The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing

Abstract

Two of the most consequential developments affecting US politics are (1) the growing influence of private philanthropy, and (2) the large-scale production and diffusion of misinformation. Despite their importance, the links between these two trends have not been scientifically examined. This study employs a sophisticated research design on a large collection of new data, utilizing natural language processing and approximate string matching to examine the relationship between the large-scale climate misinformation movement and US philanthropy. The study finds that over a twenty year period, networks of actors promulgating scientific misinformation about climate change were increasingly integrated into the institution of US philanthropy. The degree of integration is predicted by funding ties to prominent corporate donors. These findings reveal new knowledge about largescale efforts to distort public understanding of science and sow polarization. The study also contributes a unique computational approach to be applied at this increasingly important, yet methodologically fraught, area of research.

Online misinformation about climate change

“…He uses this same dataset to investigate the link between the growth of misinformation about climate change and the growing influence of US private philanthropy, and finds that the network of actors spreading misinformation about climate change were “increasingly integrated into the institution of US philanthropy” (Farrell, 2019). Note, as mentioned above, in his two earlier papers (from 2016) Farrell does not explicitly label this network of actors as purveyors of misinformation, but in his 2019 paper, he retrospectively describes them as being “actively involved in the wide‐spread promulgation of scientific misinformation about climate change” (Farrell, 2019). Similarly, Brulle (2014) investigates the funding of the CCCM in the US and finds that the “overwhelming majority” of funding for the CCCM comes from conservative foundations, and additionally identifies a trend for concealing the sources of funding.…”

Politics and Corporate‐Sector Environmentally Significant Actions: The Effects of Political Partisanship on U.S. Utilities Energy Efficiency Policies

“…These think tanks have been exceptionally successful in turning Americans identifying as Republicans (and/or conservatives) against environmental protection (Dunlap, 2013; Dunlap & Jacques, 2013; Elsasser & Dunlap, 2013; Jacques, Dunlap, & Freeman, 2008). With ample funding from major business entities (see Brulle, 2014; Farrell, 2019), conservative think tanks have successfully generated fears among Republicans and conservative‐leaning Americans about the supposed dangers that the environmental regulatory state poses to the health of the economy. They have also created substantial skepticism among this segment of the public about the science that informs environmental policy, such as climate change science, relying on disinformation campaigns (Brulle, 2014; Dunlap & Jacques, 2013; Farrell, 2019; Jacques et al, 2008).…”

“…With ample funding from major business entities (see Brulle, 2014; Farrell, 2019), conservative think tanks have successfully generated fears among Republicans and conservative‐leaning Americans about the supposed dangers that the environmental regulatory state poses to the health of the economy. They have also created substantial skepticism among this segment of the public about the science that informs environmental policy, such as climate change science, relying on disinformation campaigns (Brulle, 2014; Dunlap & Jacques, 2013; Farrell, 2019; Jacques et al, 2008). These developments have heightened political polarization across the country, making the divergence between Republicans and Democrats on the question of environmental protection starker than ever before.…”

Echo chambers in climate science

“…We show that, since the first wave of data collection in 2010, climate skepticism, specifically around whether climate change is anthropogenic, has grown among policy elites and that this growth is reinforced by actors restructuring their network to take advantage of echo chambers. A corresponding growth has been documented in conservative think tanks [19], public communications by fossil fuel companies [20], and private philanthropy [21]. However, this paper is the first to document the same patterns at work among political elites.…”