Mont Pelerin Society A Window Into Ideological Heart Of Kochtopus Climate Denial

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Itโ€™s known as the Kochtopus โ€“ the extensive network of think tanks, institutes, university departments, political funding arms and โ€œgrassrootsโ€ activist groups funded by oil billionaires Charles and Davidย Koch.

The multi-tentacled network has pumped tens of millions of dollars into groups that deny the risks of human-caused climateย change.

But if it is Koch cash that helps fuel these groups, then what is it that fuels the Koch brothers themselves beyond the obvious financialย interest?

As DeSmogBlog has revealed, Charles Koch is a long-standing member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) โ€“ a global group of industrialists, academics and economists who share the โ€œneoliberalโ€ ideology of limiting governmentย control.

If the Koch network has many groups dangling from its tentacles, then Charles Kochโ€™s membership with the Mont Pelerin Society provides a window into the ideological heart of theย Kochtopus.

DeSmogBlog today publishes the global membership directory of the Mont Pelerin Society as it was in 2010, with all personal contact detailsย redacted.

The Mont Pelerin Society was established in 1947 by economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek โ€“ considered by many to be the โ€œgodfatherโ€ of free marketย economics.

Letters uncovered in 2011 show that Charles Koch wrote personally to Hayek in 1973, three years after becoming an MPS member, to encourage him to claim social security and medicalย benefits.ย 

Kochโ€™s enthusiasm for state welfare appeared to be in contradiction of the Mont Pelerin Societyโ€™s โ€œstatement of aimsโ€, which describes expansion of state welfare as aย โ€œdangerโ€.

Koch funding within MPSย membership

At least 12 of the think tanks and institutes appearing on the list of US members of the Mont Pelerin Society have also accepted money from at least one of the three Koch family foundations โ€“ the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitableย Foundation.

The biggest US think tank represented among the MPS membership from the Unites States is the Cato Institute โ€“ the neoliberal free market group Charles Koch helped toย establish.

Catoโ€™s executive vice president David Boaz and co-founder Edward Crane are among the Cato Institute associates who are members of the MPS.

Last year, former Czech Republic President and Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus was named a โ€œDistinguished Senior Fellowโ€ at Cato.ย Klaus, who was accepted into the MPS in 1990, does not believe that humans can cause climate change.ย  He has claimed that climate scientists are โ€œrentย seekersโ€.

Cato is also the home of Pat Michaelsย โ€”ย a climate science contrarian who is ubiquitous on media outlets in the US such as Fox News โ€” who once admitted that โ€œabout 40 per centโ€ of his funding came from fossil fuels. Michaels is not an MPS member.
ย 

American Enterpriseย Institute

Four MPS members list their affiliations or contact details as the American Enterprise Institute, including the current MPS president and AEI scholar Allan Meltzer.

AEI scholars tend to be sceptical of the risks of human-caused climate change, often advocating against regulation of carbon dioxideย emissions.

One of those scholars is Roger Bate, who has been associated with a number of โ€œthink tanksโ€ both in the US and in the UK.

Tobacco industry documents show how Bate was in contact with cigarette manufacturers RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris and British-American Tobaccoย during the 1990sย as he tried to raise money for a book on risk, which would include a section on secondhandย smoke.

At the time, Bate was the head of the environment unit at the UK-based Institute of Economic Affairs.ย Bate co-wrote an IEA book sceptical of human-caused climate change with Julian Morris, another MPS member and prominent climate science denialist who is now a vice president at the Reason Foundation.

The 1994 book โ€“ Global Warming: Apocalypse or Hot Air? โ€“ examined โ€œthe so-called scientific ‘consensus’ about global warmingโ€ and concluded there was little need to act on the issue.ย 
ย 

Acton Institute and Heritageย Foundation

Samuel Gregg is a research director at the Acton Institute โ€“ a free market group with a focus on religion that has received Kochย cash.

Like many of the other Koch-funded groups, Acton has also received funds from Donors Trust โ€“ a multi-million dollar cash pot funded by anonymised richย conservatives.

In 2009, Gregg claimed โ€œmany reputable scientists dispute aspects of the prevailing tenets of climate changeโ€ before quoting Australian mining entrepreneur and geologist Ian Plimer, who has never written a peer-reviewed paper on climate change. Plimer claims that climate change is natural and is not caused byย humans.

Gregg also writes favourably of the views of senior Australian Catholic Cardinal George Pell who has argued carbon dioxide is โ€œnot a pollutant, but the stuff of lifeโ€ and that climate science lacks empirical support.ย  Pellโ€™s views were rubbished by actual climateย scientists.

Another free market climate science denialist group to be well represented within MPS is the Heritage Foundation, an active promoter of climate science misinformation while lobbying against regulations covering greenhouse gasย emissions.

Six MPS members list Heritage in their affiliations or contact details, including founder Edwin Fuelner, who is the MPS treasurer and an executive committee member, and Heritageโ€™s executive vice president Phillip Truluck, an MPS member sinceย 1990.

Other groups with MPS members include think tanks the Reason Foundation, Pacific Research Institute and funding group the Earhartย Foundation.

MPS member John Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, which has produced a โ€œglobal warming primerโ€ which underplays recent trends in warming and sea level rise and opposes cuts in greenhouse gas emissions because they would be tooย expensive.

NCPA also opposed moves to remove lead from ammunition used by hunters on environmental grounds because it would โ€œraise the cost of huntingโ€.
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Goingย global

From Argentina to Venezuela, the MPS directory shows almost 400 members in more than 50 countries.ย The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a US-based global network of about 400 free market think tanks around the world, also has MPSย members.

Dan Grossman, chair of the Atlas board, is an MPS member. So is president Alejandro Chafuen and long-standing board member Williamย Sumner.

Atlas board member and former president John Blundell, a former president of the Charles G. Koch Foundation, is also an MPS member.ย Blundell is reported to have once said that the aim through Atlas was to โ€œlitter the world with free-marketย think-tanksโ€.

With Mont Pelerin Society members in senior positions in many of the most influential US-based think tanks, it seems the society โ€“ advertently or otherwise โ€“ is helping to litter the world with a collective denial of the risks of human-caused climateย change.

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