Climate activists hold a banner after climbing atop the roof of the entrance of the building as they protest outside offices of Youtube during the tenth day of demonstrations by the climate change action group Extinction Rebellion, in London, on Oct. 16, 2019. PAUL ELLIS / AFP / Getty Images
You don't have to look far to find misinformation about climate science continuing to spread online through prominent social media channels like YouTube. That's despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are driving the climate crisis.
<p>A new report by the global activist NGO <a href="https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/" target="_blank">Avaaz</a> reveals that, despite YouTube's pledge to combat misinformation, the popular video site owned by Google has failed to crack down on this problem when it comes to climate change. Videos containing false or misleading information on climate change continue to reach millions of users through YouTube's recommendation algorithm. Furthermore, ads — including those from major brands and environmental groups — displayed on these videos provide a monetary incentive, not only to YouTube, but to the videos' creators to keep promoting fringe theories contrary to scientific reality.</p>
<div id="45fce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1H8GPE1579278661"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1217762461803319296" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Avaaz asked @YouTube to extract such videos from its recommendation algorithms and include climate misinformation i… https://t.co/NzWjYntEMW</div> — Avaaz (@Avaaz)<a href="https://twitter.com/Avaaz/statuses/1217762461803319296">1579172170.0</a></blockquote></div><p><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>We found that YouTube is driving millions of people to watch climate misinformation videos every day," Avaaz writes in its report, titled <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kw0pq7pfeNmVEBt8IbR0zgZmHKBoSGvA/view" target="_blank"><em>Why is YouTube Broadcasting Climate Misinformation to Millions?</em></a> "YouTube's recommendation algorithm is giving these videos free promotion and showing misinformation to millions who wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise."</p>
Monetizing Misinformation
<p>Examples of videos identified as containing climate misinformation include titles such as "ACTUAL SCIENTIST: Climate Change is a Hoax" and "CIA Whistleblower Speaks Out About Climate Engineering Vaccination Dangers and 911." Other videos feature interviews with climate science deniers, such as <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-moore" target="_blank">Patrick Moore</a>, and promote false claims that there is no evidence that CO2 emissions are the dominant cause of climate change (<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf" target="_blank">there is and they are</a>).</p><p>Not all of the channels promoting misinformation are owned by pseudonymous individuals with fringe ideas. Some come from established media organizations such as Fox News and the conservative media nonprofit <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/prageru" target="_blank">PragerU</a>.</p><p>Avaaz uncovered these examples by reviewing over 5,000 videos using the search terms "global warming," "climate change," and "climate manipulation." The NGO found a number of videos containing misleading or false information for each search term.</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>For the search term 'global warming,' 16 percent of the top 100 related videos included under the up-next feature had misinformation about climate change," the report states. The percentage of top 100 related videos with climate misinformation, promoted through YouTube's recommendation algorithm, dropped to 8 percent when the search term "climate change" was used. When the researchers typed in "climate manipulation," however, that percentage rose to 21 percent. According to Avaaz, the climate misinformation videos it reviewed had 21.1 million views collectively.</p><div id="383c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="BK54XD1579278661"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1217762425757487106" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">If you search for terms such as “global warming” on @YouTube, you might end up watching #misinformation about… https://t.co/hOlAWVCRuN</div> — Avaaz (@Avaaz)<a href="https://twitter.com/Avaaz/statuses/1217762425757487106">1579172161.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Avaaz researchers also found that some of these climate misinformation videos had accompanying advertisements, indicating that YouTube is incentivizing climate misinformation through its monetization program. As the report points out, 55 percent of the fee that advertisers pay goes to the video creator, while 45 percent goes to YouTube.</p><p>Avaaz identified ads from over 100 brands appearing alongside the climate misinformation videos that it reviewed. These included major consumer brands such as Samsung and L'Oréal, ethical or green brands such as Ecosia and Nikin, and environmental groups such as WWF and Greenpeace.</p><p>"We from NIKIN want to join Avaaz in calling on YouTube to change their algorithm that disinformation doesn't get spread around the world and it should especially not be monetized," a company spokesperson for the Swiss sustainable fashion company said in response to the Avaaz report. "We from NIKIN are a sustainable brand that used YouTube as an advertising platform, but our videos got shown before videos that call climate change a hoax. This is completely against what we want and the responsibility lies in YouTube's hand to change that." </p>
Avaaz Recommends Further Action, Youtube Defends Its Policies
<p>Avaaz acknowledged steps that YouTube and Google have taken to update the video platform's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/about/policies/#staying-safe" target="_blank">Community Guidelines</a> policy and fight disinformation. In 2015 YouTube initiated a campaign to help "change the way people discuss climate change," and climate-related videos now include a Wikipedia link to basic, definitive information on the term "global warming."</p><p>In February 2019 Google issued a <a href="https://www.blog.google/documents/37/How_Google_Fights_Disinformation.pdf" target="_blank">white paper on fighting disinformation</a>, stating: "We set out to prevent our systems from serving up content that could misinform users in a harmful way, particularly in domains that rely on veracity, such as science, medicine, news, or historical events." Google said it introduced a "higher bar" for the promotion of YouTube videos. YouTube has also updated its policies on the kind of content it prohibits and has taken steps to protect its users from exposure to misinformation on vaccine safety and conspiracy theories.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjUyMzk0NC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODA1NDg4Mn0.tn3phWtzc0_AfpgrXvUo6TCups3J0wIJBTe1SOEKMnQ/img.png?width=980" id="6f6df" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6b713049219751b41d41e1d2d420a5ca" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The relative number and views of the top 100 videos found searching for "global warming" on YouTube and identifying those featuring climate misinformation. DeSmogBlog / Avaaz
