Greenpeace

You might recall that a couple weeks ago our squad of climate crime scene investigators was on the hunt for a secretive billionaire named David Koch.

Well it turns out Koch has accomplices. Lots of them.

David Koch's chief partner in crime is his brother and fellow secretive billionaire Charles. But these two are not acting alone. They are the dons of a massive climate crime family. From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs handed out almost $25 million to groups actively opposing clean energy legislation, carbon emissions regulations, and other environmental policies — groups like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity, among many, many others.

To give you a frame of reference for that $25 million number: ExxonMobil only gave about $8.9 million to similar groups during that same period of time. You could say that the Koch Family has really muscled in on Exxon’s climate denial racket.

So we’ve launched a new report entitled “Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine” to make the Kochs and their cronies as notorious as Al Capone.

Here’s how you can help:

• Link the word “Koch” to our report, which can be found at www.greenpeace.org/kochindustries. Put up as many links as you can, everywhere and anywhere you can put up links. Help us make sure that when someone Googles “Koch,” the top search result will be our report about how they’re spreading anti-climate propaganda and misinformation via a vast web of think tanks, astroturf organizations, and other groups.

• Just as importantly, post links on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks! There are buttons on www.greenpeace.org/kochindustries to make this easy for you. When posting to Twitter, use the hashtag #Koch. And make sure to use the keyword “Koch” when posting on Facebook or any other OSN. Google can’t index content on these sites, but they have become significant search venues in and of themselves, so we want to make sure folks searching for “Koch” on these platforms find our report too.

Now for the really fun part! Go to the Koch Industries Facebook page and become a fan. True to their secretive nature, Koch Industries won't let you post anything on their Facebook page, but you can comment on their posts. So leave a comment saying "I am not a Fan of Koch Industries' funding of right wing think tanks and climate denying front groups" and a link to our report (www.greenpeace.org/kochindustries).

Koch Industries has been erasing some of our comments on Facebook so far today, so let’s post so many they can’t erase them all! I suggest you scroll down to the seventh post they have, which is all about Koch's “commitment to environmental excellence,” whatever the heck that means. (Koch Industries has a terrible environmental record, by the way.)

After leaving a comment, you can unfan Koch Industries if you want, so that no one thinks you actually like the polluting, climate-denying fat cats who control the company.

Whatever you do — post to your website or blog, on your Facebook or Twitter, or just retweet a link to this blog post — you can rest assured that you’ve helped make the world a little bit safer by exposing these climate denial kingpins and their accomplices in climate crimes.

The world's attention was focused on Copenhagen last December when world leaders met to discuss a global climate treaty. And as climate legislation is still slowly making its way through Congress, global warming continues to be big news. All of which, of course, has whipped climate deniers into a seething, frothing-at-the-mouth frenzy.

You've probably noticed that climate deniers have been in full attack mode lately. But you might not know that while climate science as a field of inquiry has been around for over a century, the climate denial industry is relatively new, having only been around a couple decades.

In the past century we’ve certainly deepened our knowledge of how the global climate works, and the basics of climate science have been more or less understood and accepted during that time. Andy Revkin at the NYT wrote a good blog post back in January about when “the real number crunching” began on carbon emissions and how they might impact the global climate. That was all the way back in the ‘50s, so around 60 years ago. This video, as an example, is from 1958:


It wasn’t until the past 20 years, when the urgency of stopping global warming became more and more widely recognized, that there was all of a sudden “doubt” about climate science. Conveniently, these doubts arose just as lawmakers the world over began considering regulations on carbon emissions that would deal with the climate crisis — and would also adversely impact the bottom lines of fossil fuels companies, energy providers, and other big polluters who are making a killing while dumping millions of tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere every year.

These doubts about climate science were of course completely manufactured by dirty energy companies, their lobbyists, and their pals at various institutions that make up the Great Climate Denial Machine. These polluter barons are more than happy to continue poisoning and polluting the atmosphere as long as they can keep profiting from their unsustainable business models. Our own Cindy Baxter at Greenpeace International wrote up a report called Dealing in Doubt to tell the entire sordid tale of the 20-year campaign to block progressive climate and clean energy legislation through a deliberate campaign of lies and misinformation.

The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory has been widely corroborated by decades-worth of data compiled by research institutions across the globe. Climate deniers know they can't attack the science head on, so the only thing left for them to do is muddy the debate by sowing enough doubt to justify further delays. Dealing in Doubt lays out exactly how they've done that for the past 20 years. It's worth a read for anyone who wants to understand how we got where we are in the climate debate, and wants to help forge a path toward a clean energy future by countering the lies and misinformation of the climate denial industry.

Check out the video from the Climate Crime Scene we declared last week when our activists went in search of billionaire oilman and major funder of the climate denial industry David Koch:

Several Greenpeace activists/emergency responders were on the scene of yet another climate crime today, this time in search of billionaire oilman David Koch. As the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History unveiled its new David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, our activists rolled up in our green emergency vehicles and passed out "Wanted" posters for David Koch and his brother Charles. The two are responsible for spending millions of dollars to lobby against climate action and fund climate denial.



