warriors.' As such, the IRD is stridently anticommunist. Author John Swomley calls the IRD a rightwing political organization and states that it 'has been the chief defender of American imperialism and military power around the world.'

"Gathering thousands of dollars of support from rightwing charitable foundations, IRD waged a media campaign that attempted to connect the NCC and the WCC with the 'communist' and 'terrorist' organizations that were the focus of the Ronald Reagan administration. The ties between the IRD and the first-term Reagan administration earned the IRD the tag of 'the official seminary of the White House.' The IRD, through board members Michael Novak and George Weigel has direct lines of communication with the Vatican.

"The founding document of IRD ... written by David Jessup attacked the board and agencies of the United Methodist Church. Jessup, a Methodist, circulated the document at the 1980 Methodist General Conference claiming that the Methodists were providing financial support to third-world guerrillas.

"The IRD claims some 2500 members. However, an article in Christianity and Crisis states that IRD had 1000 members in 1983 and fewer than 1500 in 1989. IRD's office is (or was in 1989) located in the suite of offices of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority."

During the 1980s, IRD's Diane Knippers became the source for attacks on the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches (Consejo de Iglesias Pro-Alianza Denominacional, or CEPAD), a disaster relief organization that had operated in Nicaragua since the country suffered a devastating earthquake in 1972 and continued to work there during the country's contra war of the 1980s. "CEPAD ran a network of medical clinics for the poor, as well as a successful literacy campaign, recalls Fred Clark, who was acquainted with CEPAD through his work with a US-based group called Evangelicals for Social Action. "That literacy work had won the admiration and support of Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, and his Sandinista regime. Ortega's praise of CEPAD gave Knippers what she saw as an opening.

The evangelical churches were not supporters of the Sandinistas, but Knippers portrayed CEPAD -- and therefore the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society -- as 'guilty' by association. She wrote of CEPAD as a communist front, part of a supposed Soviet beachhead in Nicaragua. No one in this country paid much attention, but the contras did. CEPAD's clinics became targets for their paramilitary terrorists. Knippers had placed evangelical missionaries - doctors and nurses - and the poor people they served in the crosshairs of terrorists." Knippers' attacks on CEPAD became an object of controversy that was followed closely by mainstream evangelical publications like Christianity Today. In the end, Clark says, "CEPAD was vindicated and IRD suffered a devastating embarrassment. They were, rightly, perceived as an unreliable source of information - closed-minded ideologues were were willing to attack others on the basis of irresponsibly flimsy evidence. It took IRD years to recover from the CEPAD Affair. And just when they were getting back on their feet, along came the revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War -- which took the wind out of their favorite tactic." [2]

Board

Accessed April 2012: ^[1]

Helen Rhea Stumbo - Chairman
Paul Marshall - Vice-Chairman
David Stanley - Treasurer
Fred Barnes - At Large
Mark Tooley - President
Sara Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, Bristol House
Fred Barnes, Editor, The Weekly Standard
Kenneth J. Collins, Professor, Asbury Theological Seminary
Janice S. Crouse, Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute
Sue Cyre, Executive Director, Presbyterians for Faith, Family, and Ministry
Mateen Elass, Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor
Thomas Farr, Berkely Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
Gary Green, Elder, Valley Presbyterian Church
Hans Jacobse, President, The Oxford Institute
J. Robert Ladd, The Evangelical Seminary
Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom
Martin Nicholas, Sr. Pastor, Sugarland United Methodist Church
James Robb, Vice President - Operations, NumbersUSA
William Saunders, Sr., Vice President of Legal Affairs, Americans United for Life
David Stanley, Retired attorney
Helen Rhea Stumbo, Publisher, Bristol House Ltd.
Graham Walker, President, Patrick Henry College

Emeritus:

Ira Gallaway, United Methodist clergyman
Robert P. George, Professor, Princeton University
Carl F.H. Henry (1913-2003)
Richard J. Neuhaus (1936-2009)
MichaelNovak, George Frederick Jewett Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Thomas C. Oden, Professor of Theology and Ethics (emeritus), Drew University
Edmund W. Robb, Jr. (1926-2004)
George Weigel, Ethicist and biographer of Pope John Paul II