<p>But Avaaz says these actions are not enough.</p><p>"Climate misinformation threatens the health and safety of our societies and our planet. YouTube has taken notable strides to act against disinformation, but our research proves that more is needed," said Julie Deruy, senior campaigner at Avaaz. "YouTube can and should immediately move to include climate misinformation in the company's borderline content policy and allow advertisers to exclude their ads from videos with climate misinformation." (Borderline content refers to videos that walk the line of violating YouTube's terms of service and has been the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20992018/youtube-borderline-content-recommendation-algorithm-news-authoritative-sources" target="_blank">subject of much scrutiny</a>).</p><p>The Avaaz report outlines several recommendations, based on consultation with industry experts, advertisers, and legislators around the world. These recommendations, quoted here from the report, suggest the video platform: </p><ol><li><strong>Detox the YouTube Recommendation Algorithms</strong>: The company must end its free promotion of misinformation and disinformation videos by extracting such videos from its algorithms, starting immediately by including climate misinformation in its borderline content policy.</li><li><strong>Demonetize Disinformation</strong>: Add disinformation and misinformation to YouTube's relevant monetization policies, ensuring such content does not include advertising and is not financially incentivized. YouTube should start immediately with the option for advertisers to exclude their ads from videos with climate misinformation.</li><li><strong>Correct the Record</strong>: Work with independent fact-checkers to inform users who have seen or interacted with verifiably false or misleading information, and issue corrections alongside these videos.</li><li><strong>Transparency</strong>: Although YouTube promises to work openly with researchers, the company maintains an opaque process around its recommendation algorithms and on how effective its policies are in dealing with misinformation. YouTube should immediately release data showing the amount of views on misinformation content that were driven by its recommendation algorithms. YouTube must also work with researchers to ensure access to its recommendation algorithms to study misinformation.</li></ol><p>DeSmog reached out to one researcher who has studied YouTube's promotion of videos containing conspiracy theories or false information on climate change. Dr. Joachim Allgaier, senior researcher at <span style="background-color: initial;">RWTH</span> Aachen University in Germany, authored a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00036/full" target="_blank">study</a> published last summer finding that YouTube's video recommendation algorithm <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/30/youtube-video-suggestion-algorithm-climate-science-denial-study" target="_blank">boosted videos that misrepresented the scientific consensus on climate</a>. Of the 200 videos he reviewed, more than half presented views contrary to mainstream climate science. Allgaier's findings are consistent with those of Avaaz, and he said he supports the recommendations in its new report.</p><p>"I hope [YouTube] will be more transparent on how science-related videos get recommended or not and what exactly they are doing against the promotion of misinformation/disinformation," Allgaier said via email. "And they obviously need to stop the monetization of disinformation videos! To be more transparent and respond to requests and questions from researchers and NGOs would be a prerequisite for being a reliable source of information. From this point of view there still is a lot of room for improvement."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjUyMzk0NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTQwODc4MX0.vUmcRYYO2CluZkGlEWA_dDogmUCpGeQzL-GuMZrPwNg/img.png?width=980" id="95f10" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="98fb0f5795292ab357d95e9b3632c7b1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/01/16/youtube-monetizing-climate-science-denial-videos-avaaz" target="_blank">DeSmogBlog</a>.</em></p>Avaaz mock up of what effective misinformation corrections could look like on YouTube videos. DeSmogBlog / Avaaz
<p>DeSmog also reached out to Google, parent company of YouTube, and a company spokesperson defended YouTube's policies, saying that false information does not necessarily violate the site's community guidelines. YouTube indicated that it is not inclined to adopt the recommendations in the Avaaz report, due to concerns on limiting free speech.</p><p>"We can't speak to Avaaz's methodology or results, and our recommendations systems are not designed to filter or demote videos or channels based on specific perspectives. YouTube has strict <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en" target="_blank">ad policies</a> that govern where ads are allowed to appear and we give advertisers tools to opt out of content that doesn't align with their brand," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement responding to the report. </p><p>"We've also significantly invested in <a href="https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/01/continuing-our-work-to-improve.html" target="_blank">reducing</a> recommendations of borderline content and harmful misinformation, and <a href="https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/12/the-four-rs-of-responsibility-raise-and-reduce.html?m=1" target="_blank">raising up</a> authoritative voices on YouTube," the spokesperson continued. "In 2019 alone, the consumption on authoritative news publishers' channels <a href="https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/12/the-four-rs-of-responsibility-raise-and-reduce.html" target="_blank">grew</a> by 60 percent. As our systems appear to have done in the majority of cases in this report, we prioritize authoritative voices for millions of news and information queries, and surface information panels on topics prone to misinformation — including climate change — to provide users with context alongside their content. We continue to expand these efforts to more topics and countries."</p><p>Avaaz said it stands by its findings, and criticized YouTube for knowingly promoting false information on climate change.</p><p>"YouTube is the largest broadcasting channel in the world, and it is driving millions of people to climate misinformation videos," said Avaaz's Deruy. "This is not about free speech, this is about the free advertising YouTube is giving to factually inaccurate videos that risk confusing people about one of the biggest crises of our time. The bottom line is that YouTube should not feature, suggest, promote, advertise, or lead users to misinformation." </p>From Your Site Articles
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Big Data, Big Oil: Unveiling the 'Dark Forces' Behind Trump’s 2020 Reelection Campaign With Josh Fox
14 January
Insights + Opinion
Josh Fox, award winning filmmaker and director, speaking on stage at Collision 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 2, 2017. CC BY 2.0
By Reynard Loki
Josh Fox, the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind Gasland, the documentary that started the global anti-fracking movement, is bringing a new message to audiences across the country with The Truth Has Changed, a live theater-based project that sounds the alarm on the right-wing disinformation campaign working to secure President Trump's reelection.
