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Billionaire-Funded Green ‘Churnalism’

by Chris Morrison
11 December 2022 7:00 AM

Last Tuesday, I reported on the Mirror story that much of London could disappear beneath the water within 80 years. One might suppose that a crack team of investigative reporters had sifted through hundreds of years of meteorological records and consulted numerous scientific authorities to come up with a eureka revelation that Nelson’s Column will disappear beneath the waves before the century is out. Of course, that didn’t happen. The newspaper was simply publishing custom-produced catastrophe copy from a heavily-funded green agitprop operation called Climate Central. Similar climate catastrophe stories are ubiquitous throughout mainstream media, and there are of course serious doubts about many of them, not least because they are designed to promote the Net Zero political agenda.

New Jersey-based Climate Central is open about its mission. Starting in 2008, it notes that it has grown from working with just a handful of media organisations “to collaborating with hundreds and making a mark on thousands”. It boasts of creating “fully produced” stories that “support” countless storytellers and stake holders in media, social media, government, business and NGOs. It specialises in targeting both national and local media with the pictures to tell a climate disaster story – “all for free”. Although it seems to operate mainly in the U.S., a number of local U.K. newspapers have run improbably flood stories suggesting area landmarks will soon vanish.

The operation is well funded and is supported by numerous left-wing foundations, including the Schmidt Family, the Grantham Foundation (active in the U.K. with three university Institutes) and the Hewlett Fund. (A fuller list can be found here.) Eric Schmidt ran Google until recently, and Wendy Schmidt is listed as a founding board member.

It is not just legacy media that’s being targeted. Climate Central runs a unit called Climate Matters that has established close links with American TV weather presenters over the last decade. It is now common for American weather forecasts to include references to climate change. In the U.K., of course, the Met Office needs little help in ramping up fear by directly linking single weather events and trends to long term changes in the climate. But America has many local broadcasting stations all supplying weather information. Climate Matters aims to bring climate change into weathercasting “via local voices highly trusted by Americans everywhere”.

A recent article in the Washingtonian highlighted the work of Professor Ed Maibach in creating a propaganda strategy aimed at U.S. weathercasters. Over a decade, it is reported, he has produced a “weather underground” said to be “a coast-to-coast network of TV weathercasters who believe that educating their audiences about global warming is as crucial as telling them when to bring an umbrella”.

The magazine notes that local news consumers across the country don’t know that behind that telegenic meteorologist is a social scientist and a team of academic researchers, data crunchers and ex-weathercasters, i.e., the staff of Climate Matters. “To a lot of our viewers, it’s lost on them how much Climate [Matters] really is doing,” says Kaitlyn McGrath, a meteorologist at WUSA9. “But it is so far from lost on us.”

Of course, we could ask why newspapers and American TV stations are employing lazy people who just sub the press release, and spout on air pre-prepared green agitiprop (the green equivalent of churnalism). Communicators who fail to investigate the science behind climate change and just accept the unproven hypothesis that humans are solely responsible for any recent warming of the atmosphere are making a very easy living.

The Westminster University economist Dr. Deborah Ancell noted recently in the Conservative Woman that national broadcasters are staffed with journalist advocates, whose exhortations lead to money being wasted “chasing rainbows, pixies and unicorns in fairy dells”. In Dr. Ancell’s opinion, the impact of lazy journalism has contributed to wrecking economies. “The damage includes reducing energy capacity; over-hyping electric vehicles; restricting agricultural production; taxing aviation emissions; operating fraudulent CO2 offset schemes; abandoning fossil fuels and pursuing unachievable Net Zero,” she explained.

Many legacy media brands are dying on their feet, a fate that in time might affect complacent state broadcasters such as the BBC. Needless to say, this state of affairs has not escaped the attention of billionaires looking for suitable recipients of vast quantities of free cash. Just one source, the Gates Foundation, has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to media operations over the last decade.

Last year, the investigative publication Mint Press News (whose account has been closed by PayPal), put the Gates spend on media projects at around $300 million, but noted the amount could be much higher once sub-grants are taken into account. Among the broadcasters receiving money were the BBC ($3.67 million), CNN ($3.6m) and NBC Universal ($4.37m). In the U.K., the Guardian collected $12.95m, while the less well known green, woke blog The Conversation was granted $6.66m. The Telegraph collected £3.45m, but that doesn’t include a recent $2.43m grant for “global policy and advocacy”. In Europe, Der Spiegel ($5.44m), El Pais ($3.97m) and Le Monde ($4m) all received money. Gates has also given money to charities run by media operations, with a massive $53m provided for BBC Media Action. Large grants are also provided for journalistic training purposes. The full list is available here.

