One of the UK’s most prominent think tanks told a prospective donor they could discreetly influence a report in ways that could advance their business interests – in exchange for £42,500.

The head of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Mark Littlewood, told an undercover reporter posing as the representative of a US beef investor that funding the report on what “green Brexit” means would ensure it prominently featured the donor’s concerns.

He made the offer despite the IEA telling the Charity Commission its research is independent from corporate sponsors.

Neonicotinoid pesticides

Littlewood told the undercover reporter that funders were not able to change the conclusions of IEA research, but they could influence the “content” and “salience” of issues within the paper.

He also suggested the funder would be able to attend a private dinner with its author Lord (Matt) Ridley – a prominent climate change sceptic and advocate of controversial neonicotinoid pesticides – and potentially with Gove, the environment secretary, or another minister.

Littlewood said Gove was keen for the report to happen.

Green Brexit

Gove has promised a “green Brexit”, with even stronger animal welfare and environmental protections than the EU’s. European environmental rule-making follows the precautionary principle, under which products and methods must be proven to be safe before they can be introduced.

Littlewood suggested the report could be counted on to argue that the EU’s precautionary principle should be dropped – a longstanding goal of Ridley’s – and that beef reared to US standards should be allowed into UK supermarkets. Many American beef products cannot currently be imported to the UK, because of an EU ban on hormone-reared beef.

The IEA director told the undercover reporter: “[T]here is no way this report is going to say the most important thing we need to do is keep American beef out of our market in order to prop up our beef farmers, in fact exactly the opposite”.

Littlewood said Ridley had discussed the report, on innovation in agriculture, with Gove, who he said was enthusiastic about getting the ideas into the “bloodstream of Defra”.

“Yeah, he told Matt Ridley, it would be really good if you guys could get these ideas out there,” he said.

Deeply concerning

When asked by the reporter why Gove would want that, Littlewood said: “Because it would move the argument in this direction. Gove’s an intellectual… he wants these ideas floated and out there.”

He said the paper would examine what is really meant by “green Brexit” – a term coined by Gove.

A spokesman for Gove told Unearthed: “The government and the environment secretary have been very clear that food safety and animal welfare standards will not be weakened after Brexit.

“We will never be swayed on this. There will no chlorinated chicken entering the UK and we will retain the precautionary principle. That position won’t change whatever any think tank recommends,” he continued.

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said: “It’s deeply concerning to see an organisation as influential as the Institute for Economic Affairs is willing to take cash from US agribusiness in return for favourable reports.”

“But what’s more worrying is Michael Gove’s apparent enthusiasm for a project authored by a leading climate change sceptic whose love of dangerous pesticides is well-documented. If the Government wants research-backed policies, ministers would do well to rely on their own independent civil servants,” she continued.

Ridley told Unearthed that the report was about innovation in agriculture rather than agriculture after Brexit and added that its aim is not to influence Defra officials but to “inform all debate on the topic”.

‘Substantial content’

The IEA, which is registered as an educational charity, does not disclose its donors, arguing that it is under no moral or legal obligation to do so. In 2016, the charity’s trustees told the regulator it only accepts research sponsorship from “individuals or trusts who do not have a vested commercial interest in the topic”, the Charity Commission wrote.

“[T]he trustees take considerable efforts to ensure that whatever the source of funding, IEA’s research is independent,” the commission wrote.

But Littlewood suggested donors’ interests could help shape its reports.

When asked by the Unearthed reporter whether his client, a fictional investor in US beef, would be able to fund the report and ensure its specific concerns were covered, Littlewood responded: “Oh sure and, and absolutely and we, I don’t mind our donors affecting us on salience.”

He continued: “We would assume that donors are giving us money because we are covering areas of their interest and we can make those undertakings and guarantees no problem at all… And beef is actually, it is actually an area of interest, an area that we do genuinely happen to be interested in.”

And he added: “To give you an example, we would take money from alcohol companies. We would go to alcohol companies and say we, we want to write about the cost of living being too high and actually alcohol consumption is not costing the National Health Service as much money as they often complain.”

He added that the IEA does not let donors change a report’s conclusions, but confirmed that there would be prominent “substantial content” covering their areas of interest.

Responding to the allegation that Littlewood offered the prospective donors the chance to influence the report, a spokesperson for the IEA told Unearthed: “We have no evidence or reason to believe this is the case. Mark was clear that corporate donors do not alter the conclusions of IEA work.”

