The new film Greedy Lying Bastards (GLB for short) opened Friday in theaters in about 30 cities around the US. Go see it, first of all…there is a theater list here. And tell your friends about it. Continue reading
Tag Archives: polluterwatch
Coal front group ACCCE launches ad campaign ahead of presidential debates
Originally posted to PolluterWatch
Twenty four hours before the first presidential debate, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a front group for the coal industry, has launched a new ad as part of a $35 million dollar PR campaign.
The new ad, now playing on television stations around the country, is typical of the coal industry propaganda prominent in this year’s presidential election. Candidate Mitt Romney has mirrored coal industry messaging, releasing political ads decrying President Obama’s”war on coal” and announcing “I like coal” during the first presidential debate.
A Greenpeace investigation that looked in to the history of coal funded advertising has revealed that the coal industry has been using the same scare tactics designed to limit regulation of the coal industry since the 1970′s, when the Clean Air Act and Acid Rain legislation forced the industry to invest in a modicum of environmental protection, like scrubbers for smokestacks.
In this new campaign, Big Coal’s PR flaks at ACCCE have recycled the same tactics of attacking the EPA, promoting the myth of clean coal, threatening economic catastrophe, and stoking nationalist fears that the industry has used for decades. Continue reading
Students: The World Needs You – Apply for the Greenpeace Semester
APPLY FOR THE GREENPEACE SEMESTER!
Me, on a decommissioned Duke/Progress Energy smokestack (see picture below). Arden, NC. Feb, 2012.
As humans, we sometimes find ourselves in positions that change the way we view the world, or how we fit into it. This week, as we focus on recruiting students for the Greenpeace Semester, I want to share some examples of how my own time in Washington, DC three years ago led me to many of the most profound and exciting experiences I have lived through.
Let me start backwards: I do research for Greenpeace’s PolluterWatch project exposing the lies of the bad guys. Think Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Duke Energy, and other coal, oil, chemical and industrial interests. In order to protect their relentless pursuit of wealth, power and prestige, the people who lead these companies bankroll a network of propagandists to hijack our perceptions and our politics. I was introduced to this network as the climate denial machine, although their corporate agenda includes everything from cracking workers unions to suppressing voters to privatizing education.
The Greenpeace Semester led me into a climate denier conference in New York City organized by the Heartland Institute. I looked into the eyes of men who hate what I do. I shook their hands. I listened to them gripe about Greenpeace’s work to hold them accountable. I made small talk…and mischief. Continue reading
Koch Brothers Exposed: Fueling Climate Denial and Privatizing Democracy
UPDATE 6/20/2012: Updated Koch funding to climate science denying front groups is $61,375,781 from 1997-2010, over $37.7 million of which was spent from 2005-2010. Numbers in this blog have been updated to reflect the most up-to-date data.
Greenpeace is partnering with Brave New Foundation to promote its newest film, Koch Brothers Exposed. Check out the movie trailer, pick up a copy of the movie and register your own local premier to help expose how Charles and David Koch’s money impacts the lives of all Americans.
The new numbers are in, ladies and gentleman: since 1997 the billionaire oil brothers Charles and David Koch have dumped over 61.3 million dollars into front groups that attack climate science and policies designed to solve global warming. According to the 2010 IRS records of their private foundations, the latest year available, the Koch brothers funneled another $4.38 million into the Climate Denial Machine from their private foundations.
Despite overwhelming consensus among climate change researchers and scientific institutions worldwide—including all the Academies of Sciences in industrialized countries, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA and all other major US scientific institutions—recognition of global warming among Americans remains startlingly low. Fueled by Koch money, the Climate Denial Machine has executed an unceasing, anti-scientific and anti-regulatory public relations campaign that mirrors the tactics used by tobacco companies to deny the health consequences of smoking. Continue reading
Heartland Institute Sting Operation Triggers Greenpeace Investigations
PolluterWatch: Greenpeace Investigates Heartland Institute Leaked Documents – click to see investigation and ongoing updates.
What an awkward entrance into 2012 for the climate denial machine!
Among the ongoing dubious deeds of the billionaire Koch brothers, the American Petroleum Institute’s Vote 4 Energy propaganda and the House of Representative’s love affair with the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, an indicator that policymakers refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of global warming, we already had plenty of debunking to do.
Then the Heartland Institute fell on its face, inadvertently aiding in a leak of its own internal documents outlining their strategies and finances for 2012. We are currently investigating several areas those documents drew our attention to — see Greenpeace’s Heartland Institute Investigations and the Joseph Bast PolluterWatch profile.