Mint Press News looked at 30,000 individual grants and concluded that the Gates Foundation was underwriting a “significant chunk” of the media eco-system. It argued that this caused serious problems with objectivity when it comes to covering subjects close to Bill Gates’s heart, adding that the money spent by billionaires “allows them to set the public agenda, giving them enormous power over society”.

For some inexplicable reason, the Daily Sceptic is not on the Gates handout list. Curiously, the large bung from Big Oil, which many of our social media commentators routinely accuse us of taking, is also notable for its absence.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Tags: Bill GatesChurnalismClimate CentralClimate MattersMint Press NewsMirror

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8 Comments
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Dr G
Dr G
2 years ago

Depressingly familiar.
But then again, my profession is essentially owned, taught, regulated and indoctrinated by Big Pharma, yet are blissfully unaware of this.

82
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago

It is quite interesting really how easy it seems to be to make humans believe things that they can plainly see with their own eyes are not true.

People for example talk about the “pandemic” except it is plain to see that very few people have died and that there has been no pandemic in the real sense of the word.

Similarly with climate you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t utterly convinced that the climate is rapidly changing even though they can see no physical evidence of it. The seasons change with what is simply astonishing precision and regularity, temperatures remain within an incredibly narrow and predictable band. Anyone who actually takes a second to think of what can be observed, what stands out is how spectacularly constant and predictable our climate is.

I don’t quite know what it is. Is it perhaps that modern life is so sophisticated and full of things we don’t really understand that we are losing the habit and ability of observing the world and reacting to what we see? I don’t know.

Last edited 2 years ago by stewart
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DavidJSimpson52
DavidJSimpson52
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I think an increasing % of the population actually don’t really have any experience of the natural non-urban environment. They live in insulated bubbles of cars, offices, public transport and shopping centres, and only look at life through screens both glass and digital. The only thing they really know about actual weather is what the media tell them.

76
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I used to work in an office of about 25 people. It had no outside windows. We had a folder on a table at the entrance with laminated pictures of weather. The last person to come in from outside would flip to the appropriate picture. This kept those inside the office informed without them having to go look for themselves.

This seems such an apt allegory for the perpetuation of the climate change scam.

29
0
Free Lemming
Free Lemming
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I think Orwell nails this perfectly in 1984. Quite simply, most people will believe in authority, no matter how completely ridiculous the claims/rules emanating from that trusted authority. Personally, I believe this is because most people never really mature from their childhood mentality; being looked after and feeling safe, without questioning, is an incredibly attractive proposition for many people. It’s what still keeps me up at night tbh – what is that line made of that divides them and us? I’ve mused over many possibilities – appraisal of risk, morality, exposure to danger, how rebellious, political persuasion etc. Even simply good vs evil. But maybe it’s as simple as most people don’t want the burden of having to look after themselves and just want a paternal/maternal figure to put their arms around them and assure them that they will be ok as long as they do what they are told.

Last edited 2 years ago by Free Lemming
33
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
2 years ago

Ever wondered how – and when – the climate change hoax started? It was 1959 with the brothers Nelson and David Rockefeller.

Dr Jacob Nordangard explains in this video the original Rockefeller business model concept of Global Health and Climate & Environment. This started in 1959 with Henry Kissinger joining in soon after. Then, in 1967, Klaus Schwab joined in. This is all in the first 10 minutes of this 47 minute video.

Last edited 2 years ago by MikeAustin
40
-1
varmint
varmint
2 years ago

“Big Oil” is a terrible thing apparently but “Big Green” doesn’t exist????? Evil people make money out of coal oil and gas, but only people all full of sweetness and light make money out of 100% subsidised wind turbines that no one would manufacture unless that subsidy was forth coming, as the turbines cannot compete in the marketplace if the desire is to provide affordable ON DEMAND energy. But that is not the desire. The desire is to take affordable ON DEMMAND energy away———-For political purposes.– In order to achieve that remarkable feat of deception you need a whole industry of deceivers. Step up the mainstream media to lead the way as most people will get their news at 6 pm after a long day at work or busy with family life. They will have switched on eg SKY NEWS at 6 and seen their “Daily Climate Show” (which seems no longer to be on) to see a dreadful cherry picked propaganda program, where the presenter had a little digital thermometer ticking up up up slowly bit by bit representing our global warming…..Which if anyone knows anything about this subject is Totally Absurd. Herd mentality is a powerful thing as people tend not to want to be seen as going against mainstream thought for fear of being ridiculed with stuff like “So you think you know more than the scientists” —Curiously when you ask these people to name one of those scientists they cannot do it.

60
0
7941MHKB
7941MHKB
2 years ago

Whilst the information on Gates and his funding of nasty mainly left wing activist media seems credible and usefull, it should be noted that MintPressNews (also obviously left wing) is clearly virulently antisemitic and pro Hamas Gaza.
Use of a very long spoon is recommended!

0
0

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