“Who the heck are the Kochs?” you might be asking, and I don’t blame you. They’re a pretty secretive duo, even though they are the principal shareholders of Koch Industries (it's pronounced like "Coke," by the way), an oil supply and refining company that is one of the largest private corporations in the US.

Though they like to brag about being “the biggest company you’ve never heard of,” the Kochs do not why away from meddling in public affairs all the same. Koch Industries is among the biggest lobbying spenders in the oil industry and Koch’s political action committee (PAC) spent more on contributions to federal candidates since the 2006 election cycle than any other oil-and-gas sector PAC.

The Kochs also funnel millions of dollars through their three “charitable” foundations to a whole bunch of the worst climate deniers, like the Cato Instititute and the Heritage Foundation. From 2005 to 2008, the Koch foundations gave over $24.8 million in funding to climate denial groups, outdoing even ExxonMobil, which gave about $9.1 million to similar organizations over the same period of time. You can see the recipients of Koch’s dirty fossil fuel money and the exorbitant sums each has received over the years by visiting www.greenpeace.org/kochmoney.

You’ve probably even seen or heard of their handiwork before, though you may not have known who was behind it. The “Hot Air Tour,” which aims to spread climate denial talking points and misinformation about global warming through a touring hot air balloon, was launched by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP). David Koch is the founder and chairman of AFP, which, not coincidentally, has receieved some $5 million from Koch foundations.



Plenty more fun and interesting facts about how the Kochs spend their money to buy influence on Capitol Hill and ensure that we delay action on global warming long enough for them to rake in several more billions of dollars can be found in this factsheet (PDF).

How can you help counter the Koch’s influence on the climate debate? Help us shine a light on their funding of climate denial by using the buttons at the top of this post to share this story on Facebook, Tweet it, or send it to your friends and family.

David Koch’s oil money may get his name on an exhibit at the Smithsonian, but together we can ensure that the true Koch family legacy is known as one of environmental crimes, lobbying to block clean energy, and funding global warming denial front groups.

Barbara Stowe is the daughter of Irving and Dorothy Stowe, two of Greenpeace's founders and most dedicated activists. When she heard the news that the Obama Administration was considering supporting a proposal to reintroduce commercial whaling, she took action here on the GPUSA site and wrote the following letter to the President. I found it inspiring, and thought you might, too.

Dear President Obama,

I listed my citizenship on this message as Canadian. However, I hold dual USA/Canadian citizenship. My family was born in Rhode Island, and my mother still avidly follows US politics. My brother and I still vote in US presidential elections, and we were thrilled at your candidacy. We were glued to the TV for months watching the build up to the election, even though we live in Canada.

My parents were among the main founders of Greenpeace. Our house was the organization's (only) office during the first five years of its existence. My mother, at 89, still serves at times as a kind of social ambassador for Greenpeace, and my brother and I serve with her. My late father, a fervent activist who also worked pro bono for the NAACP, among other causes, unfortunately did not live to see this new millenium, but I know he would have held the highest hopes for your administration. I hope you will see fit to do all in your power to save the whales.

I tell you quite frankly that in the early seventies, when Greenpeace was in its infancy, I did not "get" why some members were agitating to save the whales. I thought we should stick to our first goal: stopping nuclear testing worldwide. (I applaud your efforts to denuclearize). It took, for me, standing on the deck of a Greenpeace ship, staring into the eye of a humpback whale, which was equally staring at me, to change my opinion. It doesn't take personal contact for everyone. Austria, a landlocked country, has fought tirelessly within the IWC to increase the protection of whales.

For years, Greenpeace and the United States government have played instrumental roles in securing a moratorium on commercial whaling through the IWC. Despite refusal to honor the moratorium by Japan,  Iceland, and Norway, the moratorium has proven to be the most  important whale conservation agreement in history.  Several whale populations have slowly begun to recover, and some are no longer in the imminent danger of extinction they were just a few decades ago.

Mr. President, I am deeply concerned about reports that the USA is championing a deal that would undermine the moratorium and secure the future of commercial whaling. From the campaign platform you shared with Greenpeace, I know you share my view that commercial whaling has no place in the 21st century.  I was grateful for your pledge to help bring this outrageous and unnecessary practice to an end.

I urgently call on you to ensure that the US opposes any deal that would legitimize commercial whaling by granting quotas to Japan and its whaling allies. Instead, I urge you to support Australia's proposal, which would end whaling in the Southern Ocean once and for all. There is very widespread and bi-partisan American support for whale conservation, and millions of Americans are counting on you. I am counting on you.  Most of all, the whales are counting on you.

Sincerely,
Barbara Stowe
Vancouver, BC
Canada

Barbara is one of over 30,000 activists who have sent a message to the president. You can take action too and tell President Obama to say NO to commercial whaling.

We're very excited to bring you the new Greenpeace USA Grassroots Blog. You'll get to hear directly from Greenpeace staff organizers and their top activists and volunteers about the work the Student Network, Activist Network, and Field Team are doing to build a greener, more peaceful future. And most important of all, you can check this blog regularly to find out how you can get involved too!

Hope you find this blog useful. See you in cyberspace...