Is sustainable use group Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) a climate denial group?
Yes.
There are many ways to describe Property and Environment Research Center. To some, PERC is best described as a conservative think tank funded by right-wing oligarchs.
I like to describe PERC as a sustainable use group because they promote trophy hunting and commercial wildlife trade as conservation tools. But I also describe them as a climate denial group.
Sustainable use activist and PERC research fellow Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes doesn’t like it when I call PERC a climate denial group.
[Sas-Rolfes claimed he doesn’t work for PERC because they don’t pay his salary. In my opinion, he does work for PERC because he is their research fellow and publishes work under their name. It’s a dumb argument that is only deflecting from the issue PERC being a climate denial group.]
Am I wrong to label PERC a climate denial group? Let’s look at the evidence.
What does research say about PERC?
A paper titled Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection cited PERC-affiliated Jonathon Adler’s The Costs of Kyoto: Climate Change Policy and Its Implications in their list of books espousing climate change denial.
“The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists.”
A paper titled The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism states that environmental skepticism “denies the seriousness of environmental problems.” The researchers identified eight books espousing environmental skepticism that had authors affiliated with PERC and concluded that PERC was guilty of espousing environmental skepticism.
A thesis paper titled Rebranding the Climate Change Counter Movement: A Critical Examination of Counter Movement Messaging through a Criminological and Political Economic Lens also labeled PERC as a climate denial group.
“[PERC] first identified as a [Climate Change Counter Movement organization] by Greenpeace. It has played an active role in the CCCM and has published materials contrary to the scientific consensus on climate change. It promotes the ideas of free market environmentalism and property rights. It promotes the work of climate sceptics including Jonathan Adler and Myron Ebell.”
Another paper titled Obstruction, delay, and transnationalism: Examining the online climate change counter-movement noted that Wise Use Movement group American Land Rights Association linked to “a document produced by the CCCM Property and Environment Research Centre on land ownership and the costs of regulation.”
“The Climate Change Counter Movement (CCCM) is an eco-system of organisations and individuals that operate using monetary resources and discourses of power to shape the public and policy [non]response to climate change. This network of actors includes but is not limited to the corporate world, including the fossil fuel sector and other multinational corporations, ‘public relations firms,’ foundations, conservative, libertarian and partisan think tanks, advocacy groups, contrarian scientists, and the media.”
[Read more about how the concept of sustainable use evolved out of the Wise Use Movement here.]
What do climate denial investigators say about PERC?
Greenpeace labeled PERC as a “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group.”
“The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) touts the potential economic benefits to American farmers as a reason not to act against climate change. PERC is a member of the State Policy Network.
Richard Stroup is a Senior Fellow at PERC and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.”
Center by Media & Democracy described PERC as one of the “most egregious climate misinformation groups” that “consistently mislead the public about the climate crisis.”
DeSmog stated that PERC “has received significant funding from Koch Foundations and related organizations, as well as from the fossil fuel industry and Donors Trust, a group that has been called the “dark-money ATM” of the conservative movement by Mother Jones.”
Do PERC’s donors fund climate denial?
A paper titled Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations traced the funding of climate denial organizations to several conservative philanthropic foundations. If you take a look at the top donors of climate denial, you’ll see that they’re also PERC’s top donors.
Seven of the top nine funders of climate denial from 2003 to 2010 donated more than $10.6 million to PERC through 2018.
Are there some examples of climate denial published by PERC?
In 2009, PERC published Environmental Education: The Science of Fear by Holly Fretwell.
“But the truth about science and the environment is that much of it is enmeshed in uncertainty—making it difficult to teach because it is not always conclusive and remains a learning process.
Our understanding of global warming is not definitive.”
In 2010, PERC published The Case Against the Hockey Stick by Matt Ridley.
“Of course, there is other evidence for global warming, but none of it proves that the recent warming is unprecedented. Indeed, quite the reverse: surface temperatures, sea levels, tree lines, glacier retreats, summer sea ice extent in the Arctic, early spring flowers, bird migration, droughts, floods, storms—they all show change that is no different in speed or magnitude from other periods, like 1910–1940, at least as far as can be measured. There may be something unprecedented going on in temperature, but the only piece of empirical evidence that actually says so—yes, the only one—is the hockey stick. […] And the hockey stick is wrong.”
In 2014, PERC published Hot Air on Climate Change by Terry Anderson.
“Whether you believe or deny the apocalyptic predictions of the National Climate Assessment, it is unlikely that most of them will come to pass—not because of government sponsored mitigation, but because of entrepreneurial adaption.”
In 2015, PERC published Humans Have Time to Adapt to Global Warming by Terry Anderson.
“[S]urely modern man ought to be able to adapt to long-term changes, provided government climate policies don’t stifle human progress and economic growth.”
You’ll notice that the denial I selected was published during the Obama administration years when Charles Koch (PERC donor) was ratcheting up his attack on democracy and climate science. The denial was also published decades after Exxon (PERC donor) understood the threat of climate change.
The climate denial espoused by Fretwell and Ridley was painfully obvious. Saying that there is “uncertainty” in science, that our understanding is “not definitive,” and that the evidence is “wrong” is classic denial.
[Ridley and Sas-Rolfes were concurrent research fellows at Institute of Economic Affairs, a UK-based climate denial group that published tobacco disinformation and promoted sustainable use. Read more about that here.]
Anderson’s denial was a little more subtle but still obvious. He downplayed the reality of the crisis and the need for urgent action - climate delay is the new climate denial.
The vilification of government intervention by Anderson also aligns neatly with The Ideology of Climate Change Denial in the United States.
“[C]limate denial stems from the strong ideological commitment of small-government conservatives and libertarians to laisser-faire and their strong opposition to regulation.”
Is sustainable use group Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) a climate denial group?
Yes, PERC is obviously a climate denial group.
The fact that a climate denial group is promoting sustainable use should concern conservationists. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of conservationists likely know of this fact – and most of those are sustainable use activists that pretend it’s a lie.