Climate-change denial organizations were directly funded by tobacco and fossil-fuel interests

Evidence

In Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes and Conway make the case that a straight line can be drawn from the “tobacco strategy” of the 1950s to today’s “controversy” over global warming. In this case, the funding appears to have come from the fossil fuel industry and the “think tank” in question is the Heartland Institute. It is dispiriting to learn that some of the earliest money behind Heartland came from tobacco giant Philip Morris. It is perhaps less surprising to learn that some of their other funders over the years have included ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers: The Heartland Institute received more than 7.3 million from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2010, and nearly 14.4 million between 1986 and 2010 from foundations affiliated with Charles and David Koch, whose firm Koch Industries has substantial oil and energy holdings. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 71

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to Oreskes & Conway’s Merchants of Doubt, cited as the source authority. — connects to: The tobacco industry invented science denial as public-relations strategy — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 63; The tobacco industry’s manufactured-doubt playbook became a template for all later science denial. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 67; The fossil fuel industry replicated the tobacco denial playbook — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 246 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• The fossil fuel industry replicated the tobacco denial playbook #expands (0.90) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 246
• Fossil fuel funding manufactured doubt that made climate change a partisan media issue #expands (0.85) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 160
• Exxon deliberately reversed its climate research to fund denial when regulation loomed #expands (0.85) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 246
• Corporations manufacture doubt as a deliberate product to block climate action #expands (0.80) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 108
• Fossil fuel companies knowingly obscure climate science rather than believe their denial #expands (0.80) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 247
• Climate denial trades on manufactured doubt, not persuasion of scientists #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927
• Most climate-change denial publications trace back to conservative think tanks #qualifies (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 248
• Corporate climate deniers are corrupt, not confused about reality #expands (0.75)
• Science denialism, carbon trading, and geoengineering together form a coordinated neoliberal climate strategy. #expands (0.70) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 926
• Conspiracist climate denial rejects expertise itself, unlike corporate misinformation #qualifies (0.70) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 249