PNAS
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> see nat'l aca of sci</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceedings_of_the_National_Academy_of_Sciences_of_the_United_States_of_America">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceedings_of_the_National_Academy_of_Sciences_of_the_United_States_of_America</a>
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</font></div><div><div><article class="c-person" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: -150px;"><div class="c-personbio" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 60px 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exxonmobil-funder-of-clim_b_8684320">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exxonmobil-funder-of-clim_b_8684320</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ExxonMobil, Funder of Climate Change Deniers</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It's been an interesting time watching the ExxonMobil attempt to defend its track record on climate science, in the wake of revelations that it had bone fide climate scientists properly studying the issue since the 1970's.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cindy Baxter, Contributor</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Co-author of exxonsecrets.org</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Updated December 1, 2016</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Stacks and burn-off from the Exxon Mobil refinery are seen at dusk in St. Bernard Parish, La., Friday, Feb. 13, 2015.]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It's been an interesting time watching the ExxonMobil attempt to defend its track record on climate science, in the wake of revelations that it had bone fide climate scientists properly studying the issue since the 1970's.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The #ExxonKnew investigations by Inside Climate News and the LA Times have had ExxonMobil's head of PR, Ken Cohen, furiously tweeting, writing letters, and appearing on news programmes to defend his company's honor.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Our company's work to help understand the role that man-made CO2 emissions play in climate fluctuations has continued unabated for four decades," he opined in the Wall St Journal.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But that's the point. ExxonMobil did know about the science. So the question now is how can the company explain its role in funding, to the tune of $31m 1998-2014, the think tanks running climate denial campaigns specifically aimed at undermining the very science that Exxon's own scientists were studying?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A new review of the climate change papers published by ExxonMobil to somehow defend its position has shown that there was 100 percent consensus among its scientists that global warming is caused by human interference.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Exxon's denial appears to have begun in earnest with CEO Lee Raymond, back in the 90's. Raymond became CEO of Exxon in 1993, and CEO and Chairman of the newly-merged ExxonMobil in 1999.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"A factual, common sense approach will also serve us well as we address the issue that perhaps poses the greatest long-term threat to our industry -- so-called global climate change," Raymond told the annual meeting of the America Petroleum Institute (API) in 1996.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The same year, he told Exxon staff in the company magazine "Lamplight" that "scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect global climate."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1998, Exxon lobbyist Randy Randol was present at a meeting organised by the API, along with a number of the think tanks Exxon funded, where they created a communications strategy to undermine support for the Kyoto Protool, by questioning the science</span><span style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The leaked strategy's stated goal was "A majority of the American Public, including industry leadership, recognizes that signifcant uncertainties exist in climate science and therefore raises questions among those (e.g. U.S. Congress) who chart the future U.S. course on global climate change."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Victory, it stated, would be achieved when Americans, industry and media understood the uncertainties on climate science, and those supporting the Kyoto Protocol "on the basis of extant science appear out of touch with reality."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Leaks of the paper may have led to the campaign being quashed, but this was the strategy that ExxonMobil was to fund to the present day.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The think tanks present at the meeting included a number of those funded by ExxonMobil Foundation, under the leadership of Ken Cohen, its chair since 1999.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), while it no longer receives ExxonMobil funding, is launching a film challenging the science of global warming in Paris on December 7, as part of its 20-year campaign undermining climate science.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Under Lee Raymond's chairmanship, before his retirement in 2005, ExxonMobil spent millions funding these denial campaigns, and on a number of ads in the New York Times opinion pages. In one, in 2000, entitled "Unsettled Science," ExxonMobil quoted science on temperatures in the Sargasso Sea to prove that global warming wasn't happening.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Raymond himself cited the study at the company's AGM that year. The scientist who authored it, wrote to ExxonMobil saying:</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"I believe ExxonMobil has been misleading in its use of the Sargasso Sea data. There's really no way these results bear on the question of human induced climate warming... I think the sad thing is the a company with the resources of ExxonMobil is exploiting the data for political purposes."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Think tanks receiving grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which was the leading think tank pushing climate denial, coordinating the "<b>Cooler Heads Coalition." At one point, ExxonMobil funded nearly all the groups listed in the coalition.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243);">In 2005, the CEI ran a TV ad proclaiming "C02 is Life." This was the last straw for the UK's Royal Society, which complained to ExxonMobil and led Cohen to declare, in 2007, that the company was no longer funding these organisations. The world's media heralded the move.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> But ExxonMobil quietly continued funding the think tanks, extensively. In 2009, it dropped a few more.