“The IEA is currently working on a report on agricultural innovation, which was commissioned prior to the meeting outlined. As previously mentioned, we would carry out this work regardless but obviously do fundraise to cover the production and distribution costs of our output,” she continued.  

Guests of honour

As well as being guests of honour at a launch event, Littlewood added, the donor would be able to attend a private dinner with the author, and potentially a government minister.

“We might need to take one or two people to a lunch, private lunch-slash-dinner… take four seats around the table, make sure you’re sat next to … Matt Ridley and/or the minister who’s there.”

Asked if a minister would definitely attend, Littlewood said: “That’s not something I can make an absolutely [sic] guarantee on… don’t know if we could get Gove – quite possibly, but we would definitely try to get a minister from agriculture.

“Or it could even be a minister from the Dexeu [the Department for Exiting the European Union] or trade department, right, because it’s actually about trade rules governing agriculture rather than agriculture per se.”

Hormone beef

The proposal for the IEA study – which is marked ‘strictly private and confidential’ and published by Unearthed here – echoes another report on innovation in agriculture published in November by UK2020, a think tank run by Ridley and Owen Paterson MP, his brother-in-law and former environment secretary.

UK2020’s paper argues that restrictions on chlorinated chicken, hormone beef and GMOs should be dropped post-Brexit and biodiversity offsetting introduced.

The report recounts how that Paterson hosted Gove on an agricultural tour of his North Shropshire constituency in October, where the environment secretary was introduced to some of the ideas in the UK2020 report.

The IEA were approached for comment on this story, however following publication by Unearthed they released a further statement. Click here to read in full.

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, an investigations website published by Greenpeace. 

In the ballroom of the Hyatt hotel in Sarasota, Florida, the head of the UK’s most influential think tank made an urgent plea for donations for a new international trade unit he was establishing in London.

The top priority of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) trade unit would be to push for a sweeping, deregulatory trade deal with the US, its director-general Mark Littlewood said.

The next day, at the Cornell Club in Manhattan, Littlewood told an audience of businessmen and libertarian campaigners that Brexit offered the opportunity to “shred” EU regulations and appealed for their help. Speaking at a conference, Littlewood later described his 13-stop US tour as “lucrative”.

Parliamentary backlash

In the following months, Unearthed established that the IEA is working with US donors to capitalise on the opportunity presented by Brexit in order to radically alter the rules and regulations that govern how we consume products in the UK.

A six-month investigation, which included undercover meetings in Washington, Copenhagen and London, found that those who have pledged money to the IEA include those with US agribusiness interests who hope to profit from a trade deal that scraps EU restrictions on US products, such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-reared beef.

In London the IEA’s trade unit, led by controversial trade expert Shanker Singham, has established itself at the heart of the campaign for a hard Brexit, advising senior Brexiteer ministers and developing close links with Jacob Rees-Mogg’s powerful European Research Group (ERG), a faction of backbench MPs.

Singham advocates dropping the EU’s precautionary principle, which underlies many rules on food and the environment.

Chlorine-washed chicken

The government has said there will be no weakening of environmental or food safety standards after Brexit. But Theresa May’s Chequers deal, which attempted to make part of this assurance a formal part of the UK’s negotiating stance, met a furious parliamentary backlash led by the ERG, as pro-Brexit MPs insisted the deal would prevent the UK from signing trade deals with the rest of the world.

During a series of conversations at a conference in Copenhagen, the head of an Oklahoma-based think tank revealed he has agreed to raise thousands of dollars for the IEA, principally from donors with agribusiness interests.

Michael Carnuccio, CEO of the E Foundation for Oklahoma, told an undercover reporter that his pitch to potential IEA donors was Singham’s political access and influence: “If they don’t know them, then we just explain they’re the free market organisation that is the private sector trade advisor right now through working in that capacity with Shanker, so they have the access, they have the influence.”

Carnuccio said that the partnership between the IEA and the E Foundation includes a proposal to target the constituencies of MPs using a US political tactic called “bracket and smother”; a model trade deal to be signed by the governor of Oklahoma and Liam Fox; and a trip to Oklahoma by leading Brexiteer MPs where they would eat chicken to try and improve the image among British shoppers of chlorine-washed chicken.

Funding the ‘brain’ of hard Brexit

The IEA does not disclose the identity of its donors, meaning that it is not known who else funds Singham’s work. In a statement, the IEA said that it has not received funding from US sources for its work on trade, but Carnuccio told Unearthed that the money raised by the E Foundation will be transferred later this year.

At a breakfast meeting in Tulsa in February, Carnuccio organised for Littlewood to address a group of potential donors, including agribusiness tycoons. “Mark starts talking about how to get a free trade agreement done, what I need in the United States is I need some partners and I need a big media push on the May government and others… in the UK,” Carnuccio told an undercover reporter.

According to Carnuccio, some of those present went on to set up a specialised membership organisation, the Bison Club, made up mainly of donors from the agricultural and, to a lesser extent, energy industry, which he said planned to raise $250-400,000 to cultivate post-Brexit trade.

The E Foundation also secured a commitment from its supporters – including energy and agribusiness interests – to donate $35,000 to the American Friends of the IEA to support Singham’s work. Carnuccio said the Oklahoma partnership offered US businesses the opportunity to play a role in Brexit.

He told an undercover reporter: “If you’re looking for a way to invest resources in the US, to where there’s a tax deduction for the resources and there’s anonymity between it, that will get the resources deployed in the United Kingdom in a way that gets as much influence as close as possible and at the same time, creates a conversation and groundswell, we have the system already set up, that’s what we’re doing.”

Mutually beneficial

In a separate conversation, Littlewood said: “On this particular project, as it stands at the moment, Mike’s raising the money and I’m spending it.”

An IEA spokeswoman said the Bison Club was “entirely fictitious”, adding: “We do not recognise the figures mentioned of $250,000-$400,000.”

She confirmed Littlewood toured the US seeking donations for the IEA’s trade team, but said the events were “attended by private individuals rather than businesses – indeed no businesses were met.”

The E Foundation released a statement saying: “The conversations supported the E Foundation’s purpose to explore global business and research opportunities. The informal conversation enlightened us on possible mutually beneficial endeavours in the future between United Kingdom and Oklahoma.

“Any suggestions the conversations were about something other than constructive business and research pursuits would be completely misguided.”

Open doors

In May, Carnuccio and Oklahoma businessman and E Foundation board member Tucker Link visited the IEA in London, where they developed plans for a model trade agreement between the UK and the state of Oklahoma.

Shanker Singham’s political access was vital to the trip’s success: he arranged for Carnuccio and Link to meet peers at the House of Lords and to be guests of honour at a parliamentary meeting of the ERG, where Carnuccio described addressing an approving crowd and watching the MPs count votes of no confidence in Theresa May.

Littlewood said: “In the room… it was pushing at totally open doors, because that wing of the government just utterly wants some positive noises from elsewhere on planet Earth.”

Singham arranged for then-Brexit minister Steve Baker – who resigned earlier this month alongside his boss David Davis in protest at the Chequers agreement – to meet the visitors at the IEA’s headquarters. He also took them to meetings with senior trade officials at the Foreign Office and Department for International Trade.

“I’m telling you, that dude has access,” Carnuccio said.

Prospective donors

He compared Singham to George Clooney’s well-connected “fixer” character in the movie Michael Clayton: “Shanker is like that but for trade and economics and everything else, they all just seem to call him or want to talk to him to, like, figure out how to get things done.”

An aide to Baker said: “Any suggestion – or implication of the same – that Mr Baker would attend meetings because ‘access’ to him was being sold is entirely false.”

She added: “On the occasion you refer to, Mr Baker met US Republicans in his political capacity to discuss trade relations between the two countries.”

When Unearthed suggested the IEA had provided access for potential donors representing vested interests to the heart of government, an IEA spokeswoman said: “The better inference is that prospective donors and a fellow think tank see benefits and mutual interests in making the case for free markets and prosperity in which we all have a vested interest.”

Memorandum of Understanding

At the DIT, where Carnuccio and Link met with Oliver Griffiths, director of capability, they discovered “that department is looking for a state to do like a pilot programme with,” Carnuccio said.

Littlewood and Carnuccio discussed bringing Todd Lamb, a member of the E Foundation’s advisory council who was running to be Oklahoma’s governor, to the UK for a ceremony  with trade secretary Liam Fox in which they would sign a memorandum of understanding, to be drafted by Singham.

“In fact, in the meeting at the Department of Trade, the guy from Trade that said we need to get an MOU started… he turned to Shanker and he said, ‘Can you help send us some language? Can you help put this together?’” Carnuccio said.

Littlewood told an undercover reporter: “We’ll get two governments to sign it. But go and ask Governor Lamb who’s writing it. Governor Lamb wants Singham’s draft, Fox wants Singham’s draft.”

He described the agreement as a template for the future US-UK trading relationship. “We can’t sign a trade deal, but we can sign the memorandum of understanding of what the trade deal will look like,” he explained. Agricultural regulations would be among the top priorities.

Business representatives

“It’s not legally binding… But that obviously has political force,” Littlewood said. He hoped other states would want MOUs of their own, creating pressure on Congress for a full free trade deal.

The plan, he explained, was to create the impression that other nations were queuing up to sign a free trade deal with the UK. “The big problem is the US saying, once you [the EU] and the UK have worked out what the fuck you’re doing, give us a call,” said Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

“And we’re saying no, no, no – you’ve got to come into this clusterfuck and say we want a deal… the nightmare is the rest of the world waits.”

In the end, Lamb lost the Republican primary contest.

A DIT spokesman said: “A meeting between DIT officials and US business representatives earlier in the year did not result in any binding actions, and no memorandum of understanding was discussed.”

Improve understanding

An IEA spokeswoman said the IEA had not done work at the request of civil servants, but it is working on a “draft trade agreement” using Oklahoma as a case study. It said the E Foundation had offered to help fund the agreement, but the IEA believed “individuals rather than companies would be the primary supporters.”

The MOU was aimed at “furthering public understanding”, she added.

The IEA is a charity, which limits the type of political activity it can be involved in. In 2016 its trustees assured the regulator, the Charity Commission, that it does not engage in “policy engineering” or campaigning beyond its mission of educating the public about economics.

This was according to a response the commission wrote following a complaint about the IEA from Andrew Purkis, a former Charity Commission board member.

But Purkis told Unearthed IEA’s work in support of a US-UK free trade deal appeared to be “a campaign which is not designed to improve public levels of information, not balanced and neutrally presented, and which actually has a specific policy goal which is motivating it”.

An IEA spokeswoman said: “We are confident that the IEA is acting in accordance with Charity Commission regulations. The IEA’s mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.”

‘Bracket and smother’

Carnuccio also outlined plans for a campaign that would apply pressure on individual MPs by targeting their constituencies, using a tactic he called “bracket and smother”:

“Mark [Littlewood] and his team will be able to tell us… this Member of Parliament, he needs work, this one’s good, we’ll micro-target his district, right. We’ll pepper him with social media, with grassroots swell, and then, with the national publications.”

“We call that strategy, bracket and smother… it’s the idea that like, if you’re a Member of Parliament and we’re trying to target you, when you go home and you go to like your grocery store or you go to the restaurant or anything else, all the people there have been hit… with these messages when you walk in the door and either say you’re a great guy or you’re an ass,” he continued.

In a later phone conversation, Carnuccio said he was familiar with the tactic from US politics, and the IEA would lead on the campaign in the UK: “In terms of the actual tactical what’s on the ground and going there, you know, I’m in Oklahoma, they’re in London… they’ll direct that, they’ll know that.”

An IEA spokeswoman said of “bracket and smother”: “We have no record of this.”

Eat chicken

The campaign targeting MPs would be part of a wider plan to challenge EU opposition to chlorinated chicken and hormone beef: “I mean, it’s strategic communications to say that cows are not happy in the United States coz of their hormones or that chlorinated chicken is killing people all over the world or something,” Carnuccio said.

“We quickly figured out that we’re gonna have to have some level of marketing, advertising, communications strategy that is going to impact the consumer in the UK but also from more of a political pressure standpoint, it will challenge the narrative that the EU has always had,” Carnuccio continued.

Carnuccio said leading Brexiteer MPs would come for a three-day trip to Oklahoma, where they would tour a chicken farm and eat chicken in front of the cameras to help persuade British shoppers US products were safe to eat. Carnuccio claimed that then Brexit minister, Steve Baker, was working with Singham to identify which MPs to take, and was keen to come.

“They wanted to look at chicken because chlorinated chicken is a big question and how does it work. They wanted to look at a cow-calf operation, you know, the whole question about GMOs, right,” said Carnuccio.

An IEA spokeswoman said the plan to eat chicken for the cameras was “really a bit of a joke”.

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, the investigations website published by Greenpeace.

Finding a reliable, eco-friendly and economical energy supply benefits everyone. Finding sustainable ways to live a comfortable life is an important part of existing on this planet.

We don’t have another place to call home, so if we want to thrive and survive, we have to take care of the one we have. Technology has helped advance a lot of comforts that make life easier, and it may be the key to affordable energy.

Fossil fuels have been a source of energy since 1,000 BC, with the Industrial Revolution making it the main source in the mid-1700s to today. While effective, there are some downsides, including the harm fossil fuels cause the environment and the fact that they aren’t renewable.

Humans have already done untold damage to the environment. Some of this might be able to be reversed, but some can’t. There is a desire to fix what can be fixed and stop any more damage from occurring. To accomplish this goal, there is a drive to find renewable and affordable energy sources. Of which, one possibility is geothermal.

Geothermal Energy

This renewable energy source is stored in the earth and can be used to create electricity. Geothermal plants access the steam or hot water reservoirs that exist underground and are used to power a generator or turbine. The best part about this energy source is that heat is always generated by the earth, so it can be a constant source of energy.

In the US, we have used large-scale, commercial geothermal plants since the 1960s. There are geothermal plants around the world, including in Italy, the Philippines (which has three of the 10 largest plants in the world), Indonesia, Mexico and Iceland.

There are three types of geothermal power plants: binary cycle, flash steam and dry steam. Dry stream plants use pipes to move the steam from underground wells directly to the power plant.

Binary cycle plants use hot water to boil another liquid with a lower boiling point, which is then vaporised into a heat exchanger that turns the turbine.

At a flash steam plant, underground water naturally makes its way to the surface, losing steam along the way, which is captured and used to power the turbine or generator.

Commercial uses of geothermal energy are the most common, but they are not the only way to use this renewable energy source. Smaller home units also exist to keep homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Geothermal systems can sometimes be easier to maintain, despite being underground, which cuts down on maintenance costs.

Unfortunately, geothermal energy isn’t widely used because of the cost associated with its implementation. Building a plant can be incredibly expensive, and even though the heat from the earth is widespread, there are only certain areas in the world where it’s easy to access. Installing a geothermal system in your home can also be a costly endeavor. There are companies who are attempting to lower the cost and improve the technology, but it is an ongoing process.

Renewable Energy

Some of the most commonly known renewable energy resources include solar, wind and hydro, with geothermal coming in fourth on the list. All of these are renewable and have a lower impact on health and the environment than fossil fuels. Despite the benefits of using renewable energy, it is not widely implemented as a source of energy throughout the world.

One of the main reasons for a lack of use for renewable energy is the cost associated with installing the equipment. As technology advances, as tax breaks are given and as policies improve, which have an impact on lowering the cost of installing and maintaining equipment, the incentive to utilise renewable energy increases — and countries around the world are heeding the call.

China leads the world with implementing renewable energy. This was driven by concerns over air pollution. The country is so serious about implementing renewable energy programs that they have surpassed their solar PV target for 2020. The two other countries that have expanded their renewable energy resources in addition to China are the US and India.  

The growth in renewable energy is encouraging and substantial, but more can and still needs to be done. Fossil fuels are still the most abundant energy source that are produced and consumed, especially in the US and China. To combat fossil fuels consumption, it’s essential to find new sources of renewable energy, and and geothermal energy has incredible untapped potential. 

The future of humanity, all other life and the planet depend on our ability to find renewable energy sources. Developing renewable sources and making them a cost-effective form of energy is a great start. We will have to keep working to find ways to improve their reliability and economic viability, especially with geothermal energy, so it can be implemented on a worldwide scale.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.

The limited supply and infinite use of natural fuels has created an energy crisis. Overconsumption has strained energy resources for decades. The uncontrolled soar of overpopulation has added fuel to this fire. The dated infrastructure and management have led to wastage. 

Such dire circumstances have made it paramount for us, as a community, to find a solution. We need to explore renewable energy efficiently and take advantage of its potential.

Solar power

Today, you can use solar installations and solar operations for entrepreneurial purposes as well as at home. It is low maintenance and can help reduce electricity bills.

The wide criticism of expensive installation has not deterred environment enthusiasts from embracing this natural source of renewable energy. The energy produced by solar panels for an hour can be used to supply the entire planet for a year. Yet we are only able to harness only 0.001 percent of this potential source.

A solar power farm like Ivanpah needs 5000 times more space, as compared to the Diablo Canyon solar farm, to produce a single unit of energy. But the fact is that solar is a renewable source of energy in its most sustainable form.

Is it the case then that other forms of renewable energy are more trouble than they’re worth?

Endangering birds

Wind turbines in Germany may have caused extinction for a lot of individual species of birds. Offshore expansions may be a fruitful resources for the economy but rare harbour porpoises have borne the brunt of the expansion and are now endangered.

In North America, biologists have argued that migratory bat populations risk extinction if the expansion of wind farming is not controlled. Drastic reduction in the population of hoary bats has been observed. The wind facilities have annually resulted in countless fatalities of this endangered species.

California, on the other hand, has taken the lives of hundreds of desert tortoises and burned six thousand birds at Ivanpah wind facility. 4700 golden eagles are killed annually at another Californian wind farm. 59400 birds are killed in solar farms while 328000 birds are annually killed at wind facilities in the United  States of America. 

The loss and injury of rare birds and other species cannot be ignored.

It takes up to three-quarters of an hour to shut a wind turbine, which is not enough time to save birds that swoop towards the facilities. We need to be smart with our advances in renewable energy.

Aviary experts and conservationists are now openly resisting the progress of renewable energy. Celebrities, writers, social media activists and even the general population has taken it as a serious issue.

Fossil fuel-based power stations

Despite this argument though, reports highlight that wind turbines don’t pose as serious a problem for birds as climate change. The report confirms that numerous bird species including the bald eagle are at serious risk due to climate change. Forecasts reveal that they may even lose around 95 percent of their current range.

In fact, bird deaths due to wind turbines are even lower than those caused by their collisions with radio and cell towers. Statistically, wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds every year. On the other hand, cell and radio towers take the lives of 6.8 million birds annually. On top of that, cats are responsible for about 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion bird deaths.

Moreover, a 2009 study that used European and US data on bird deaths concluded that fossil fuel-based power stations kill fifteen times more birds than wind and nuclear power stations.

The study remarked that nuclear power stations and wind farms caused about 0.3-0.4 fatalities for every gigawatt-hour (GWh). On the flip side, power stations that run on fossil fuels lead to 5.2 fatalities per GWh.

Futhermore, research goes on to say that birds are able to detect the wind turbines and alter their flight course in due time to save their lives. It seems that wind turbines that provide clean energy are falsely accused as wind choppers that take substantial number of bird lives.

Take action

We can save the space that solar panels need by placing the collectors on our own rooftops. These investments today will help our future generations to have a sustainable life. Hydroelectricity and nuclear power may need a lot of funding and government intervention, but solar power is achievable.

You can switch to solar energy efficient home appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners that can help you save your hard-earned money. Solar powered lamps instead of light bulbs would be another easy step towards a better future.

Renewable energy could be causing some harm to wildlife. While large-scale facilities may be a danger to the birds, we can still take small, individually innocuous steps in the right direction to save the planet. What we nurture today is exactly what our children shall inherit tomorrow. Let’s save the planet, a little at a time.

This Author

Alycia Gordan is a freelance writer who loves to read and write articles on healthcare technology, fitness and lifestyle. She is a tech junkie and divides her time between travel and writing. You can find her on Twitter: @meetalycia

Nine right-wing organisations – including think tanks pushing disinformation about climate change – have been accused of mounting a coordinated campaign to push for a hard Brexit, according to court documents.

Whistleblower Shahmir Sanni, formerly of youth campaign group BeLeave, claims that think tanks and campaign groups held regular meeting at 55 Tufton Street — an office close to Westminster and home to the climate science denial group the Global Warming Policy Foundation — to “agree on a single set of right-wing talking points” and “securing more exposure to the public”.

Some of the topics discussed allegedly included “new policy announcement by the Labour Party, developments in the Brexit negotiations, or any other political news story”.

Legal proceedings

The accusations were made in documents from an employment tribunal setting out Sanni’s case  against pressure group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which he has accused of unfair dismissal after he spoke out about illegal behaviour at Vote Leave, the official pro-Brexit campaign group.

According to Sanni’s claim, the organisations involved in this right-wing campaign for media coverage include the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the officer of Peter Whittle, the former deputy leader of UKIP, Civitas, the Adam Smith Institute, Leave Means Leave, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Brexit Central, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute for Economic Affairs.  

As DeSmog UK previously reported, these organisations have strong ties with Tory MPs and Cabinet members and are working together to advocate for deregulation and a hard-Brexit.

Sanni filed a lawsuit against the TaxPayers’ Alliance the day after the Electoral Commission published findings that Vote Leave had broke electoral spending laws during the EU referendum by funneling money to BeLeave.

Responding to the suit, the Taxpayers’ Alliance told The Guardian that it “acted at all times in a fair and correct manner and we reject (and will be defending) the claims Mr Sanni has made”. The group declined to comment further because of the ongoing legal proceedings.

Revolving Doors

Sanni’s claim also emphasised how the organisations based around 55 Tufton Street had revolving doors between the groups for employees.

Matthew Elliott, the former head of the Vote Leave campaign group, which was based at 55 Tufton Street, is also the co-founder and former CEO of the TaxPayers’ Alliance and now works as the editor-at-large of Brexit Central, both organisations which work out of 55 Tufton Street.

Elliott is also a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, another free-market think tank which has been described as “the most influential think tank in the country” providing extensive advice to the government on Brexit issues.

The Legatum Institute’s former key lobbyist Shanker Singham, now director of international trade at the Institute for Economic Affairs, has strong ties to the US climate science denial lobby, and has slotted neatly into a network of transatlantic climate science deniers pushing for a hard Brexit.

Sanni’s claim states that although he was employed with the TaxPayers’ Alliance, he had initially applied for a job with Brexit Central for the role of deputy editor. While Elliott and Brexit Central editor Jonathan Isaby interviewed Sanni, he was offered a role with the TaxPayers’ Alliance for which, at the time, neither Elliott nor Isaby were officially working.

A number of staff from the Vote Leave campaign have also gone on to work for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, including former development director of Vote Leave, John O’Connell, now CEO of the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Chloe Westley a senior team member of Vote Leave is now the group’s campaign manager and Vote Leave’s Operation manager Tom Banks is now the groups’ grassroots campaign manager.

Science deniers

Included in this network of organisations pushing for a hard Brexit is the UK’s premier climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

Founded by prominent climate science denier Nigel Lawson, the group aims to fight back against what it describes as “extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to mitigate climate change.

Despite disputing the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate science, the GWPF still has a voice in Parliament.

Both Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton Graham Stringer and Tory MP for North Shropshire Owen Paterson have strong ties with the GWPF as well as three Tory members of the House of Lords including Peter Lilley, Matt Ridley and Nigel Vinson.

Lilley’s also sits on “a committee of experts” closely advising international trade secretary Liam Fox, DeSmog UKpreviously revealed.

Lilley is a supporter of the European Research Group (ERG). Led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ERG is lobbying for a hard Brexit and has been described by Buzzfeed as “an aggressive, disciplined, and highly organised parliamentary and media operation”. Former Brexit minister, Steve Baker, is a past chair of the group.

Hard Brexit

The ERG has grabbed media attention over the last few months over its influence on the Brexit negotiations and for crushing Theresa May’s short-lived soft Brexit plan agreed by her cabinet during a meeting at Chequers earlier this month.

Following the vote, leading pro-EU Tory Anna Soubry warned May that she was “no longer in charge” and that Rees-Mogg and the ERG were “running the country”.

Some of the group’s most influential supporters include prominent members of May’s cabinet.

Newly appointed Brexit minister Dominic Raab and environment secretary Michael Gove were active supporters of the group before being promoted to cabinet roles while international trade secretary Liam Fox has also used the ERG to gather support among MPs.

Tory MP John Redwood, former environment secretary Owen Paterson and new peer Peter Lilley are also members of the ERG and notable climate science deniers.

Cabinet ministers

The influence of the 55 Tufton Street network reaches all the way into May’s cabinet.

Brexit minister Raab, and newly appointed health secretary Matt Hancock both are connected to the Tufton Street network through the Institute for Economic Affairs, a free-market think tank that pushes for deregulation and refuses to reveal where its funding comes from.

Environmental secretary Gove also has strong ties to the Tufton Street hub through his involvement with the Vote Leave campaign and think tank the New Culture Forum, while International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has been a strong supporter of Grassroot Outs, a pro-Brexit campaign group that sprung out of infighting between Vote Leave and Nigel Farage and Arron Banks’ Leave.EU.

Grassroots Out was also supported by DUP MP and climate science denier, Sammy Wilson. The Conservatives and DUPsigned a ‘supply and confidence’ pact to provide Theresa May’s government with additional votes on key issues.

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

The rupestrian grasslands of Brazil are facing serious threats, researchers from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Unesp-Rio Claro, and Stanford University have warned.

These areas are ancient and megadiverse vegetational complexes. They harbour more than 5,000 plant species and one of the highest levels of endemic species in the world.

In Brazil, this unique ecosystem occupies 83000 km2 of quartzite and iron mountaintops in the Minas Gerais and Bahia states, most of which are located in the Espinhaço mountain range.

Synergy or collapse

A recent study – “The deadly route of collapse and the uncertain fate of Brazilian rupestrian grasslands” – predicted a loss of up to 82 percent of this ecosystem by 2070. 

This will impact the whole region, including its water supply and food security. More than 50 million people in Brazil could be effected. 

Geraldo Wilson Fernandes, one of the study’s authors, said: “Mining is one of the activities that causes negative impacts.

“Others are badly managed and planned road building, biological invasion, urban sprawl, and the complete inability of public environmental agencies to monitor and act due to lack of information about this ecosystem.”

Unrestrained tourism and forestry are other vectors of great relevance. Everything has synergy and collaborates to a route of collapse.  Uncontrolled human activity is harming biodiversity in the grasslands. 

Fernandes added: “Species do not exist alone and many depend on others for their survival. The withdrawal of vital species results in a cascade of events that can lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem and the change in the production of natural resources.”

Delicately balanced

The study contains data collected over a 30 year period. It considers the sustainable use and conservation of rupestrian grasslands specifically in relation to the area’s particular characteristics. They cannot be treated as if they were forests.

Rupestrian grasslands are millions of years old, with very particular soil conditions. A delicately balanced harmony allows for the survival of certain species. Fernandes argues that to remove native vegetation in order to plant trees only serves economic interests.

She said: “More than creating conservation parks, our plan is to establish with the society and decision makers a proposal for the rational use of the rupestrian grasslands, based on scientific knowledge, and to work together with all the stakeholders. Otherwise, political measures may not be effective.”

This Author

Jacqueline B. Ramos is the communication manager at GAP Project International and an environmental journalist. Read her blog here.

The hills, heat, helmets, bottlenecks, overtaking busses, being overtaken by busses, men who shout, men who stare, potholes: cycling in London has its drawbacks. 

My commute from south to central London is 10 miles each way, takes about an hour, and saves me around £100 a month. I don’t own any Lycra and my trusty – or just rusty – bike is older than I am. Cycling helped me get to know the city that I now call home: everything is much closer together than you’d think and sometimes that’s good to realise. I’m fitter and happier.

But serious collisions – like this one, between a woman cyclist and a cement mixer – cut through the everyday frustrations and bring severe dangers into sharp focus. Reading about it, a slow-burning militancy bubbled over. This city’s blind spots are numerous and they eclipse more than we can afford to lose. 

National funeral

The activist group Stop Killing Cyclists was set up after six cyclists were killed in London in November 2013. At their first ‘die-in’, 1500 cyclists laid down in the road to protest traffic violence. 

The group has called for a ‘National Funeral for the Unknown Cyclist’ on 13th October 2018. The procession and rally on Parliament Square will call for a £3billion per-year investment in cycling, and a reversal of tax cuts on toxic diesel and petrol. 

Their most recent demonstration was in June 2018 outside Woolwich Town Hall. Three cyclists had been killed in as many weeks in south east London. A fourth was then killed on the A102, on a roundabout along the path of the planned Cycle Superhighway 4. 

As the website Beyond the Kerb pointed out, the Government’s recent Cycle Safety Review procured its independent legal advice from Birkett’s, a member of the Road Haulage Association’s legal panel.

True to form, the review was authored by Laura Thomas, an ex-director of the Freight Transport Association. With this in view, can we really expect the radical changes that we need?

Direct vision

Notoriously, back in 2009, 10 out of 13 fatal cycling accidents in the capital were women, and eight of them were killed by Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). 

According to Transport for London (TfL), HGVs drive four percent of the city’s road miles, but are involved in 50 percent of cyclist deaths. 

By 2024 HGVs will need a visibility rating of at least 3/5 to drive through London. The Mayor’s Office believes there are currently 35,000 trucks operating in the city that would receive a zero rating. These trucks will be banned by 2020. 

This policy is called the Direct Vision Standard (DVS). It will assess what a driver can see directly through their cab windows, as opposed to indirectly through cameras or mirrors.

Direct action

I wonder how far we might push this standard. I’m lucky enough to have never been injured on London’s roads, but I think of a pedestrian who once grabbed hold of my handlebars as I stopped for him at a zebra crossing. He looked right at me and shouted: “What are you waiting for? You’re waiting for me!”

I couldn’t work out whether it was meant as a threat or a daring provocation. He seemed at once to be saying, this is my space, get back – and what’s stopping you here, go faster. 

Did he think that I was too assertive, or too timid, or a heady, misogynistic mix of both? In any case, though many looked on, nobody intervened; though he saw me look scared, he went right ahead. 

There was no restrictive mirror or raised cab – but I still felt swallowed up in a zone that nobody was really seeing. 

It’s time that London confronted these social, infrastructural, and environmental blind spots. We need safe roads. