Who are the wealthy wizards putting doubt in your mind – at your expense? From the Institute for Policy Studies, Chuck Collins’ new report: “Fossil Fuel Philanthropy – How taxpayer-subsidized charities promote climate change disinformation and stall urgent action.” Then another shocker. Dr. Joan Casey: breathing wildfire smoke increases risk of dementia by 18%. As record wildfire years pile up, yes, climate change can drive you mad. Protect your brain!
This is Radio Ecoshock. I’m Alex Smith.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
BILLIONAIRE “CHARITY” FOR CLIMATE DISINFORMATION
CHUCK COLLINS
“The fossil fuel industry has been able to harness our charitable system for their disinformation campaigns, and to do it largely in secret.”
– Institute for Policy Studies report
Problems selling fossil fuels? Pesky green critics moving the public? Don’t worry. In America, billionaires can hide money in “charities” sowing doubt and denial. And taxpayers help pay billions for fossil fueled disinformation, whether they know it or not. This billion dollar charity scheme is designed to hide. A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies digs deep and names names.
The authors are Helen Flannery and Chuck Collins. Chuck is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS. His most recent nonfiction book is “The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions”. In September, the pair released a detailed document: “Fossil Fuel Philanthropy – How taxpayer-subsidized charities promote climate change disinformation and stall urgent action.”
Listen to or download this 28 minute interview with Chuck Collins in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
From the report:
“The fossil fuel industries disinformation campaign has penetrated right into this Committee
Room by witnesses from organizations like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the
American Enterprise Institute, and the Competitive [Enterprise] Institute, which through
2021, have collectively received over half a billion dollars — half a billion dollars from fossil
fuel related interests and that’s only the money that we know about.”
– Opening statement of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from the 2023 U.S. Senate
hearing “Dollars and Degrees: Investigating Fossil Fuel Dark Money’s Systemic
Threats to Climate and the Federal Budget”.
Growing up, we thought of charities helping the poor. Money was collected for food or blankets. Here we have charities supporting the rich. How is any of this propaganda and lying about science a charity?
This report finds just three of these heavily cloaked donor-advised fund sponsors provided two thirds of the hidden funding for climate disinformation groups. They forwarded over half a billion dollars into disinfo in three years. In our interview, Chuck Collins names names. The top Climate Disinformation Charity for contributions is “The Seminar Network”. Over three years, that group received over 400 million dollars, most of it we presume, from multi-billionaire oil baron Charles Koch.
And another ten private foundations, named for their founding families like the Scaifes, – they gave more millions to professional climate deniers. Apparently it only takes a few dozen super wealthy individuals or families to plant climate doubt in millions of minds.
This river of dirty fossil money must deliver perks to the public “experts” who give media quotes of doubt, and stoke paranoia in the masses. The spokespeople get excellent rooms in five star hotels, conferences with applause, an appearance before Congress, pre-paid book deals, a heavenly bar bill, and all the appearance of power. Almost all of them are white men.
Some very big money is shuffling around in these pools. According a charts supporting this IPS report, two Charles Koch foundations moved over 4 billion dollars into a 501(c)(4) organization called “Believe in People”. The 501(c)(4) groups can do political lobbying and activities of all kinds.
This IPS report carries a report of dozens of very official sounding names that all seem to speak up at the same time, about the same issue, and get funded by the same people. Some names pop up in the news regularly, like a quote from the Hudson Institute or Turning Point USA. The Co2 Coalition exists to tell you the climate crisis does not exist. Carbon dioxide is good for everything.
Canadians would recognize the Fraser Institute in this oily revenue stream. There is even the “American Association of Blacks in Energy”. I expected to find “The Institute for Growing Capital Power”, but that would be too obvious. I wonder who all these store-front institutes, chambers, and foundations supported in the last election? Or do they just whip up divisive emotions and that is enough?
As of December 2nd, 2024, Charles Koch’s wealth increased by $6.75 billion this year. He’s worth 67 billion dollars. If Charles spends one or two billion to keep the United States fossil friendly to the max, that is just a cost of doing business. Except he gets all the lowly taxpayers, the teachers and warehouse workers, to help pay for his disinformation insurance policy
People worry Elon Musk will take over the next government. Charles Koch is already there, been there for years. One of these same disinfo charities wrote Project 25, the handbook of the Trump Administration. Another claims credit for America withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. These are the old-school influencers with millions of dollars and a network of uber-wealthy power-brokers behind the scenes. They are dragged out into the sunlight very rarely. This report is such an occasion.
A different outcome for America was possible. The country might have led the world out of the fossil trap – except for a few determined beneficiaries of the greatest wealth-producing engine in the world: oil, gas, and coal.
Check out www.climatecriminals.org to see more on the Climate Accountability Research Project that co-produced the report on fossil fuel philanthropy. Find Chuck at his web site here. His latest book is an eco-novel “Altar to an Erupting Sun”. Find a YouTube book trailer for that here (5 minutes long).
PROTECT YOUR BRAIN FROM WILDFIRE SMOKE
JOAN CASEY
Nobody like breathing wildfire smoke. You don’t need to be near the woods. Now with extreme conditions during climate change, smoke travels around the Northern Hemisphere. New research shows repeated exposure to wildfire smoke increases the odds of a dementia diagnosis by 18%. It is many times worse than smog particles from cars and industry. Protect your brain!
Let’s find out more from a co-author of the new study “Wildfire smoke exposure and incident dementia in Southern California, 2008-2019”. Dr. Joan Casey is an Environmental Epidemiologist and Associate Professor at the University of Washington.