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">While Ken Cohen might try to state that the organizations he funded could do what they wanted, it's important to note that in some years, the company specifically spelt out its funding as being for their work on climate change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Even today, ExxonMobil continues to be a member of -- and to fund -- the American Legislative Exchange Council which, at its annual meeting, has hosted a number of climate change-denying scientists to question the existence of global warming</b>. Research has revealed that that ExxonMobil donated at least $1.6 million to ALEC between 1998 and 2012. In 2014 it gave them more.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A study published in PNAS on November 23 looked at the effect of grants from ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers on the discourse around climate science. It showed that the climate denial echo chamber organizations they funded produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The way ExxonMobil is reacting to the #ExxonKnew revelations is bizarre. In the full knowledge of the climate change science, provided to it by its own scientists, this company has spent years, and many millions, funding the myths created by the denier industry to obfuscate the science and slow change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">To me, although I'm not a lawyer, knowing about the harm caused by your product, then spending millions on trying to create doubt about the facts of that harm, sounds very similar to what another industry did with its product.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This post is part of a "Corporate Skullduggery" series produced by The Huffington Post, in conjunction with the U.N.'s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (Nov. 30-Dec. 11), aka the climate-change conference. The series will put a spotlight on businesses that have actively tried to mislead the public about the dangers of climate change or about their own contributions to rising temperatures. To view the entire series, visit here.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2015/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media/">https://www.desmog.com<b>/2015</b>/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media/</a></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A new study published today in the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PNAS</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 17.6px;">The abstract and full text of the study can be found here: </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none; font-weight: 500; line-height: 17.6px;">Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.</a></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The analysis of 20 years’ worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</span>The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/23/why-are-so-many-americans-skeptical-about-climate-change-a-study-offers-a-surprising-answer/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Dr. Farrell told the Washington Post</a> which was first to cover the news of the study’s release. “This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own,” Dr. Farrell said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PNAS</span>’s press briefing note about the article by Dr. Farrell:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate funding likely influences the nature and content of polarizing texts pertaining to climate change, according to a study. Political polarization has become a hallmark of climate change policy discussion, with multiple groups in various sectors contributing to public discourse regarding climate and energy. To quantify the influence of corporate funding in climate change discourse, Justin Farrell analyzed more than 39 million words of text produced by 164 organizations active in the climate change counter-movement between 1993 and 2013. The author examined the ideological content of the produced texts, as well as the funding behind the organizations that produced the texts.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have produced polarizing texts, the author found, with <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundation acting as influential funders (emphasis added)</span>. Further, according to the author, corporate funding may have influenced the ideological content of produced texts. The results suggest quantitative evidence of the influence of funding in the climate change debate that had previously been hypothesized, and suggests an analytical model for integrating texts with the social networks that created them, according to the author.</font></span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This study confirms once again the central thesis of industry-funded attacks on climate science, which inspired the DeSmog book <a href="https://www.desmog.com/climate-cover-up" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Climate Cover-up</a> and countless articles about the deception campaign over the past decade.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now let’s see how the mainstream media cover this story — that is what I’m most curious to see. (The Washington Post article was pretty straightforward, although it gave ExxonMobil an unchallenged last word, and Joby Warrick seemed to pose a bogus question to Dr. Farrell equating the fossil-funded disinformation campaign with pro-climate-action campaigns, but Dr. Farrell correctly rebutted such a comparison.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/11/3469735/false-balance-media-biased-climate/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">false balance</a> — quoting a distinguished climate scientist and then speed-dialing <a href="https://www.desmog.com/patrick-michaels" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Pat Michaels</a> at the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/cato-institute" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Cato Institute</a> for an opposing quote — finally stop?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will editors commit to serving as referees to ensure the same industry <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span> pollution isn’t published any longer?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s critically important today that the public hears the scientific facts about climate change without the confusion injected into the policy debate by well-funded think tanks and their highly paid <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span> operative counterparts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Farrell’s research also provides further evidence of the public deception orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry, and should prove valuable to investigators examining ExxonMobil as well as other current and future efforts to hold polluters accountable for their <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span> pollution.