<p> Commissioned by legendary documentary producer Sheila Nevins for HBO as a solo performance to inspire grassroots action, <em>The Truth Has Changed</em> traces Fox's personal arc from 9/11 to present-day America to tell a story that is both a warning and a prescription to save our democracy — and the planet.</p>
<p>I talked to Fox about this new project and the dark forces working to spread lies and misinformation to influence the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/2020-election">2020 presidential election</a>.</p><p><span></span><strong>Reynard Loki</strong>: Your films have been about the environment, and the fight to save it from climate change, fracking, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipelines</a>, the activists at Standing Rock. How has your previous work led you to your new live performance-based project, <em>The Truth Has Changed</em>?</p><p><strong>Josh Fox</strong>: That's a great question. It started with an intriguing proposal from HBO. They said, "We know you do theater. We know you've been on the road for 10 years bringing your films to people. And you in a live setting is a part of the show, right? It's not just that people come out to see your films. They come to see you, so how about you do a one-man show that brings that reality to the people?" And that was an assignment from Sheila Nevins when she was at HBO. And I said, "Absolutely; I'll try this." And then I started to really think about it, and at first, it was kind of a reporter's notebook, but to be honest, what I really zeroed in on was the fact that for the last 10 years, the oil and gas industry has made a huge effort to discredit my work and discredit all of the people who spoke about how bad fracking is. And this is very similar to the campaigns of climate denial, which hinge on widespread misinformation and then spreading disinformation and propaganda, smear and lies.</p>
<p><strong>RL</strong>: Can you describe the effort to discredit your work?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: Big names in conservative smear campaigns were following me all around the country. [Steve] Bannon. Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Filmmaker Phelim McAleer, whose pro-fracking documentary "FrackNation" attempted to refute my own documentary <em>Gasland</em>. Conservative activist James O'Keefe. GOP media strategist Fred Davis. These high-profile right-wing charlatans clearly did opposition research on me. They collected all this data on me and figured out how to attack me personally. They tried to get inside my psyche to unnerve me. And they did it in a very specific and deliberate kind of way.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: What exactly did they do?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: They created hate emails specifically designed for my personality. There were tweets threats; there were death threats on Twitter. They highlighted my life in the theater, my hairline, the fact that my family's Jewish; they found out that I had quit smoking several years ago, but they found a picture of me with a cigarette in my hand online from the past, and they ran that as a pro-fracking TV ad in Ohio saying, "This environmentalist is a smoker." They followed me around the country for years. They booked shadow tours of our films. They tapped into ethnic and regional stereotyping. And then they tried to paint me as some kind of rich, intellectual, New York City liberal, which is not the case. They flung all of these stereotypes at me. They gathered all this information about me — my background, my ethnicity, my age, my race, where I live, where I went to school, how much money I made, what I had done in my previous life before the films.</p>
<p><strong>RL</strong>: Are you saying that those techniques used against you are similar to the current disinformation campaigns we're seeing today? Could you have been a kind of beta test for this data-based approach to spread propaganda?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: Absolutely. Basically, what Steve Bannon did to me from 2010 to 2015, he did to the entire American electorate in 2016. In developing <em>The Truth Has Changed,</em> I made two startling realizations. One was that the people who ran those campaigns against me had a very strong hand in influencing the 2016 election: Steve Bannon, who was running Breitbart when all these attacks were happening against me, took over the Trump campaign and his team profiled the electorate in the exact same way. This connection led me down two trails in my own life. The first looked back to my own personal history as a grandson of Holocaust survivors. I have an intimate knowledge of how white supremacy works, how the Nazi playbook operates, and feel a sense of intergenerational trauma. The second trail looks to the present time and the future, to how the same techniques that were used in a smear campaign against an individual through Google, Facebook, data collection, [and] <a href="https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/5-things-you-should-know-about-addressable-ads-more-dollars-shift-digital-173653/" target="_blank">addressable ad technology</a>, which enables advertisers to selectively segment audiences to serve different ads, are used to influence a massive amount of people. And instead of just following one person around and knowing one person's data — mine — now they know the personal data of tens of millions of people, and they use that information to create highly personalized ads according to different personality types.</p>
<p><strong></strong><strong>RL</strong>: How important was big data to Trump's victory in 2016?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: During the 2016 election, CNN called political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/04/politics/donald-trump-political-ads-cambridge-analytica/index.html" target="_blank">Donald Trump's mind readers</a>" and his "secret weapon." They gathered up to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-359-harvey-weinstein-a-stock-market-for-sneakers-trump-s-data-mining-the-curious-incident-more-1.4348278/data-mining-firm-behind-trump-election-built-psychological-profiles-of-nearly-every-american-voter-1.4348283" target="_blank">5,000 data points on more than 220 million Americans</a>. And they used that data to tailor ads specifically toward people's personality types to influence their thinking. The same folks are currently rallying white supremacists all across the world and are making a bid to get Trump reelected in 2020. Their digital campaign created <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/us/elections/trump-campaign-ads-democrats.html" target="_blank">5.9 million different ad variations in 2016</a>, versus just 66,000 ads created by Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was so key to Trump's victory that Trump's digital campaign manager <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/brad-parscale-campaign-manger-trump-2020/" target="_blank">Brad Parscale is now his campaign manager</a>.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: So in "The Truth Is Changed," you're connecting big oil and white supremacy to big data — and how these forces are working together to influence the 2020 election.</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: Yes, we're talking about Bannon and the white supremacy movement. We're talking about Trump's former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who, before that, was the head of ExxonMobil and the oil and gas industry, which has brazenly taken over the government. We're talking about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and their collection of the personal data of billions of people around the globe. Together, they have created a situation in which big data, big oil and white supremacists powerfully influence the way the United States government operates. And certainly, in the 2020 election cycle, we're going to have a very hard time figuring out what is true. I think we're going to see the largest smear, misinformation and disinformation campaigns in the history of any election. So in <em>The Truth Has Changed</em> I'm taking a deep dive not only into the smear techniques of big oil and how they work from a new technology perspective, from psychographics to addressable ad technology, but going into how that is now how we run elections in America, and then we've entered the age of misinformation because right now it's very hard for people to tell what's true.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: Do disinformation campaigns rely on gullibility?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: No, I wouldn't say that at all, not with the state of our education system right now. This entire project starts with a high school girl in the front row of one of my films putting her hand up and asking me, "Josh, how do we know what's true?" She said, "You say all these things about how fracking is bad, and climate change is real, but then we can look online, and we see that people are saying that the opposite of this is true. So how do we know?" She's not gullible. She's trying, but can't figure out the difference between a persuasive argument that is true, and a persuasive argument that is false.