John Locke Puppets: The Devil Made Them Do It?

In the race to the bottom of the anti-science barrel, the Climate-Change Deniers at the John Locke Foundation have opened a huge lead. If things go according to plan, they will soon be invoking god herself as the source of their free-market extremism, fiddling all the while as the earth goes to hell in a hand basket.

The Institute for Southern Studies has the story. (Their website isn't working right now, so please forgive the extended excerpting.)

Given Washington's reluctance to tackle global warming, many states have recently taken the initiative, drawing up their own plans to cut carbon emissions. For help, 25 states have turned to the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

But in recent months, the Center has become the target of concerted attacks by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina-based think tank that opposes strict environmental regulations. A longtime skeptic of prevailing climate science, which it criticizes as "alarmist," Locke has published a series of scathing attacks directed at the Center in its own publications and other outlets including the American Spectator, Washington Times, Washington Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Why the hostility? Among Locke's criticisms is that the Center for Climate Strategies was founded by an "environmental advocacy group." In fact, it was created by a business-friendly organization, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, whose current directors include representatives from leading energy companies like PPL Corp., Inter-Power, Exelon and Reliant.

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But Locke's diatribes against the Center fail to disclose the potential bias in its own funding sources. According to an Institute for Southern Studies analysis of the group's tax returns, the John Locke Foundation received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal 2002 and 2005.

Looming large behind a number of Locke's funders is ExxonMobil. Since 1998, the oil giant has funneled more than $16 million to several dozen advocacy organizations in an effort that a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report described as seeking "to deceive the public about the reality of global warming" by "using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message."

Among the fossil-fuel-tainted contributions the Locke Foundation has received:

* $70,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations operated by billionaires David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned oil company in the United States.

* $20,000 from the Cato Institute, an anti-regulatory think tank that was co-founded by Charles Koch. Cato has received at least $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, a Web site sponsored by Greenpeace USA. ExxonSecrets.org also reports that Cato has received funds from such other fossil-fuel interests as the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Shell Oil.

* $15,000 from the Reason Foundation, an anti-regulatory think thank that's received $381,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Reason has also received funds from the American Petroleum Institute, BP Amoco and Koch Industries.

* $10,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an anti-regulatory think tank that's received $780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Charles Koch is also a major funder.

* $6,500 from the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a Texas-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity.

* $5,000 from the DCI Group, a Republican lobbying firm that has received $140,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org.

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The John Locke Foundation stepped up its crusade against the Center for Climate Strategies this September, when it teamed up with the Heartland Institute to host a conference call promising to expose the Center’s "hijacking of climate policy."

The Heartland Institute was a natural ally: The Chicago-based think tank has long fought any attempts to curtail global warming pollutants. Heartland has also taken at least $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 40 percent of the funds the institute got from the oil giant were earmarked for fighting climate change regulations. In addition, Walter Buchholtz, who's listed as Heartland's government relations advisor on the group's 2005 tax return (PDF), has also served as ExxonMobil’s senior environmental advisor.

The featured speaker for the Sept. 12 conference call -- which drew state legislators, policy analysts, and a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company -- was Michael Sanera, Locke's research director. Sanera is also a member of an advisory board for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a former analyst at the Heritage Foundation -- both funded by ExxonMobil.

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So what does the John Locke Foundation feel should be done about climate change? Most of their work simply denies there's a serious problem. But they do offer a glimpse of what they think we should be worrying about instead in a February 2006 American Spectator opinion piece titled "Bible Bending Propaganda" by Paul Chesser, Locke's associate editor and a leading critic of the Center's work.

In the piece, Chesser goes after the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a Christian group favoring strong action to reduce global warming pollution. He blasts the Initiative for claiming Christ "for their own alarmist agenda" and its members for suffering from "Biblical illiteracy" and for being "Birkenstocked" "enviro-hippies."

But instead of calls for hard science, the Locke Foundation editor veers from the skeptics' usual playbook and quotes not a dissenting climatologist, but the biblical Book of Revelation. Scripture, Chesser notes, promises us that Jesus "does not dwell on the earth but instead will return to the New Jerusalem ... after God also establishes a new heaven and a new earth." Going on to cite a letter from Christ's apostle Peter describing a coming day of judgment and destruction of the "godless" in which the elements will be dissolved by fire, Chesser concludes:

“And don't forget, God has some serious global warming of His own planned ... Christian leaders ought to be warning people about that rather than looking for ways to mitigate the questionable effects of the current heat wave.”

It's hard to pick the weakest link in the Puppetshow chain, but Paul Chesser is definitely in the running. I always knew the organization was full of ideological extremists, so I guess it's not entirely surprising to find it's also a faith-based circus as well.

Heat wave my ass.