Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

• On the Manhattan Institute: “Media outlets have turned to the Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce at least 39 times this year to comment on energy issues without disclosing that the Manhattan Institute is partly funded by oil interests.” 86

• On the Heritage Foundation: It maintains a database with a staggering number of “experts” that busy reporters could call on—not necessarily scientists by any means—apparently willing and able to talk about climate change. 87

• On the Cato Institute: Patrick Michaels, an actual climate scientist, a contrarian, puts out an op-ed at least once a month for outlets such as Forbes , the Washington Times , the National Review, and others. 88

• On the Heartland Institute: It holds an annual conference for denialists and features lawyer James Taylor, who has appeared on Fox News and in Forbes . 89

• On the American Enterprise Institute: Media Matters flags a 2007 report from the Guardian showing that AEI was offering scientists and economists $10,000 and travel expenses to sow doubt in a big climate-change report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued that year. 90

Denialist books spiked in 2007, speculate environmental sociologist Riley Dunlap and political scientist Peter Jacques, because of both the release of that report and the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth . They maintain that many of these books originated in some pivotal way from these allied think tanks and point out why books carry influence well beyond the actual reader: 91

[The authors] are interviewed on TV and radio, quoted by newspaper columnists and cited by sympathetic politicians and corporate figures. Their books are frequently carried by major bookstore chains, where they are seen (even if not purchased) by a wide segment of the public, [and] many receive enormous publicity on [conservative think-tank] websites and from conservative and skeptical bloggers.

Dunlap and Jacques studied the credentials and provenance of more than a hundred climate-denial books and found that seventy-two percent had a “verifiable link” to a think tank; at least ninety percent had no peer review in the conventional academic sense; and fewer than forty percent were written or edited by people with relevant scientific credentials. This “allow[ed] authors or editors to recycle scientifically unfounded claims that are then amplified by the conservative movement, media, and political elites.” 92

These think tanks have helped create what the scholars call an “alternate academia,” and it’s one that has become more vast and harder to trace, as DIY amateurs have gotten involved as well. Interestingly, they suggest that the involvement of a few real scientists drew out a “wide range” of those writing about a subject for which they had little or no credibility. Many of these armchair “climatologists” have expounded in their own self-published books. (Of course, self-publishing has also become more acceptable in recent years.)

Have such think tanks and the coordinated strategies of climate-change deniers had the impact they desired? They appear to be at least one factor in swaying public opinion (though this would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove definitively). Gallup polls show that the number of Americans who thought the risk of global warming was exaggerated stood at around 34 percent in 2006. By 2010? Some 48 percent. Over the past four years, that number has come down to a still-high 42 percent. 93

Dunlap and Jacques also note the “diffusion” of think-tank–powered denialism crossing borders: “vigorous denial campaigns have developed in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and to a lesser degree in a number of other nations.” 94

If you think it’s hard to figure out the credentials of those discussing climate change, just try figuring out how to account for the enterprises’ funding.

A 2013 study by professor of sociology and environmental science Robert Brulle found that ninety-one climate-denial organizations took in nearly $900 million, but only $64 million came from “identifiable foundation support.” He notes “evidence of a trend toward concealing the sources of . . . funding through the use of donor-directed philanthropies.” The climate-change–denial agenda is being hyped through a range of organizations—conservative foundations and think tanks, trade associations, and advocacy groups with robust ties to friendly politicians and media outlets—that often obscure the source and sponsorship of the “information.” 95

A modus operandi similar to the climate deniers can be found at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which has been described as “the Johnny Appleseed of anti-regulation groups.” 96Its focus is germinating “free-market” think tanks outside the United States. Sociologist Karin Fischer and political scientist Dieter Plehwe studied the Atlas network, which has aimed to stem a so-called “Pink Tide” of populism, or socialism, from pushing across Latin America: 97

Over time, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation has become a central node in the transmission of funds, personnel and other resources in the transnational flow of neoliberal ideas and policies. . . . Membership of the Atlas network has been growing fast since the 1980s. The Atlas global directory currently comprises of [ sic ] 448 institutions worldwide. It is most important to realize that the various think tanks listed are not stand alone operations. Due to the embeddedness of each of the organizations in a comprehensive network, the total is larger than the sum of the individual parts.

Alejandro Chafuen, who describes himself as covering “think tanks, scholars and champions of innovation,” quotes these same scholars in a blog posting for Forbes . Titled “Think Tanks and the Power of Networks,” his posting champions the effectiveness of Atlas and other such think-tank networks in reaching their goals. Only by clicking on his full bio does the reader learn that he has been “president of Atlas Economic Research Foundation since 1991.” 98

So much for full disclosure and accountability.

What should we make of the new species of think tanks? While the new-style think tank, like the old, draws on a neutral, scholarly imprimatur, it marches to a different drummer than in the past. Enmeshed in the think–tank-industry-government-media nexus, these outfits push the boundaries to the limit and accountability, too, in the process.

In the next chapter, we look at the world of academic institutions, which play perhaps even more impressively on that supposed scholarly neutrality—and further challenge accountability.

CHAPTER 8

Professors, Physicians, and Prestige for Hire

We, the public, may have little faith left in formal institutions, but in prestige we still have some trust, even as what that social marker comprises may change. High-prestige institutions of higher learning still command respect and accrete prestige to those affiliated with them. And, like the new-style think tanks we saw in the last chapter, so the hallowed halls of academe, under many of the same pressures and sea changes, have bred new-style entities and messengers. And, like the new-style think tanks, it is the image of the impartial, incorruptible scholar or researcher that is bought and sold and that enables that scholar or researcher—who may be anything but impartial—to be so effective. In this chapter, we see again how fuzzy boundaries, titles, and definitions enable deniability; make it difficult to get to the bottom of who is behind what; and challenge accountability.

First we’ll look at professors in the political and social sciences for whom the label “shadow lobbyist” would better characterize some of their activities; their efforts have been solicited and crafted by a consulting firm. Next we’ll look at the High Priests—specifically, economics and finance professors—who, using their “we-are-the-experts” mantra to exclude others and shield themselves, employ their most prestigious roles (read: named professorships) to persuade the public, all the while masking their agendas and roles in the financial arena. These trailblazers, incidentally, were the first to show me how shadow elites and shadow lobbyists operate. Then we’ll check out so-called Key Opinion Leaders, high-status physicians or researchers in the medical/healthcare arena. Finally we’ll turn to academic institutions themselves, which, increasingly reliant on titans of industry for funding, dress up corporate and billionaires’ goals with a scholarly blessing.