</p><p>Friends of mine send me fake things all the time because it appeals to them. I've sent fake things out accidentally because they appeal for my sensibility. And it's not only that these ads say things like, vote for Donald Trump, he's a nice guy, or he's a tough guy, or he's a strong guy, or he's a compassionate guy. It's often taking people who are upset with the Democratic Party and funneling them toward, for example, Jill Stein, when they might otherwise vote for Hillary Clinton. And a lot of people will get really mad at me and say, "No, no, no, Jill Stein represents what I believe in." But if you're in Pennsylvania and you're voting against the Democratic platform, which Bill McKibben, Cornel West and I helped write and which has real progress in it, and that vote then gets siphoned away to put Donald Trump in office, then you've been manipulated. These disinformation campaigns often take the most deep-seated things that are really important to you and turn that into their own political gain. People are assuming that there is some kind of standard for truth because there always used to be. But last year, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress and declared that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-lies-trump-ads.html" target="_blank">political candidates no longer had to abide by any kind of standards of truth</a>, they abandoned a century's worth of journalistic integrity. And they are arguably the largest news publisher in the world.</p>
<p><strong>RL</strong>: In the face of all of this, what can we do to suss out truth from lies?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: We always have to check for accuracy. The pursuit of the truth is not something that can be done easily, and it never has been. However, we are now seeing the standard-bearers of journalism consistently undermined, and they themselves also make mistakes and who are also subject to manipulation. The New York Times publishes things directly from State Department press releases constantly; it's maddening. Today, people need to work harder to get to the truth. But beyond that, we must control and own our own data, because if someone knows you really well, it's really easy for them to manipulate you.</p><p>Take, for example, the 1988 presidential election that pitted incumbent GOP Vice President George H.W. Bush against Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis. [Those who are old enough] probably remember the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/politics/willie-horton-ad-1988-explainer-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">Willie Horton ad</a>, a racist ad put out by the Republican campaign against Michael Dukakis, and it obviously caused a huge wave of controversy and anger because it was racist. But it only caused that level of controversy because it was visible to everyone. Now you can run 1,000 Willie Horton ads. You can run 10,000 Willie Horton ads. You can run a Willie Horton ad supposedly put out there by a fake Black Lives Matter page, and no one would ever know. So if you put out a racist ad and only racists can see it, it causes absolutely no controversy, but it's deeply effective in rallying people. And a lot of the times people don't even know that they're racist. So you might have things happening to folks on an unconscious level, on a deep psychological level that they're not aware of. But the internet knows. If you've got 5,000 data points on somebody, you know them on a very intimate level, you know their psychology, you know what they're afraid of, you know their sexual orientation, you know their medical history, their age, their race. So your campaign to win them over becomes very effective.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: So, how do we get to a point where <a href="https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/01/21/we-need-to-own-our-data-as-a-human-right-and-be-compensated-for-it" target="_blank">owning your personal data is a human right</a>? Is this ever going to happen?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: There have to be laws, and those laws have to be in line with the current technology. We're currently working with the New York State Senate to create a new slate of laws. There's a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act" target="_blank">privacy law in California</a> that's just recently been passed, but there's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/technology/california-privacy-law.html" target="_blank">some dispute as to how companies are supposed to comply</a>. And so there have to be laws about data privacy that we can campaign for, but the Democrat campaigns must also address this issue. The New York Times recently reported that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/technology/2020-campaigns-disinformation.html" target="_blank">Democrats have no strategy to stop this wave of misinformation</a>. But they need to understand that how they handle misinformation is going to be the difference between tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of votes in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Florida. So the Democrats have to get really serious about this issue — and they have to address it really fast. I've appealed to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bernie-sanders" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bernie Sanders</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Elizabeth-Warren" rel="noopener noreferrer">Elizabeth Warren</a> and other campaigns, saying that this is really serious because it's about to happen — and it's going to happen worse than it's ever happened before.</p>
<p><strong>RL</strong>: Should we be allowed to sell our data?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: That is a fascinating question. I don't know if I have a real clear answer. I mean, it's being collected by your action, right? Everything you buy, everywhere you go, everything you search for, all things you know and all the things you don't know, all that data goes in, and the algorithm learns what you personally crave and what you personally lack and what you really want in life, so that's a digital map of your dreams, your insecurities, your life. And it is sort of like you're on the road, right? It's your digital biography. Do you own your movements in the world? It's a very interesting question. I imagine there are some benefits. So, for example, if you're on Instagram and you're a man, and you're constantly getting ads for feminine hygiene products, they're an annoyance; they're not useful to you. So perhaps you want to get ads that are more tailored to you. And of course, the way the news works these days is the news gives you back things that you agree with and that you want to see and that you want to read because there's so much information out there. This does backfire upon you because, at that point, you end up being manipulated by the fact that now interests that are foreign to you and nefarious to you and harmful to you can start to target you.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: How has the truth crisis impacted the climate crisis?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: They go hand-in-hand. We get our terrestrial proof from the Earth. The planet is empirical data. Climate change deniers are saying that the empirical data that's coming from the Earth is not true. Where do they say that? Principally, they say that online, which is its own "planet," the cybersphere. It's a planet that doesn't exist on Earth. It exists by its own rules and has its own set of priorities. And if you leave terrestrial Earth, yeah, you can make it wherever you want. So when you're in that cybersphere, it reigns true whenever you feel like on that particular day, for whomever is willing to pay for it.</p><p>The tobacco industry originally started doing this. They started to say things like, "Smoking is good for you." And they created all this bogus science and fake reports that said, "These cigarettes are fine." And what they were trying to do is sow confusion in people and stave off regulation. The exact same technique has been used by the oil industry.</p>
