As founder and CEO of The Institute for Energy Research (IER) since its inception (1989), the new year offers an opportunity to add to the historical record regarding the free-market think tank’s origins and purpose. This is also necessary given some misunderstandings and misreporting in the public domain.
In Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America (2019), for example, Christopher Leonard states the following:
The IER was an outgrowth of the Institute for Humane Studies, the libertarian think tank cofounded by Charles Koch. Fn
Fn The connection between IER and the Institute for Humane Studies was first revealed by the journalist Lee Fang. He reported in 2014 that the IHS temporarily lost its charter, and then reformed as the IER.
The Real Story
The Institute for Humane Studies – Texas (IHS–Texas) was formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1984 and shared the same board directors as IHS.…
The lecture reprinted below, “Mediocre Careerism, Respectability Politics, and Bad Behavior by Senior Scientists Erode Global Climate Leadership,” was given last week at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Sarah Myhre‘s session title was titled “Is environmental science serving or failing society?” Her remarks follow without comment.
…“… effective action on climate change has been impeded for 30 years because of the political assassination and anti-democratic campaigns (a form of extortion, lies, intimidation, bribery, and toadery) waged by ExxonMobil, Shell, British Petroleum and other fossil fuel companies…. Their transactions of power are so damaging and genocidal….”
“Here we find the genocidal systems of white supremacy, fascism, nationalism, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. Here we find the billionaires, the oligarchs, the war mongers, the predators, the enablers.
“Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an ‘existential threat’ to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real…. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments [against Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade], I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.” (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2009)
“Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism.” (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2019)
A full decade apart, Paul Krugman is all-in with climate hyperbole and angst. Joe Romm might have thrown in the towel at Climate Progress, but Krugman is flaming in the New York Times.
Talk about riding the wrong horse.…