Listen to or download this 29 minute interview with Joan Casey in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
AN EXCURSION INTO GRID DOWN
During this interview we take an excursion into one of Joan’s earlier papers. Listeners are concerned about the grid going down during extreme weather events. For example, a 2023 study found an extended blackout during a heat wave in Phoenix, about half the population – 800,000 people – would need Emergency medical care.
Dr. Casey worked on a 2023 paper called “Spatiotemporal distribution of power outages with climate events and social vulnerability in the USA”. They found a connection between climate-driven extremes and power outages. In fact, they found sixty two percent of the worst and most dangerous power outages co-occur with extreme weather/climate events.
We discuss why a blackout of eight hours or more is considered a medical emergency – and who and where are the most vulnerable people in America when the grid goes down.
HOW WILDFIRE SMOKE PARTICLES REACH THE BRAIN
The invisible particles called PM2.5 (and smaller) can directly cross the blood-brain-barrier without visibly damaging it. Exposure to PM2.5 can impair the BBB’s structural integrity, increasing its permeability and allowing more particles to enter the brain. These particles can also induce inflammation which also improves access. Among other damage to the body, this invasion of the brain by PM2.5 particles has been associated with an increased risk of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
So it’s not just Alzheimer’s but also increase in Parkinson’s Disease. Keeping in mind the severe smog over major north Indian cities recently, and lack of protection for millions, we can expect a big burden of public health costs, or just family stress, trying to care for more millions of cases of dementia and Parkinson’s. A greater percentage of the population will be mentally disabled.
Wildfire produces other pollutants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ozone – but whether those change dementia odds is unknown. Their method of diagnostic codes did not let them see whether wildfire predisposes a person to one particular form of dementia (there are several).
Alex says: the study data did not include people’s response to smoke, like those who stayed indoors, who masked up, who used HEPA filters indoors. That should reduce the risk of madness in old age for those who manage to protect themselves from wildfire smoke particles today.
The anti-masking movement suggests that a lot of Americans, and not just Americans, will not wear a mask to protect themselves from smoke when outdoors, or install air purifiers indoors. This resistance to self-protection means there will be a cohort with higher rates of dementia in coming decades.
STAGES OF CIVILIZATION AND THE BRAIN
We see here how dementia drivers shift in different stages of industrialization. In 1970’s California, the main source of tiny particles was directly human caused (industry and traffic). Now that has shifted toward so-called “Natural” causes like wildfire smoke, which is increasing due to both climate heating, drought, and increasing population into fire-prone areas. But Indian cities are back in the earlier stage – except, the latest Delhi killer smog is partly a result of climate change too. As the timing of monsoons change, Indian farmers burned off their fields at a different time of year, and the smoke stayed in place. There is likely a climate role in the change of rains.
SEE ALSO: Environment International March 2021 “Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and risk of dementia: Results of the prospective Three-City Study”.
SEE ALSO: A review of respirable fine particulate matter (PM2.5)-induced brain damage
Wei Li
AND THIS STUDY ON A UK POPULATION
Yichi Zhang et al August 2024 in Environmental International
Alex Disclosure: one of my grandfathers got dementia. As a boy, I watched him shrink mentally, and then he disappeared from family life into a care home. I never saw him again, although technically he lived another ten years.
Another Disclosure: I live in wildfire area. In the worst year, our home was entirely surrounded by smoke so dense the other side of the street was invisible. We stayed inside, running two HEPA filters 24 hours a day, along with an upgraded furnace/AC filter designed to remove particles of 2.5PM. Fortunately for us, the house is almost air-tight. Wildfire smoke is almost an annual visitor here. We wear N95 masks during those weeks when going outside. Please protect your brain when you can.
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TWO BIG STORIES JUST ARRIVED
There is a ton of breaking news about climate change. Two stories I’m working on for you: global drying and the cause of the heat jump in 2023 and ’24.
The United Nations just released a report finding “Three-Quarters of Earth’s Land Became Permanently Drier in Last Three Decades”.
What? What happened to “global wetting”, the Earth getting greener, and a thousand videos on TV and social media as flash flood roar through city streets around the world? Don’t be fooled, the U.N. says. Yes, very extreme rainfall events are increasing, but most of the world’s people, plants, and animals are facing a “permanent” drying. That means extinctions, reduced crop yields, food strain leading to political stress and more mass migration. We will explore.
Second big news: pretty convincing science shows low cloud cover has decreased on this planet. That means less solar energy is being reflected back into space. That is probably why Earth became warmer, faster, in the last two years, scientists say. It is more than ship emissions. This change too may be permanent. If so, global temperature will not go back down below 1.5 degrees C, the big warming was not temporary, and there is a ton we do not know about where this goes from here. The most extreme case is covered in my 2019 program “When Clouds Cannot Continue – The Great Warming”. We are not there – yet.
We have big news coming out of Antarctica, and more on how climate change affects all of our brains. All this and more, coming up on Radio Ecoshock.
That’s it for this week. People need real science, from the scientists direct. Please tell others about this show. Radio Ecoshock is now on BlueSky. Find and follow to get a weekly show announcement – and spread the word there. Thank you for listening, helping (please donate here!), and caring about our world.
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A face mask and a whole house hepa filter are not the same.
A hepa filter does not reduce the percentage of oxygen or increase the amount of CO2 in each inhaled breath.
A face mask reduces the amount of oxygen and increases the amount of CO2 in each inhaled breath.
A hepa filter may be protective under certain conditions such as smokey air during a wildfire.
A face mask does not achieve its purported goal. Surgical and N95 masks let particles larger than ppm30 pass. Viruses are about ppm 0.1 and enclosed in a ppm2 droplet. Also the changed gas ratios increase the wearers susceptibility to infection.
Correction: smaller than ppm30 pass.