This week's Climate Monitor has some rather big numbers on climate disinfo advertising: "The highest-spending advertiser across the climate and energy sector continues to be fossil fuel giant Exxon Mobil, which has spent over $23.1 million since June 2018 on Facebook and Instagram ads."
Climate Monitor has put together a list of the top 100 advertisers on Meta’s platforms, and right behind Exxon Mobil is the American Petroleum Institute, with over $11 million spent on Facebook and Instagram advertising between June 2018 and June 15, 2023. In third place is the California Public Utilities Commission, with $9.76 million in ad expenditures.
Overall, the organizations on the list, including environmental groups, "have dropped a cumulative $183 million on ads," with plenty of that money coming from green groups like the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters (ranked 4th, 6th, and 7th, respectively, for their $7.6, nearly $6.0, and $5.0 million budgets on Meta ads over the last five years).
Call us old fashioned, but wouldn't it be nice if green groups were sending their ad dollars to local media to try to slow the disinfo-friendly desertification of local news, instead of subsidizing billionaire egomaniacs?