Mr. Peabody's Lie Train: Bankruptcy Filings Reveal Breadth & Depth Of Peabody's Denialist Funding
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The recipients of funding from Peabody Energy were made public in the company’s recent bankruptcy filings. Although the documents filed so far do not show the scale or precise dates of funding—they only list current creditors—they demonstrate for the first time that Peabody Energy has financial ties to a very large proportion of the network of groups promoting disinformation around climate change.
Who Received Peabody Cash?
* Willie Soon. According to the list, prominent and controversial climate change denial scientist Willie Wei-Hock Soon has received cash from Peabody. Soon, who is not actually a Climate Scientist but an Aerospace Engineer, works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and espouses the widely discredited position that it is sun spots and not CO2 that is a major driver of change in the climate. He is known to have received significant funds from the fossil fuel industry for his work in the past, including from ExxonMobil and Southern Company. But this is the first known support from Peabody Energy for Soon, whose role with the Smithsonian Institute has proven to be quite controversial.
Who else is financially tied to Peabody?
* The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which recently released a film—”Climate Hustle“—spreading disinformation about climate change. Its position is that increased CO2 is “beneficial” to plant growth and therefore a good thing for the planet.
* Similar views on climate change are promoted by numerous other groups that have received funds from Peabody, including the Center For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change. The group’s founder, current Chairman and former President, Craig Idso told an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference in 2011: “CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a benefit. It is the very elixir of life.”
* ALEC is another recipient of Peabody funding. Peabody sits on the ALEC corporate board, participates in the Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force, and according to the bankruptcy filings it has provided funding for numerous other ALEC events and “scholarship funds” to bring state legislators to ALEC conferences and events. A lobbyist from Peabody Energy told legislators at a ALEC conference that it is seeking “guerrilla warfare” against the EPA. ALEC has long promoted climate change denial at its annual meetings and through its “model” legislation.
* The State Policy Network (SPN), a network of corporate funded think tanks at the state level, which works to promote an agenda closely tied to that of ALEC on a range of issues.
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https://climatecrocks.com/2020/04/08/mr-peabodys-gravy-train/#more-59503
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