<p><strong></strong><strong>RL</strong>: Why is the truth crisis such an urgent matter?</p><p><strong>JF</strong>: It's so important because the further we get away from the terrestrial planet as our source of empirical reality, the closer we come to being evicted from the planet like climate change, and that is those same forces, the oil industry and the conservatives that are forcing us to an unlivable world. This is an emergency because of the climate. It's also an emergency because we're seeing right now the reemergence of white supremacists and Nazis on this planet, and they are taking over. Right-wing authoritarian governments are sweeping elections across the earth, and they're doing so primarily by using Facebook and WhatsApp and by lying directly to the public. <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/tens-thousands-fake-twitter-accounts-set-back-bolivia-coup" target="_blank">Sixty-eight thousand fake Twitter accounts</a> helped push the recent Bolivian coup. In the UK, Boris Johnson's recent election, <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/10/investigation-finds-88-tory-ads-misleading-compared-0-labour-11651802/" target="_blank">88 percent</a> of the conservative parties' advertisements were misleading. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was elected with the help of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/25/brazil-president-jair-bolsonaro-whatsapp-fake-news" target="_blank">fake news messages sent via WhatsApp</a>, a messaging app used by 120 million Brazilians, saying that his opponent was a criminal. Obviously, there's Donald Trump, who had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/us/elections/trump-campaign-ads-democrats.html" target="_blank">5.9 million ad variations</a> using Cambridge Analytica. There's also Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. Narendra Modi in India. There are dozens of examples. So you're seeing right-wing, authoritarian, racist regimes cropping up all over the world. And in 2019, Steve Bannon raised <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-brink-movie-review-steve-bannon-812011/" target="_blank">$100 million</a> for his white supremacist project in Europe. </p><p>So what is really dangerous about all of this is the two-headed monster of the rise of white supremacy, Nazism and racism on the one hand and on the other hand, climate change denial and the fossil fuel industry. And these are linked, and these are linked in the persona and in many actions by the Trump administration. In 2017, Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil turned Secretary of State, created a <a href="https://time.com/5372923/cambridge-analytica-state-department-terrorist-propaganda/" target="_blank">contract between the State Department and Cambridge Analytica</a>, and their mission was to influence elections all across the world. Big data and big oil running American diplomacy. And that continues to this day.</p><p><strong>RL</strong>: Why should people see <em>The Truth Has Changed</em>? </p><p><strong>JF</strong>: Because this is a chance to rally for the truth. It's the chance to rally for a new America. This project concerns itself with the oil industry, the world at war post-9/11, climate change. We've seen the United States get <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/war-with-iran/" target="_blank">closer to war with Iran</a>. We see Australia on fire, and authorities there must battle <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/10/795218092/australias-wildfires-spark-disinformation-battle-as-they-take-a-tragic-toll" target="_blank">misinformation campaigns contending that the fires were caused by arson and not climate change</a>. We know that we're watching the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/climate-change-and-the-new-age-of-extinction" target="_blank">extinction of countless species in real time</a>. We're in an emergency.</p><p>At every single performance of <em>The Truth Has Changed</em> there will be activists in the room who are campaigning on these issues, and that's what we need to do. We need to set the record straight. We need to say climate change is real. We need to say fracking is bad, we need to see Donald Trump as a racist and say that is not who we are as a nation. So we have to take our country back, and this is our effort to try to fight back against this wave of lies, smear and misinformation.</p>
<p><em><em>The Truth Has Changed</em> opens at New York's Public Theater this January and will tour across the United States. For more information, visit </em><a href="https://www.internationalwow.com/tthc.php" target="_blank"><em>internationalwow.com/tthc.php</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><em></em><em>Reynard Loki is a senior writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent for <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank">Earth | Food | Life</a></em><em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p><p><em><em>This article was produced by </em><a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank"><em>Earth | Food | Life</em></a><em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Trump Seeks to Frack the 2020 Election - EcoWatch ›
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- Bushfires, Bots and Arson Claims: Australia Flung in the Global ... ›
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Bushfires, Bots and Arson Claims: Australia Flung in the Global Disinformation Spotlight
10 January
Climate
The Kangaroo Island Fire in Australia early January 2020. A targeted, coordinated online campaign has tried to mislead the public. While the myths have been debunked, the culpable parties remain unknown. robdownunder / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
By Timothy Graham, Tobias R. Keller
In the first week of 2020, hashtag #ArsonEmergency became the focal point of a new online narrative surrounding the bushfire crisis.
The message: the cause is arson, not climate change.
<p>
Police and bushfire services (and some <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1215034651489820673" target="_blank">journalists</a>) have contradicted this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/08/police-contradict-claims-spread-online-exaggerating-arsons-role-in-australian-bushfires" target="_blank">claim</a>.<em></em>
</p>
<p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-australia-flung-in-the-global-disinformation-spotlight-129556" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129556/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>We <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-bots-and-trolls-promote-conspiracy-theories-about-australian-bushfires/" target="_blank">studied</a> about 300 Twitter accounts driving the #ArsonEmergency hashtag to identify inauthentic behavior. We found many accounts using #ArsonEmergency were behaving "suspiciously," compared to those using #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia.</p><p>Accounts peddling #ArsonEmergency carried out activity similar to what we've witnessed in past <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/disinformation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">disinformation</a> campaigns, such as the coordinated behavior of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html" target="_blank">Russian trolls during the 2016 U.S. presidential election</a>.</p>
Bots, Trolls and Trollbots
<p>The most effective disinformation campaigns use bot and troll accounts to infiltrate genuine political discussion, and shift it towards a different "<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02235-x" target="_blank">master narrative</a>."</p><p>Bots and trolls have been a thorn in the side of fruitful political debate since Twitter's early days. They mimic genuine opinions, akin to what a concerned citizen might display, with a goal of persuading others and gaining attention.</p><p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2018.1526238" target="_blank">Bots</a> are usually automated (acting without constant human oversight) and perform simple functions, such as retweeting or repeatedly pushing one type of content.</p><p>Troll accounts are controlled by humans. They try to stir controversy, hinder healthy debate and simulate fake grassroots movements. They aim to persuade, deceive and cause conflict.</p><p>We've observed both troll and bot accounts spouting disinformation regarding the bushfires on Twitter. We were able to distinguish these accounts as being inauthentic for two reasons.</p><p>First, we used sophisticated software tools including <a href="https://github.com/mkearney/tweetbotornot" target="_blank">tweetbotornot</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbe2.115" target="_blank">Botometer</a>, and <a href="https://botsentinel.com/" target="_blank">Bot Sentinel</a>.</p><p>There are various definitions for the word "bot" or "troll." Bot Sentinel says:</p><blockquote>Propaganda bots are pieces of code that utilize Twitter API to automatically follow, tweet, or retweet other accounts bolstering a political agenda. Propaganda bots are designed to be polarizing and often promote content intended to be deceptive… Trollbot is a classification we created to describe human controlled accounts who exhibit troll-like behavior.<br>Some of these accounts frequently retweet known propaganda and fake news accounts, and they engage in repetitive bot-like activity. Other trollbot accounts target and harass specific Twitter accounts as part of a coordinated harassment campaign. Ideology, political affiliation, religious beliefs, and geographic location are not factors when determining the classification of a Twitter account.</blockquote><p>These machine learning tools compared the behavior of known bots and trolls with the accounts tweeting the hashtags #ArsonEmergency, #AustraliaFire, and #BushfireAustralia. From this, they provided a "score" for each account suggesting how likely it was to be a bot or troll account.</p><p>We also manually analysed the Twitter activity of suspicious accounts and the characteristics of their profiles, to validate the origins of #ArsonEmergency, as well as the potential motivations of the accounts spreading the hashtag.</p>
Who to blame?
