Funding actual research costs money, but making up lies? That comes cheap. Still, you have to get those lies out there and repeated, keep the pundits well supplied with catchy phrases, make sure your anti-facts are packaged neatly for the press, and deliver them (folded around fat contributions) to legislators. It all adds up.
So how much gets spent to keep government from taking any action on climate change? Based on a report from InfluenceMap, quite a lot.
We find, estimating conservatively, that these five entities spent almost $115m per year combined on obstructive climate influencing activites, with the bulk by the American Petroleum Institute ($65m), ExxonMobil ($27m) and Shell ($22m).
That’s just the information that has become visible, mostly through shareholder initiatives. And it’s only a fraction of the total climate BS factory.
Extrapolated over the entire fossil fuel and other industrial sectors beyond, it is not hard to consider that this obstructive climate policy lobbying spending may be in the order of $500m annually.
Wonder how that compares to groups lobbying Congress to do something about climate change? Think David and Goliath. The report estimates the amount spent lobbying for action to be $5 million a year. Obstruction wins, 100 to 1. So it’s not really like David and Goliath. It’s more like Bambi and Godzilla.
Funny how Republicans keep claiming that scientists are fundraising off climate change. Being a denier? That’s where the money is.