Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 276 posts

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#11

Post by pjmorris »

mrfusion wrote: post #4

Disclaimer. I’m a believer. But at this point isn’t there money behind both sides? I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be.

I imagine that the funding behind climate changed believers is dwarfed by the funding behind climate change deniers, primarily because we've been a fossil-fuel driven economy for about a century [0], and because it's a lot easier to sell fossil fuel products for a profit than it is to persuade a funder about climate change. But I don't know the empirical data, and could be wrong.

[0] 'The Prize', Yergin

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#12

Post by [deleted] »

LessDmesg wrote: post #7
SiempreViernes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's more interesting to find out who funds opposition to saving the world, right? If you look to see who funds climate change advocacy I expect you'll find governments doing most of it, with various ngo's doing most of the rest. Look at the ngo's and you'll find maybe soros or gates as prominent, but I don't think there will be much concentration: the environment movement is a real popular movement, not as…

Nah, the "environment movement" as you call it is obviously funded by the governments looking for an excuse to raise taxes. It's the governments giving away grant money to fund the "scientific consensus" (another ridiculous term). Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with "saving the world", only with the sovereign debt crisis. United States, EU and Japan are dead broke, they will try every ploy to raise taxes and steal…

[deleted]

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#13

Post by huffmsa »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #9
Dumblydorr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the GOP is bought by fossil fuel, even though solar and wind and nuclear can lobby, they can not compete with record setting fossil profits in 2019 dollar amounts, thus the GOP will continue to get on their knees before this industry. We need to technologically destroy the profits that drive denialism. We need to make EVs, renewables, nuclear, etc. so much better that fossil can't compete... seems unli…

It's funny how perspectives can be so different. I feel like the GOP has been politely waiting for the DNC to come to terms with the fact that nuclear is really the only path forward to provide clean stable grid power.

Been of the same thought myself. I see tons of pro-nuke Republicans waiting for the other side to show up.

Meanwhile the Dems are off cancelling all of the waste repository projects (yucca mountain) and then turning around and complaining about all of the dangerous radioactive waste sitting around the country.

This isn't a Burger King.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#14

Post by neffy »

LessDmesg wrote: post #7
SiempreViernes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's more interesting to find out who funds opposition to saving the world, right? If you look to see who funds climate change advocacy I expect you'll find governments doing most of it, with various ngo's doing most of the rest. Look at the ngo's and you'll find maybe soros or gates as prominent, but I don't think there will be much concentration: the environment movement is a real popular movement, not as…

Nah, the "environment movement" as you call it is obviously funded by the governments looking for an excuse to raise taxes. It's the governments giving away grant money to fund the "scientific consensus" (another ridiculous term). Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with "saving the world", only with the sovereign debt crisis. United States, EU and Japan are dead broke, they will try every ploy to raise taxes and steal…

If a group of people is allowed to consistently get away with not paying their taxes, then fairly quickly, just by the operation of the monetary system, they will be the only people with any money.

The real question is, are these really the people you want in control?

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#15

Post by erpellan »

LessDmesg wrote: post #7
SiempreViernes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's more interesting to find out who funds opposition to saving the world, right? If you look to see who funds climate change advocacy I expect you'll find governments doing most of it, with various ngo's doing most of the rest. Look at the ngo's and you'll find maybe soros or gates as prominent, but I don't think there will be much concentration: the environment movement is a real popular movement, not as…

Nah, the "environment movement" as you call it is obviously funded by the governments looking for an excuse to raise taxes. It's the governments giving away grant money to fund the "scientific consensus" (another ridiculous term). Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with "saving the world", only with the sovereign debt crisis. United States, EU and Japan are dead broke, they will try every ploy to raise taxes and steal…

Yes, NASA was funded to collect the actual data until Trump arrived. The facts don’t care if you don’t like them and they don’t go away if you cover your eyes like a child and pretend they’re not there.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#16

Post by xhkkffbf »

mrfusion wrote: post #4

Disclaimer. I’m a believer. But at this point isn’t there money behind both sides? I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be.

Yes. I generally believe that CO2 causes problems -- although not, perhaps, to the extent claimed by some.

Smart energy companies that produce less CO2 are definitely funding the other side. The Natural Gas folks, for instance, generate less CO2 than the coal companies (per BTU) and so, naturally, they're fueling the protest fires. Nuclear emits hardly any CO2 and so they're very anti-CO2. And certainly the wind and solar companies have everything to gain by sticking it to the fossil fuelers.

Here's one link, perhaps biased, but still informative. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/28...

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#17

Post by radikal_shit »

LessDmesg wrote: post #7
SiempreViernes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's more interesting to find out who funds opposition to saving the world, right? If you look to see who funds climate change advocacy I expect you'll find governments doing most of it, with various ngo's doing most of the rest. Look at the ngo's and you'll find maybe soros or gates as prominent, but I don't think there will be much concentration: the environment movement is a real popular movement, not as…

Nah, the "environment movement" as you call it is obviously funded by the governments looking for an excuse to raise taxes. It's the governments giving away grant money to fund the "scientific consensus" (another ridiculous term). Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with "saving the world", only with the sovereign debt crisis. United States, EU and Japan are dead broke, they will try every ploy to raise taxes and steal…

What's ridiculous about a scientific consensus? It's a trend in the publication of scientific facts. Show me a better way of unearthing what the data is showing than extrapolating from publications of hundreds of independent research. Especially when you follow it with a steam of unfounded speculations.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#18

Post by Consultant32452 »

huffmsa wrote: post #13
Consultant32452 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how perspectives can be so different. I feel like the GOP has been politely waiting for the DNC to come to terms with the fact that nuclear is really the only path forward to provide clean stable grid power.

Been of the same thought myself. I see tons of pro-nuke Republicans waiting for the other side to show up. Meanwhile the Dems are off cancelling all of the waste repository projects (yucca mountain) and then turning around and complaining about all of the dangerous radioactive waste sitting around the country. This isn't a Burger King.

I think we need to convince everyone to watch the Bill Gates documentary on Netflix. It's a not-so-subtle pitch to save the world with a gen 4 nuclear power plant that uses all that old nuclear waste as its fuel. So it's clean nuclear energy which is designed to be impossible to melt down and it literally eats the pollution from previous generation nuclear plants.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#19

Post by luckylion »

starvingbear wrote: post #8

Sure there is. But doesn't the title of the article read like nazi era propaganda? Not very professional or scientific or to call anyone on the other side a 'climate denier'. I'm sort of in that camp but am not paid and kind of dont mind debating it

I don't know what exactly qualifies as "climate denial", so I'm not even sure which group that is. Everybody who doesn't 100% agree with policies that are suggested and refer to "climate change" as their argument?

Global-Warming Skeptics would fit the bill much better, and doesn't have that bitter taste of sounding insanely propaganda-esque, but I guess it also doesn't have the same bang.

Re: The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)

#20

Post by huffmsa »

starvingbear wrote: post #8

Sure there is. But doesn't the title of the article read like nazi era propaganda? Not very professional or scientific or to call anyone on the other side a 'climate denier'. I'm sort of in that camp but am not paid and kind of dont mind debating it

Yes, and you're going to get down voted below the fold.

But it's historical dangerous to say "well ALL the good scientists and government scientists think X is true. Anyone who disagrees is on the take."

That means you Galileo.

Post reply on HN