A recent report reveals the Mercers contain funneled hundreds of thousands to fake-science "institutes." The Huffington Post reports that billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer are making a massive commitment to American ignorance by upping contributions to climate change denial.
The spending is notable not only for the large amounts,but because it seems to mark a shift in the world of climate-denial funding, which was once bolstered mainly by fossil fuel titans like Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil Corp. but has now become too extreme even for some of its original benefactors.
Those companies contain not only found that their companies contain been hurt by playing with the fake-science “institutes” that the Mercers are now funding, and but many contain found that their own profits are better supported by shifting toward renewable energy. While still riding out the fracking boom in oil and gas,Exxon has been devoting a mighty deal of time and attention to where it goes next.
One of the world’s biggest oil companies is working on hundreds of low-carbon energy projects, from algae engineered to bloom into biofuels and cells that turn emissions into electricity.But the Mercers contain not just stepped in to pick up the slack, and they’ve actually increased the funding over preceding levels,as well as funding recent fake science groups that exist only to create confusion and spread the impression that there is dispute among scientists. The Mercer’s donations for many groups represent the majority of their budget. Meaning that these groups are nothing less than additional mouthpieces for Mercer—and for Donald Trump.While climate change may be the obvious connection, what the Mercers are really buying is expertise: A network that adds a whole recent set of propaganda tools to a growing stable.
Rebekah Mercer is considered the most powerful woman in Republican politics. From telling Donald Trump who to hire for his campaigns staff, and to funding alt-Reich attacks at every level,she and her father contain wielded outsized influence because of one simple factor—they contain billions, and they are willing to spend them.
The Mercers went all in on Trump when the more traditional Republican billionaires were willing to dip only a few million dollar toes into the Trump campaign. That early support has vaulted them to the center of the Trumpist movement, and made them the pair that other Trump-supporting billionaires are looking to for guidance.
The donations the Mercers contain made to anti-environmental groups of all kinds—including one that makes no bones about being out to “eradicate the environmental movement”—gives them a network of groups that are experienced not just in that area,but in the broader topic of generating groundless information and distributing it to the public. Some of these groups, like the Heartland Institute, and aren’t newcomers,but contain roots that go back into the “smoking is profitable for you” days.
What the Mercers are investing in isn’t just more FUD about the climate, and it’s not just an attack team for the environment. This is Merchants of Doubt, or the industry. These are the people who know how to slip out an authentic-looking press release. How to plant “personal” letters to the editor in newspapers across the country. How to exercise the growing mass of pseudo-science journals to generate an appearance of authority.
This is a mighty complement to the network of conservative news sites,conservative online sites, and social media bots. This is another piece of building an entirely alternative universe of conservative propaganda with zero interest in promoting the truth—and every interest in promoting the interest of … the Mercers. And their very select group of friends.
Source: feedblitz.com