Environmental Group To Target Ford For Funding Climate Change Denial

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On Tuesday, September 16th, Forecast the Facts Action will target Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F)’s funding of climate change denial at the company’s electric and hybrid vehicle technology expo in Novi, Michigan. The environmental group will fly a plane banner reading “Ford: Stop funding lies. DisruptDenial.com,” demanding the company reconcile its public promotion of green friendly policies with its contradictory funding of climate change denying Members of Congress.

In a recent report, Forecast the Facts Action profiles Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) as one of the key corporate leaders that publicly recognizes the veracity of climate change, while simultaneously making financial contributions to climate change deniers in Congress. Since 2008, Ford Motors has spent $791,285 to fund members of the House and Senate who deny the scientific reality of climate change.

Event Details

What:  Disrupt Denial campaign targets Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) at electric & hybrid vehicle technology expo

Where:  Suburban Collection Showplace, 46100 Grand River Ave, Novi, Michigan (48374)

When: Tuesday, September 16th — September 18th  (7:15am — 11:00am)

Visuals: Plane with banner reading “Ford: Stop funding lies. DisruptDenial.com” flying above Suburban Collective Showplace for Ford Motor Co.

Ford Motors targeted by Environmental Group: Introduction

The 2014 congressional elections will have a powerful influence on the climate change policies of the United States government and thus on the international community’s response to the defining challenge of our time. For years, an unofficial caucus of climate science deniers on Capitol Hill has blocked action, even as global temperatures have risen and severe weather events grown more severe.

Forecast the Facts Action has therefore produced the first compilation of contributions that US corporations have made to the election campaigns of all 160 members of the climate denier caucus in the 113th Congress. Three key findings emerge from this report.

So Damn Much Money

That was the title of a book co-authored in 2009 by Robert Kaiser, a veteran Washington Post editor and correspondent who argued that the gargantuan amounts of money flowing into US election campaigns were a primary cause of the increasingly dysfunctional performance of Congress. Climate change was a leading example, Kaiser wrote, of how money—both the willingness of wealthy contributors to supply it and the eagerness of Senators and Representatives in both parties to receive it—has corrupted responsible, effective governance by inclining the people’s elected representatives to respond more to the wishes of their financial backers than to the needs of the Nation as a whole.

The unofficial caucus of climate deniers scrutinized in this report personify the problem. As defined by the Center for American Progress, the climate change denier caucus consists of 160 Members of the 113th Congress who have publicly rejected the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is happening now, largely man-made, and poses grave risks to humans, ecosystems and economies throughout the world. Informally led by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who has called climate science “a hoax,” the denier caucus has been widely credited with blocking congressional efforts to confront the climate crisis, such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act co-sponsored in 2009 by Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, which failed in the Senate in 2010.

A complete list of the denier caucus’s 160 Members, along with samples of their statements about climate science, has been published by the Center for American Progress Action War Room. Now, this Forecast the Facts Action report has discovered that these 160 Members, all of whom are Republicans, have received $641 million in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.

See full Environmental Group Targets Big Corporations for Funding Climate Change Denial in PDF format here.

About Forecast the Facts Action

Forecast the Facts Action is a grassroots human rights organization dedicated to ensuring that Americans hear the truth about climate change.

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