America’s Largest Coal Company Has Been Bankrolling Climate Denial: Report
In a revelation that shouldn’t surprise anybody, Peabody Energy, the United States’ largest coal company, has been bankrolling think tanks, corporate lobbyists, trade associations, and individual scientists at the heart of the climate denial movement, a new Guardian investigation reveals.
Fossil fuel companies aren’t exactly a progressive bunch when it comes to climate action, but few have manipulated the facts of global warming as consistently and egregiously as Peabody, which refers to carbon dioxide in glowing terms and asserts that by cranking up its concentration in our atmosphere, the company is fertilizing the planet for the benefit of mankind. Or, as a Peabody lobbyist once put it, doing “the Lord’s work.”
But Peabody hasn’t been preaching alone. Rather, documents released last month after the company filed for bankruptcy protection reveal a network of beneficiaries that have been doing everything in their power to cast doubt on basic climate science and fight even modest environmental regulation, such as the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.
“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” Kert Davies of the Climate Investigation Center told the Guardian. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”
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