<p>Unfortunately, we don't know who is behind these accounts, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1637447" target="_blank">as we can only access trace data such as tweet text and basic account information</a>.</p><p>This graph shows how many times #ArsonEmergency was tweeted between Dec. 31 last year and Jan. 8 this year:</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ5ODcyNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDAyNTM5OH0.RQ5XKjBViMUr8jAuGjne4FQgeJblaYZbvcSkTtmxLUI/img.jpg?width=980" id="7d8d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c48957637707dc6223059ef71e9dd72a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />On the vertical axis is the number of tweets over time which featured #ArsonEmergency. On Jan. 7, there were 4726 tweets. Author provided
<p>Previous bot and troll campaigns have been thought to be the work of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42001-019-00051-x" target="_blank">foreign interference, such as Russian trolls</a>, or <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-08/topham-guerins-boomer-meme-industrial-complex/11682116?pfmredir=sm&sf223191298=1" target="_blank">PR firms hired to distract and manipulate voters</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/world/australia/fires-murdoch-disinformation.html" target="_blank">The New York Times has also</a> reported on perceptions that media magnate Rupert Murdoch is influencing Australia's bushfire debate.</p>
Weeding-Out Inauthentic Behavior
<p>In late November, some Twitter accounts began using #ArsonEmergency to counter <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/not-normal-climate-change-bushfire-web/" target="_blank">evidence</a> that climate change is linked to the severity of the bushfire crisis.</p><p>Below is one of the earliest examples of an attempt to replace #ClimateEmergency with #ArsonEmergency. The accounts tried to get #ArsonEmergency trending to drown out dialogue acknowledging the link between climate change and bushfires.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ5ODczMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTA3ODczOX0.PaMXEW_P1Jbq-n0eeHB4Qd-Rlgz5FiGIUNdlX6roC5E/img.jpg?width=980" id="2e204" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc9b39e92218bb279ece99d797eea8d6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />We suspect the origins of the #ArsonEmergency debacle can be traced back to a few accounts. Author provided
<p>The hashtag was only tweeted a few times in 2019, but gained traction this year in a sustained effort by about 300 accounts.</p><p><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-bots-and-trolls-promote-conspiracy-theories-about-australian-bushfires/" target="_blank">A much larger portion of bot and troll-like accounts</a> pushed #ArsonEmergency, than they did #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia.</p><p>The narrative was then adopted by genuine accounts who furthered its spread.</p><p>On multiple occasions, we noticed suspicious accounts countering expert opinions while using the #ArsonEmergency hashtag.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ5ODczNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDY5ODU2M30.Sl3cZUYDAvxmTE4pNnabK-RP-J903gGmOxS4PWnsx-w/img.jpg?width=980" id="22e79" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e3fcb093d6a549232f8fef154080e33" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The inauthentic accounts engaged with genuine users in an effort to persuade them. Author provided
Bad Publicity
<p>Since media coverage has shone light on the disinformation campaign, #ArsonEmergency has gained even more prominence, but in a different light.</p><p>Some journalists are acknowledging the role of disinformation bushfire crisis — and countering narrative the Australia has an arson emergency. However, the campaign does indicate Australia has a climate denial problem.</p><p>What's clear to me is that Australia has been propelled into the global disinformation battlefield.</p>Keep Your Eyes Peeled
<p>It's difficult to debunk disinformation, as it often contains a grain of truth. In many cases, it leverages people's previously held beliefs and biases.</p><p>Humans are particularly vulnerable to disinformation in times of emergency, or when addressing contentious issues like climate change.</p><p>Online users, especially journalists, need to stay on their toes.</p><p>The accounts we come across on social media may not represent genuine citizens and their concerns. A trending hashtag may be trying to mislead the public.</p><p>Right now, it's more important than ever for us to prioritize factual news from reliable sources — and identify and combat disinformation. The Earth's future could depend on it.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Activists in support of his investigation of ExxonMobil on Feb 22, 2017. Erik McGregor / Pacific Press / LightRocket / Getty Images
Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil Thursday over the company's misinformation campaign to delay action to address climate change.