Leadership, 1998

Kent R. Hill, Executive Director
Diane Knippers, Program Director (1998); President (2003)
Edmund W. Robb, Jr., Executive Officer
Michael Novak, Co-Founder
Penn Kemble, Co-Founder
Maria H. Thomas, Administrative Director
David Jessup

Board of Directors

Helen Rhea Coppedge
Paul G. Dietrich
Ira Gallaway
The Most Reverend Rene Gracida
John A. Grant
Carl F. H. Henry (1998 and 2003)
J. Ellsworth Kalas
Penn Kemble
Katherine Kersten
John Leith
Richard John Neuhaus
Michael Novak (1998 and 2003)
Dr. Edmund W. Robb, Jr. (1998 and 2003)
John H. Rodgers
George Weigel (1998 and 2003)

Board of Advisers

Funding

According to Group Watch (1998), "IRD reports that its income is derived from membership drives, literature sales, individual and church contributions, and foundation grants. The group's income for 1982 totaled $352,659. Of this, $200,000 came fromScaifeFamily Charitable Trusts/Scaife Foundations and $81,000 from the Smith Richardson Foundation. (1,4,8) IRD also received a $44,000 grant from USIA in 1985. (4,10) In 1985, IRD received grants of $5,000 from the Adolph Coors Foundation, $64,000 from the John M. Olin Foundation, and $90,000 from the Smith Richardson Fdn. In 1986, it received grants of $75,000 from the John M. Olin Fdn, $45,000 from the Smith Richardson Fdn, and $100,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation."

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

Balkan Action Committee
Citizens for a Free Kuwait
Coalition for a Democratic Majority
Committee for the Free World
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf
Committee on the Present Danger
Prodemca (Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America)
Project for the New American Century
Project for the Republican Future
Faith McDonnell
Jim Tonkowich - former president
Terry Schlossberg - former chair

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

↑ Institute on Religion and Democracy Board, organizational web page, accessed April 23, 2012.

External links

See Group Watch Article on the Institute on Religion and Democracy for detailed information on activities, as well as biographical information on the identified "players".
The Institute on Religion and Democracy 1985-2002 grant files at MediaTransparency.
Fred Clark, "IRD and the CEPAD Affair," Slacktivist (weblog), November 24, 2003.
Andrew J. Weaver, "Neocon Catholics target mainline Protestants: Institute on Religion and Democracy leads serious breach of ecumenical good will", Media Transparency, August 11, 2006.
Bill Berkowitz, "Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of Churches", Media Transparency, January 19, 2007.

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see greenpeace report 2013?

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/Donor's%20Trust%20-%20Laundering%20Climate%20Denial%20Funding.pdf

Donors Trust Funding to Top Twenty Climate Denial Recipients

(2002-2011)

DENIAL ORGANIZATION DONORS TRUST FUNDING

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) $ 19,840,954

Heartland Institute $ 14,496,497

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) $ 12,241,961

Federalist Society $ 10,854,463

State Policy Network $ 10,059,051

Hudson Institute $ 5,222,000

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) $ 4,165,978

Americans for Limited Government $ 3,950,000

Independent Women's Forum $ 3,387,604

Institute for Humane Studies $ 3,349,662

Texas Public Policy Foundation $ 2,630,758

Institute for Religion and Democracy $ 2,340,000

Mercatus Center $ 2,258,650

NFIB Legal Foundation $ 2,093,500

Illinois Policy Institute $ 1,895,707

Philanthropy Roundtable $ 1,822,560

Independence Institute $ 1,727,000

Freedom Foundation (Evergreen Freedom Foundation) $ 1,716,555

Cato Institute $ 1,535,207

Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy

Alternatives $ 1,473,300

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The Institute on Religion and Democracy: Home

https://theird.org

The Institute on Religion and Democracy is a faith-based alliance of Christians who monitor, comment, and report on issues affecting the Church.