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Here is a video produced years ago, <a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/video/doubt" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">“Doubt” by The Climate Reality Project</a>, which provides a nice overview of this issue[vid] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVjr-qOpNk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVjr-qOpNk</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also highly suggested: track down access to <a href="http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Merchants of Doubt</a>, the full-length documentary by Food Inc. director Robert Kenner that exposes the history of tobacco-to-climate denial and their common <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span> manipulators such as <a href="http://climatehustler.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Marc Morano</a> and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/s-fred-singer" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Fred Singer</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s far beyond the time to end the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/climate-cover-up" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">climate cover-up</a>. And responsible media can lead the way.</font></p></div></article></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nuclear-power-cost-renewables-2625524662.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/nuclear-power-cost-renewables-2625524662.html</a></font></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nuclear-power-cost-renewables-2625524662.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Nuclear Power Is Economically Obsolete</font></a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url css-listicle-body-2625524662 expanded" data-elid="2625524662" data-authors="Environmental Working Group" data-headline="Nuclear Power Is Economically Obsolete" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Grant Smith</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last year the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Trump</a> administration's Energy Department announced the launch of a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/03/06/stories/1060075577" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">media campaign</a> to counter what an official called "misinformation" about <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">nuclear</a> power. We haven't noticed an upsurge in pro-nuclear news—because there is none to report.</font></p></div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms ease 0s; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On the first day of 2019, the energy industry trade journal <a href="https://www.powermag.com/debate-continues-can-new-technology-save-nuclear-power/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Power</a> asked whether new technology can save nuclear power by making new reactors economically feasible—not only to replace <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">coal</a> and natural gas but also to compete with the rapidly dropping cost of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">renewable energy</a>. The verdict from Peter Bradford, a former member of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 25px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(82, 149, 70); padding: 0px 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. . . [N]ew nuclear is so far outside the competitive range. . . . Not only can nuclear power not stop global warming, it is probably not even an essential part of the solution to global warming.</span>
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">His bleak outlook is shared by the authors of a recent article in the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326140294_US_nuclear_power_The_vanishing_low-carbon_wedge" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>. The authors—an engineer, an economist and a national security analyst—reviewed the prospects for so-called advanced designs for large nuclear reactors, and for much smaller modular reactors that could avoid the billions in construction costs and overruns that have plagued the nuclear energy industry since the beginning.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">They concluded that no new designs can possibly reach the market before the middle of the century. They cite the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">breeder reactor</a> that, according to <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/articles/Time-to-give-up-BAS-May_June-2010.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</a>, received $100 billion in public development funds worldwide over six decades and still did not get off the ground.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The authors say there may be an opening for small modular reactors but that it will be very difficult to find a market for these reactors without—as is always the case with nuclear power—a massive infusion of taxpayer dollars. "For that to happen," they argue, "several hundred billion dollars of direct and indirect subsidies would be needed to support their development and deployment over the next several decades, since present competitive energy markets will not induce their development and adoption."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Despite the past failure and poor future outlook, support for more nuclear funding persists. In a recent <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/11/f57/Examination%20of%20Federal%20Financial%20Assistance%20in%20the%20Renewable%20Energy%20Mark...1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">study</a>, the Energy Department pointed to the $50 billion in federal incentives provided to renewables like <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">solar</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wind" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">wind</a>power between 2005 and 2015, implying that such policies can have a similar impact on modular nuclear reactors. But unlike nuclear power, the costs of wind and solar have dropped dramatically, to the point where the cost of new, unsubsidized utility-scale wind and solar power investment can now <a href="https://www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-120-vfinal.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">compete</a> with that of existing coal and nuclear power plants.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The bigger question is whether nuclear power is needed at all.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Nuclear advocates' claims that nuclear power is required to fight <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a> falls short. <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/07/california-years-ahead-schedule-cutting-global-warming-causing-pollution" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">California</a> met its climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 four years early by turning off its nuclear plants and setting policies that prioritize renewables, energy efficiency and energy storage investments over natural gas plant additions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">An argument advanced in the Energy Department report is that, to ensure that power can be delivered 24/7, large coal and nuclear power plants designed to run day and night—also known as baseload plants—need to be replaced by small nuclear units that run day and night. However, mounting, real-world evidence refutes this assertion.