<p>Attorney General Maura Healey told reporters in a press conference Thursday that "Exxon has fought us every step of the way," and was "completely uncooperative," noting that the company failed to comply with requests for documents and depositions.</p><p>"Exxon has yet to produce to our office a single document. They have yet to provide to our office a single witness. So they have been completely uncooperative with our investigation," Healey told reporters.</p><p>ExxonMobil misstated facts and failed to disclose important information to both consumers and investors, according to <a href="https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2019/10/24/Complaint%20-%20Comm.%20v.%20Exxon%20Mobil%20Corporation%20-%2010-24-19.pdf" target="_blank">the complaint</a>, filed Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court by the attorney general's office.</p><p>"Exxon has known for decades about the catastrophic climate impacts of burning fossil fuels—its chief product," said AG Healey. "Yet, to this day, Exxon continues to deceive Massachusetts consumers and investors about the dangerous climate harms caused by its oil and gasoline products and the significant risks of climate change—and efforts to address it—to Exxon's business."<br><br>"Contrary to its shareholder representations and deceptive advertising and marketing, Exxon's products are a leading cause of climate change, not a solution. That deception, we allege, violates Massachusetts law, and that's why we are suing. Our goal here is simple – to stop Exxon from engaging in this deception and penalize the company for this misconduct," Healey said.</p>
<p>"In order to increase its short-term profits, stock price, and access to capital, ExxonMobil has been dishonest with investors about the material climate-driven risks to its business and with consumers about how its fossil fuel products cause climate change―all in violation of Massachusetts law," the complaint asserts. "[I]nternal ExxonMobil and other documents made public by the media and/or obtained during the course of the Attorney General's investigation reveal a systematic effort by the Company, reminiscent of the tobacco industry's long denial campaign about the dangerous effects of cigarettes, to mislead both investors and consumers in Massachusetts."</p><p>The complaint goes beyond ExxonMobil's activities decades ago. "ExxonMobil now tells investors all the time that climate change risks are a management priority for the Company," it continues. "And yet, ExxonMobil deceptively disseminates long-term forecasts of future growth in demand for fossil fuels."</p><p>This pattern of deception, the AG argues, potentially wronged every driver who filled their tank at an ExxonMobil gas station and every investor who took the company's assurances as made in good faith. For each individual consumer violation, Massachusetts law carries damages of up to $5,000. Healey's office did not clarify precisely how much Thursday's lawsuit will seek from the oil giant in total.</p><p>"Exxon's unlawful conduct, the complaint alleges, contributed to decades of delay in market recognition of the climate dangers of fossil fuel products and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the attorney general's office added in a statement.<br><br>In the 1980's, the complaint alleges, Exxon, Mobil Oil and other corporations and oil, coal and car trade associations started to organize their response to a crisis that one Exxon consultant had warned could "bring world economic growth to a halt" by 2025.<br><br>Their collective response to climate science? To emphasize uncertainty and keep fossil fuels flowing.</p><p>Related: Read DeSmog's revelation about Exxon's advanced knowledge of climate impacts from fossil fuels.</p>
<p><em>Additional reporting by Sharon Kelly.</em><br/></p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/24/massachusetts-sues-exxonmobil-climate-disinformation-greenwashing" target="_blank">DeSmog Blog</a>.</em>From Your Site Articles
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Scientists Show How Fossil Fuel Industry Deceived the Public About the Climate Crisis
21 October 2019
Energy
An international group of scientists released a report today detailing how the fossil fuel industry actively campaigned to sow doubt about the climate crisis and what steps need to be taken to undo the damage, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
<p>The <a href="https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/america-misled/" target="_blank">report</a> may be particularly damaging for oil and gas giant <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon" rel="noopener noreferrer">ExxonMobil</a>, which will head to court on Wednesday to defend itself against New York State's allegations that it defrauded shareholders by downplaying the expected risks of climate change to its business.</p>
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An ExxonMobil-funded senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, cited a debunked ExxonMobil-funded study at a recent Senate hearing. C-SPAN / Screenshot
By Elliott Negin
In a recent blog post, ExxonMobil executive Suzanne McCarron reiterated her company's claim that it fully accepts the reality of climate change and that it wants to do something about it.
"I want to use this opportunity to be 100 percent clear about where we stand on climate change," she wrote. "We believe the risk of climate change is real and we are committed to being part of the solution."
<p>So why is the company still a part of—in fact, a major part of—the problem?</p><p style="">An exchange between Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt during a recent <a href="https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/1/oversight-hearing-to-receive-testimony-from-environmental-protection-agency-administrator-scott-pruitt" target="_blank">oversight hearing</a> is a case in point, providing a window into how ExxonMobil's undue influence continues to block climate action.</p><p style="">During the Jan. 30 hearing, which was held by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Sen. Cory Booker inadvertently provoked Inhofe by raising the issue of environmental justice. The New Jersey Democrat cited the threat climate change-induced flooding poses to three dozen Superfund sites in his state and asked Pruitt if he was "taking into account the environmental burdens disproportionately impacting communities of color, indigenous communities and low-income communities."</p><p>Inhofe seized the opportunity to contradict Booker, claiming that minority and low-income communities are disproportionately <em>harmed</em> by environmental protections, specifically citing the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which would have dramatically reduced carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants if Pruitt hadn't repealed it.</p><p style="">Booker, Inhofe said, was implying that Pruitt was trying to "punish" vulnerable Americans. "I wanted to just remind you," Inhofe told the committee, "that we had a guy I remember so well, Harry Alford. He was the president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. He provided some of the most powerful testimony that I have ever heard when it comes to the effects of the Clean Power Plan and some of the other regulations … on black and Hispanic poverty, including job losses and increased energy costs.</p><p style="">"[Alford] was very emphatic as to who was paying the price on these," the Oklahoma Republican continued, "and I think sometimes that the previous administration forgot that there are already people out there who are paying all they can pay just to try to eat and keep their house warm."</p><p style=""><strong>ExxonMobil's Echo Chamber</strong></p><p>Inhofe's source for his assertion? A discredited, ExxonMobil-funded study by an Exxon-funded advocacy group that was based on discredited studies by other ExxonMobil-funded organizations.