yandle, bruce mercatus
Institute for Humane Studies (IHS)
Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group
$36,886,734 from Koch foundations, 1997-2017.
The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University offers scholarships and career training to libertarian students. Charles Koch is the Chairman of the IHS board of directors.
Mother Jones called the Institute for Human Studies a “haven for climate change deniers.” Several climate deniers have prominent positions at IHS, including: Robert Bradley, member of the Academic Review Committee and author of *Climate Alarmism Reconsidered* (2003); and Fred Singer, Research Professor at IHS.
A number of climate deniers who share affiliation with other Koch-funded organizations are guest lecturers for IHS. Examples include Bruce Yandle of Clemson University, among Charles Koch’s most-funded universities, who also serves as Senior Associate with the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). Another example is Kenneth Green, Resident Scholar with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the defunct Environmental Literacy Council, a group that pushed for teachers to present climate science as controversial.
IHS is a member of the State Policy Network.
GREENPEACE
last week, President Biden _{signed an Executive Order}_ encouraging U.S. leadership in the clean car sector with a goal of half of all new car sales in the U.S. being zero-emission by 2030. It took them a few days, but deniers seem to have assembled their response by cobbling together a mix of old lies, new misrepresentations, and bizarre logical fallacies.
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For example, a response that in any sane outlet might be praise for Biden’s plan was published in the Koch-funded RealClearEnergy as an attack: _{President Biden’s Electric Car Future is Union Made}_. Bruce Yandle, a fellow at the Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University, is upset that Biden invited three major U.S. car companies to attend the announcement because they were the largest employers of workers in the United Auto Workers union, and didn’t invite non-American companies with non-union workers to his event promoting good American jobs.}:
By Climate Denier Roundup
Obviously, it’s no surprise that a Koch crony is anti-union and anti-EV, unless you confuse organized labor with organized denial.
Speaking of organized denial, while the _{once-Koch-funded}_ Daily Caller has since _{basically given up}_ on regular climate denial reporting, and its IPCC story was _{a straightforward rip-off}_ of the _{AP’s “code red” coverage}_ (sans any Koch-network denial quote, because no-pay, no-play, we assume). The Caller still occasionally publishes guest opinion pieces and _{ran one from Charlotte Whelan}_ of the (_{pro-Covid}_) Independent Women’s Forum andSteamboat Institute (which is hosting _{Marc Morano and a slate of other rightwing pseudostars at an upcoming festival}_).
Whelan is also upset the White House invited union workers to its pro-union-jobs event, and adds (with a deliberately misleading citation) the claim that “it could take more than 15 years to recoup the upfront extra costs in fuel savings. The average American certainly can’t wait that long to ‘make back’ the additional upfront cost” But the work cited (_{an NRDC post}_ based on _{a peer-reviewed study}_) doesn’t even measure how long it would take to recoup the upfront cost of an EV with cheaper charging and a more efficient propulsion system. The study did, however, use 15 years as the unit of measurement for a car’s life. So the calculations show that over an average 15-year lifespan of ownership, it can be almost $15,000 cheaper to go with an electric car.
Over at theKoch-funded Heritage foundation’s media arm, their policy analyst _{Katie Tubb makes a similar claim}_ about EVs being for rich people, which we’ve addressed before as part of _{their propaganda campaigns}_, as well as the _{old racist dog whistle about China}_.
Finally, we get to a new name to us, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, who wrote that Biden’s move was “costly and counterproductive” in the _{industry-funded}_ Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
After a column _{defending the auto industry from 5G in January}_, and another in March with the phrase “nothing beats personal vehicles for social distancing.” Furchtgott-Roth makes similar points to the other professional disinformers in her most recent City Journal piece, but she also _{a:{dds a particularly baffling claim:(style="background-color:#ffff33;"):}:}_ that because “the United States has achieved energy security by becoming a net exporter of oil and natural gas,” then “mandating sales of electric vehicles would weaken that security.”
But if exporting oil makes us stronger (by her logic) then wouldn’t having more of it to export because our own cars are using less of it be a good thing, that would make us stronger?
Why would someone write something so inane and illogical, despite a byline that includes “former deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation” and “adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University?” Those are both legitimate organizations, not industry-funded disinformation operations!
Well it turns out that the DOT appointment was made by notoriously-bad-hiring-manager Donald Trump, and prior to that, _{Furchtgott-Roth was an economist for the American Petroleum Institute}_, _{proving once again}_ that _{when someone says something stupid about EVs}_, it’s _{probably on purpose}_.
(Originally appeared at DailyKos.)