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/04/renewables-not-natural-gas-should-replace-shuttered-nuclear-plants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Recent studies</a> from New York and California show that it is cheaper to invest in renewables, energy efficiency and energy storage in order to replace aging nuclear plants than it is to keep the existing plants running. Savings range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars—achieved without any impact on electric system reliability.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Nuclear power belongs in a museum. We shouldn't continue to squander public dollars on a technology that will never make economic sense. We should divert resources into improving and deploying wind, solar, energy efficiency and energy storage technology that we know will keep the lights on, effectively reduce carbon emissions and cost what we can afford to pay. Grant Smith is senior energy policy advisor at <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2019/01/economic-viability-nuclear-power-only-going-down" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Environmental Working Group</a>.</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy-us-2535432605.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Renewables Now Contribute Nearly One-Fifth of U.S. Electricity ... ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://climatenexus.org/climate-news-archive/nuclear-energy-us-expensive-source-competing-cheap-gas-renewables/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Nuclear Energy in the U.S.: Expensive Source Competing with ... ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/21305834-5376-11e8-84f4-43d65af59d43" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">High costs and renewables challenge the case for nuclear power ... ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/barriers-to-renewable-energy" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Barriers to Renewable Energy Technologies ›</font></a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Email: justin.farrell@yale.edu.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-tipping-point-2170296371.html?page=2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://climatediscovery.org/Climate%20Change%202016%20The%20Future%20Has%20Arrived%20References.htm#9" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Work from Yale</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, continues a trend of defining the culpability of the so-called Climate Change Counter Movement (CCCM) in obfuscating climate science. This work looked at 164 organizations identified in other academic literature as being involved in the CCCM between 1993-2013 and included 40,785 pieces of textual content and more than 39 million words. Two main findings emerged: Organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have distributed content meant to polarize the climate change issue; and corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, confirming previous work showing the CCCM to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse.</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Corporate funding and ideological polarization about
climate change</b> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justin Farrell1
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511
Edited by Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved October 12, 2015 (received for review May 13, 2015)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this
research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced
by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These
dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are
illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change
politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all
individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement
(164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal
texts produced by this network between 1993–2013 (40,785 texts,
more than 39 million words)<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.<b> Two main findings emerge.</b> First, that
organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have
written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate
change issue. <b>Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding
influences the actual thematic content of these polarization
efforts, </b>and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content
over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation
of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate
change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate
change, this paper has important implications for understanding
ideological polarization more generally, and the<b> increasing role of
private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are
created and amplified. </b>Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies
build on the novel approach taken here that integrates largescale
textual analysis with social networks. tags: </span>
funding | polarization...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...Ideological polarization presents increasingly important challenges for sustainability science and solutions for climate change. Much attention has been given to the outcomes of polarization by demonstrating its effect on individual choices about energy-efficient behavior (1), individual attitudes about climate change (2–6), and variation in individuals’ trust in science as a whole, especially among Americans who self-identify as politically conservative (7). </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Climate change is not the first issue with scientific consensus to become so highly polarized (8, 9), but the magnitude of its ecological and human-health effects—and the socio-political roadblocks for mitigating emissions—have led to a wide body of attitudinal research documenting the current sociopolitical environment of polarization that exists</span>. Despite this fruitful body of individual-level research, we have considerably less data and understanding about the underlying organizational and financial factors that made polarization possible in the first place. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Qualitative and historical research has suggested that well-funded and well-organized “contrarian” campaigns are especially important for spreading skepticism or denial where scientific consensus exist—such as in the present case of global warming, or in historical contrarian efforts to create doubt about the link between smoking and cancer</span>(8–15).<b> The primary way that contrarian campaigns create skepticism and ideological polarization is through the production of an alternative contrarian discourse</b>(To be clear, the term discourse here refers to communication in an authoritative fashion about a particular topic or debate), which necessarily takes the form of written text and speech from organizations and individuals (11, 14).