</p><p style="">Inhofe rested his argument on previous congressional testimony by Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), a shoestring, mom-and-pop operation that is unapologetic about taking fossil fuel industry money. "Of course we do and it is only natural," Alford <a href="http://www.nationalbcc.org/news/beyond-the-rhetoric/2428-fossil-fuels-and-african-americans-it-s-family" target="_blank">wrote</a> on NBCC's website. "The legacy of Blacks in this nation has been tied to the miraculous history of fossil fuel…. [F]ossil fuels have been our economic friend."</p><p>One of NBCC's closest economic friends is ExxonMobil, which has donated more than $1.14 million to the group since 2001.</p><p style="">What did the company get for that money?</p><p>In 2015, NBCC commissioned a report that <a href="http://www.nationalbcc.org/news/latest-news/2426-epa-rule-impoverishes-minorities" target="_blank">claimed</a> the Clean Power Plan would "inflict severe and disproportionate economic burdens on poor families, especially minorities."</p><p>In fact, unchecked climate change would more than likely <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-hits-poor-hardest/" target="_blank">hurt</a> those communities most, and investments in energy efficiency under the plan would ultimately <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/reduce-emissions/how-much-will-clean-power-plan-cost?_ga=2.50634219.339710596.1518014951-803850457.1367700932#bf-toc-2" target="_blank">lower</a> electricity bills across the country.</p><p>How did NBCC arrive at its upside-down assessment? The Union of Concerned Scientists took a <a href="http://blog.ucsusa.org/new-flawed-study-of-the-clean-power-plan-how-the-misi-study-gets-it-so-wrong-759" target="_blank">close look</a> at the report and found it was based on several flawed fossil fuel industry-friendly studies. Two of those bogus studies were produced by ExxonMobil grantees: the Heritage Foundation, which received $340,000 from ExxonMobil between 2007 and 2013, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which received $3 million between 2014 and 2016.</p><p style="">The Chamber study, which came out just days before the EPA released a draft of the Clean Power Plan, was debunked not only by the <a href="https://blog.epa.gov/blog/2014/05/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-chamber-of-commerces-report/" target="_blank">EPA</a>, but also by <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/may/30/its-epa-vs-us-chamber-commerce-over-climate-change/" target="_blank">PolitiFact.com</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/06/03/gop-lawmakers-rush-to-cite-study-to-discredit-new-epa-rule-but-study-assumed-epa-rule-would-be-tougher/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>. Among its many faults, the Chamber study—which was co-sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute—wildly inflated the cost of the plan and failed to consider the benefits of cutting carbon emissions.</p><p style=""><strong>ExxonMobil Spreads its Money Around</strong></p><p style="">But there's more than just the fact that ExxonMobil financed deliberately flawed studies to try to derail the Clean Power Plan. The company also is a major supporter of a number of Senate EPW Committee members, including Inhofe, who are adamant <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pg5zqg/a-guide-to-the-climate-change-deniers-in-congress" target="_blank">climate science deniers</a>.</p><p>Inhofe has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, which has <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00005582&cycle=CAREER" target="_blank">donated</a> $1.85 million to his campaign war chest over his long career in Congress, more than twice than any other industry. Three oil and gas companies are among the senator's <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00005582&cycle=CAREER" target="_blank">top 10</a> corporate contributors: Koch Industries, Devon Energy and … ExxonMobil.</p><p>Six of the other 10 Republicans on the EPW Committee also are on ExxonMobil's <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000129" target="_blank">donation list</a>, including Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the current committee chairman. Roughly half of the $119,500 ExxonMobil contributed to the seven senators over the last decade went to Barrasso and Inhofe, the committee's previous chairman.</p><p>Then there's ExxonMobil's link to Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general before President Trump tapped him to run the EPA. From 2012 through 2013, he chaired the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and afterward served on the organization's executive committee. From 2014 through 2016, ExxonMobil <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?url=527cmtedetail_donors.php%3Fcycle%3D2014%26ein%3D464501717&cname=Exxon+Mobil&ein=464501717&cycle=2014" target="_blank">gave</a> RAGA $160,000 in three annual installments.</p><p style="">Just a few weeks after the company made its 2016 donation of $50,000, Pruitt and then-RAGA Chairman Luther Strange, at the time Alabama's attorney general, co-authored a National Review<em> </em><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435470/climate-change-attorneys-general" target="_blank">column</a> attacking a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="_blank">coalition of state attorneys general</a> investigating ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies for misleading investors and the general public about climate change. Parroting ExxonMobil's <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13012018/exxon-climate-change-investor-fraud-investigations-lawsuit-free-speech-new-york" target="_blank">argument</a>, Pruitt and Strange charged that the coalition was violating the company's first amendment right to free speech.</p><p style="">"The debate" over climate change, they wrote "is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged—in classrooms, public forums and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime."</p><p style=""><strong>Inhofe Upstaged</strong></p><p style="">In this case, Inhofe's counterfactual comment didn't make it into the ensuing media coverage. Along with nearly everything else that was said during the two-and-a-half hour marathon, it was eclipsed by a bombshell dropped by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The Rhode Island Democrat revealed that during a February 2016 <a href="http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/01/30/scott-pruitt-trump-audio/" target="_blank">radio interview</a>, Pruitt said Trump would be "more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama, and that's saying a lot." Whitehouse read Pruitt's remark aloud and asked him if he recalled making it.</p><p>"I don't," Pruitt <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/30/politics/pruitt-trump-2016-remarks-abusive-constitution/index.html" target="_blank">responded</a>, "and I don't echo that today at all."</p><p>"I guess not," Whitehouse replied.</p><p style="">Not surprisingly, that embarrassing nugget was the story. There was no way that Inhofe's rambling, ExxonMobil-sponsored falsehood could compete in the media with red meat like that. But overshadowed or not, Inhofe provided yet another incontrovertible piece of evidence that—despite ExxonMobil's statements to the contrary—the company is still very much engaged behind the scenes in trying to stymie any government attempt to seriously address climate change.</p><p style=""><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/elliott-negin#.WoHMmpPwbBI" target="_blank">Elliott Negin</a> is a senior writer in the Communications Department at the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em></p>
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