Billionaires Covertly Funding Attacks on Climate Science

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly


Secretive groups known as Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund are funneling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate science “without revealing the identities of [their] wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.”

Big surprise. An audit trail reveals that infamous American billionaire and financier of right-wing causes Charles Koch indirectly supports the Donors groups through a third-party organization called the Knowledge and Progress Fund. That group does not advertise its connection to Charles Koch and his brother, David Koch.

Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, estimates that in the past decade roughly $500 million has been given to organizations bent on undermining the science of global warming, with much of the cash flowing through such stealth third parties.