</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Indeed, many scholars have examined climate change discourse in media coverage of climate change (16–21), but because of data constraints and the difficulty of gathering such complex and furtive data, we still lack a comprehensive data-driven understanding about the actual content and source of contrarian messages, as well as the complex organizational and financial networks within which they are produced.</span> This study presents such an approach, and examines how the production of an alternative discourse is embedded within a particular social structure and how the content itself is influenced by particular funding sources<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Important to this approach is the fact that in the United States, there are a growing number of grassroots lobbying firms who work on behalf of corporations, industry groups, and associations (22, 23). Along with this growth in corporate lobbying, other social and political opportunities have opened the door for movements like climate change contrarianism to flourish, such as weakening restrictions on political finance (24) and the concentration of corporate wealth more generally (25, 26). </span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With these factors in mind, and building on prior climate change research, this study asks three specific—and closely related—empirical <b>research questions:</b> (i) Of all of the organizations in the climate contrarian movement, which ones produced discourse? (ii) What are the specific themes contained in this contrarian discourse? (iii) Does the reception of corporate funding influence the thematic content and ideological language of this discourse? And, how do all of these factors change over time? These important questions have not been adequately addressed because of the difficulty of collecting and analyzing such large amounts of longitudinal textual content and funding data. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given the breadth of actors in this movement and the sheer volume of texts produced, scholars have either focused on smaller samples of text (11–13), or on rigorously identifying the organizations</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Significance</b> Ideological polarization around environmental issues—especially climate change—have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. <b>This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks. </span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...who participate in the counter movement (14, 15). This study combines—and significantly extends—these important approaches with the use of novel computational data-collection methods. The first half of the data include a new social network of all known individuals and organizations who have participated in the climate contrarian movement between 1993 and 2013. As described in much more detail in SI Appendix, contrarian organizations are those identified by prior peer-reviewed research as overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on climate change. This large bipartite network includes 4,556 individuals (e.g., board members, employees, politicians, researchers) with ties to 164 organizations (e.g., think tanks, foundations, trade associations, grassroots</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lobby firms). This population of organizations was built-up primarily from a published census of organizations and funding (12, 14, 15), and supplemented with lists from reputable nonprofit organizations (27, 28). The second half of the data include a new dataset of every text about climate change produced by every organization between 1993 and 2013 (n = 40,785 texts with more than 39 million words).</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> This massive corpus was constructed with the assistance of automated Python scraping scripts, which gathered, cleaned, digitized, and prepared for analysis the entirety of current and archival press releases, website articles, policy statements, conference transcripts, published papers, and blog articles. Any PDFs were converted to plain text with optical character recognition. (See SI Appendix for specific information about how these text and network data were collected and cleaned.) These data provide a comprehensive analytical framework for examining the influence of corporate funding on the discursive efforts of organizations to create ideological polarization around climate change. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The collection of organization ties and their total population of texts is the product of a real-life countermovement and do not suffer from the methodological drawbacks that hamper survey research or social laboratory experiments. Furthermore, it links the organizations involved in the movement directly with the texts that they produce, enabling analysis about how organizational features might influence the actual thematic content of the texts. With this approach in mind, the data also include several important organizational covariates, such as the year the organization was founded, its total assets, its mission focus, the organization type, and an organization’s influence on the transfer of information within the network (i.e., betweenness centrality) (29). Most importantly for the purposes of this study, the data also include a measure of corporate funding from entities that prior literature on contrarian movements have identified as especially influential (8, 9, 14, 15): ExxonMobil (EM) and the Koch family foundations (KFF). Relying on this past research, along with Internal Revenue Service data (see SI Appendix for important details), this measure records whether or not an organization in the network received funding from either of these entities between 1993 and 2013. Donations from these corporate benefactors signals entry into a powerful network of influence.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Analytical Approach...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Results</b> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To begin, Fig. 1 provides a broader bird’s-eye-view context with
which to interpret the main text analysis findings below. The
graph describes which organizations (nodes) produced texts and
whether the organization received corporate funding. For example,
a dark green circle node is an advocacy or think-tank organization
that produced texts about climate change and received
corporate funding. It is a one-mode network constructed from the
original bipartite social network data, where ties between organizations
are a function of a tie they share with individuals (see SI
Appendix for details). To give a sense of change over time, the
graph includes cross-sections from each decade that restricts the
nodes and ties to organizations founded before that year. This
approach means that 2013 is the final graph that includes all nodes
and ties in the data.
<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There are two related findings</span> that emerge from this network
analysis and serve to inform the main text analysis below. First,
organizations who produce climate contrarian texts (versus those
who did not) are significantly (P < 0.006) more likely to have<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
higher betweenness centrality scores, which is a reliable indicator
that they exert more organizational influence in the network
</span>(</b>29). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One can spot this trend in the figure by recognizing that
these nodes tend to cluster toward the center of the network.</span>
<b>Second, organizations who produced texts and received corporate
funds were also significantly more likely (P < 0.002) to have
higher betweenness centrality scores</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Taken together, these results
suggest that organizations within the movement who made
an effort to produce textual discourse about climate change are
the most central to the movement itself, providing them more
influence over the transfer of information. This finding aligns with
prior knowledge about resource mobilization (33), discursive influence
(34), and corporate mobilization (22).</span> The fact that the
production of discourse was more likely to be corporately funded
organizations at the core of the network provides an important</font></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">backdrop for the novel analytic focus of this article—namely,
assessing via computational text analysis the influence of corporate
funding on the actual thematic content and ideological polarization
of the discourse itself.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Turning to the results of the computational text analysis, Fig. 2
summarizes the results of the structural topic model. This corpus
level visualization displays all of the topics along with the top 15
words associated with each topic. This figure also includes the
proportion of the corpus that belongs to each topic. It is important
to note that these topics and the words should be
interpreted in light of the purpose of the texts and the larger
goals of climate change contrarianism described above (8–15). </font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Broadly, one can see that these organizations focused their climate
change discourse on people’s knowledge of the issue, Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change science, debates over
temperature trends, international politics such as the Kyoto
Treaty, and related energy issues such as fuel, oil, and cap and
trade bills.
How are all of these topics related to one another, and do they
cluster together in meaningful ways? Fig. 3 plots the layout of all
topic correlations using the Fruchterman–Reingold algorithm. A
tie between two topics indicates a positive topic correlation,
meaning that both topics were more likely to be discussed together
within a document. Node sizes correspond to the topic
proportions from Fig. 2. The dashed ellipses were overlaid after
graphing to draw attention to four thematic clusters: First, toward
the bottom left (in green) is a cluster of topics relating to
questions about scientific evidence and disputes over the real
causes and effects of CO2, long-term temperature cycles, global
cooling, and who has scientific authority. </font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><b>Adjacent (in yellow) is
a second cluster pertaining to public knowledge and the role of </b></span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><b>news media and Al Gore’s film. </b>Just above this (in blue) is a
cluster of topics pertaining to federal and state-level bureaucratic
politics related to climate change. Lastly, toward the top (in
black) is a cluster of topics related to energy industry concerns,
and alarm about the economic and political costs of enacting
climate change policy. These four broad clusters provide a comprehensive
profile of all discourse produced by climate contrarian
organizations from 1993 to 2013. </span></font></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Lastly, Fig. 4 examines how the actual prevalence of these
topics might be influenced by corporate funding.</b> It focuses on
four topics that have been particularly salient to the recent history
of climate contrarianism (for all topic plots, see SI Appendix,
Fig. S1). These interaction plots allow the prevalence of the
topics to vary by time (by year, 1993–2013) and whether an organization
received corporate funding during this same timespan
(Red Line = Yes, Black line = No). For example, the plot in the
top left demonstrates that temperature trends became much
more salient between 2007 and 2013 for organizations who received
funding, whereas they became less salient for organizations
who did not. </font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Similarly, the issue of energy production (top
right), the positive benefits of CO2 (bottom left), and climate
change being a long-term cycle (bottom right) all showed distinctly
positive trends over time for organizations who received
corporate funding, whereas those who did not receive corporate
funding remained more constant over the same time period.</span>
On the whole, these findings show that despite being part of
the same contrarian network, the organizations who received
corporate funding actually produced discourse that was qualitatively
different from organizations that did not receive such
funding, and these differences tended to revolve around energy</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">production, debates about the effects of CO2, and questions
about the scientific veracity of long-term climate change. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Discussion
The main empi....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2011) The politicization of climate change and polarization</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in the American’s public view of global warming, 2001-2010. Sociol Q 52(2):155–194.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. Ding D, Maibach EW, Zhao X, Roser-Renouf C, Leiserowitz A (2011) Support for climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policy and societal action are linked to perceptions about scientific agreement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nature. Clim Change 1:462–466.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Leiserowitz A, Maibach EW, Roser-Renouf C, Smith N, Dawson E (2012) Climategate,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public opinion, and the loss of trust. Am Behav Sci 57(6):818–837.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. Scruggs L, Benegal S (2012) Declining public concern about climate change: Can we</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">blame the great recession? Glob Environ Change 22(2):505–515.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. Hart PS, Nisbet EC (2011) Boomerang effects in science communication: How motivated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reasoning and identity cues amplify opinion polarization about climate mitigation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policies. Communic Res 39(6):701–723.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Gauchat H (2012) Politicization of science in the public sphere: A study of public trust</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in the United States, 1974 to 2010. Am Sociol Rev 77(2):167–187.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8. Oreskes N, Conway EM (2010) Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury, London).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9. Coll S (2012) Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (Penguin Group US,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10. Brulle R, Antonio R (2011) The unbearable lightness of politics: Climate change denial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and political polarization. Sociol Q 52(2):195–202.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11. Jacques PJ, Dunlap RE, Freeman M (2008) The organisation of denial: Conservative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">think tanks and environmental scepticism. Env Polit 17(3):349–385.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12. McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2000) Challenging global warming as a social problem: An</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">analysis of the conservative movement’s counter-claims. Soc Probl 47(4):499–522.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">13. Elsasser SW, Dunlap RE (2013) Leading voices in the denier choir: Conservative columnists’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dismissal of global warming and denigration of climate science. Am Behav</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sci 57:754–776.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14. McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2003) Defeating Kyoto: The conservative movement’s impact</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on US climate change policy. Soc Probl 50(3):348–373.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">15. Brulle RJ (2013) Institutionalizing delay: Foundation funding and the creation of U.S.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change counter-movement organizations. Clim Change 122:681–694.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">16. Boykoff MT, Boykoff JM (2004) Balance as bias: Global warming and the US prestige</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">press. Glob. Environ. Chang. 14:125–136.</font></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">punked?</font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">mann bk:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ch 12: 2007 big year: inc truth,</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">IPCC ARA 4, Nobel</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">even Luntz 180 after 2002 memo</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ARA ~ pillars of deniers</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">but 2008 Nature jrnl artl misrepped, --> GW stopped meme --> <b>Geo Will</b> Wapo op ed; superFreakonomics 2009</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Jrnl G res defreitas, carter amd ---</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>M&M PNAS</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media">http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media</a></font></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (<span class="caps">PNAS</span>) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate. </font></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 17.6px;">The abstract and full text of the study can be found here: </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract">Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span></font></strong></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The analysis of 20 years' worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.</font></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: -0.5em;">“</span>The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/23/why-are-so-many-americans-skeptical-about-climate-change-a-study-offers-a-surprising-answer/">Dr. Farrell told the Washington Post</a><span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> which was first to cover the news of the study's release. “This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own,” Dr. Farrell said....</font></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">164 orgs</font></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">60 PLUS ASSOCIATION, ACCURACY IN MEDIA, ACTION INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION
AND LIBERTY, ADVANCEMENT OF SOUND SCIENCE CENTER INC, ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
INSTITUTION, AMERICAN COAL FOUNDATION, AMERICAN COALITION FOR CLEAN
COAL ELECTRICITY, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION FOUNDATION, AMERICAN COUNCIL
FOR CAPITAL FORMATION, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH, AMERICAN ENERGY
ALLIANCE, AMERICAN ENERGY FREEDOM CENTER, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH, AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, AMERICAN
FRIENDS OF INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, AMERICAN FUEL AND PETROCHEMICAL
MANUFACTURERS, AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE
COUNCIL, AMERICAN NATURAL GAS ALLIANCE INC, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE,
AMERICAN POLICY CENTER, AMERICAN SPECTATOR FOUNDATION, AMERICAN TRADITION
INSTITUTE, AMERICANS FOR A LIMITED GOVERNMENT INC, AMERICANS FOR BALANCED
ENERGY CHOICES, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM, ANNAPOLIS
CENTER FOR SCIENCE BASED PUBLIC POLICY INC, ASSOCIATION OF GLOBAL AUTOMOBILE
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FOUNDATION ATLAS, AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE SCIENCE COALITION, CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER
AND GREENWATCH, CASCADE POLICY INSTITUTE, CATO INSTITUTE, CENTER FOR
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FOR SECURITY POLICY INC, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES,
CENTER FOR STUDY OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND GLOBAL CHANGE, CENTRE FOR NEW
EUROPE, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CHARLES KOCH INSTITUTE,
CITIZENS FOR A SOUND ECONOMY NOW FREEDOMWORKS, CITIZENS FOR AFFORDABLE
ENERGY INC, CO2 IS GREEN INC, COALITION FOR AMERICAN JOBS, COALITION
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AMERICA GREAT, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION ORGANIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY
COUNCIL, EXXONMOBIL, FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES,
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ENTERPRISE ACTION INSTITUTE FREE ENTERPRISE EDUCATION INSTITUTE, FREEDOM ACTION,
FREEDOMWORKS FOUNDATION, FREEDOMWORKS INC, FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM IN-
18
STITUTE INC, GEORGE MARSHALL INSTITUTE, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY LAW AND ECONOMICS
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FOR BIOSPHERIC RESEARCH, INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY RESEARCH, INSTITUTE FOR LIBERTY,
INSTITUTE FOR REGULATORY SCIENCE, INSTITUTE FOR STUDY OF EARTH AND MAN, INSTITUTE
OF HUMANE STUDIES GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS,
INTERMOUNTAIN RURAL ELECTRIC ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
CHANGE ASSESSMENT PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE SCIENCE COALITION,
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR CAPITAL FORMATION, INTERNATIONAL POLICY NETWORK,
INTERNATIONAL REPUBLICAN INSTITUTE IRI, JAMES MADISON INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC
POLICY STUDIES INC, JOHN LOCKE FOUNDATION INC, JUNKSCIENCE DOT COM, KNOWLEDGE
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POLICY RESEARCH INC, NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL BALANCE, NATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INSTITUTE, NATIONAL LEGAL CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST,
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UNION, NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNION FOUNDATION, NATIONAL WILDERNESS INSTITUTE,
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INC, OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE, PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION, PACIFIC
RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY, PEABODY ENERGY, PLANTS NEED CO2
ORG, PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER, REASON FOUNDATION, RESPONSIBLE
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POLICY INSTITUTE, SHOOK HARDY AND BACON LLP, SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVAL COMMITTEE,
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19
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN BUSINESS, WESTERN FUELS ASSOCIATION, WORLD
AFFAIRS COUNCILS OF AMERICA, WORLD CLIMATE REPORT</font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font></font></font></div></div></div>