Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science - Climate Change - Environment

A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate "counter movement" to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt. The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry. However, an audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Charles Koch who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas. Millions of dollars has been paid to Donors through a third-party organisation, called the Knowledge and Progress Fund, with is operated by the Koch family but does not advertise its Koch connections.

‘New McCarthyism’ Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann Jul 8, 2012 1:32pm (Getty Images) Interview with scientist Michael Mann, author of ‘The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines,’ and the latest of many to describe efforts to intimidate climate scientists and create confusion about their findings. Nature’s Edge Notebook #31 Observation, Analysis, Reflection, New Questions About This Interview and Its Context: Following are the video and transcript of an interview with climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University, conducted on April 19, in New York’s Central Park. Long respected by his professional peers around the world, Mann became more widely known as one of the targets of the so-called and now discredited “climategate scandal,” involving hacked emails of several prominent climate scientists. Mann’s science and professional conduct (and that of others so targeted) have been repeatedly exonerated by independent professional review. But the book’s scope is far wider. He is not the first. – Sen. – Rep.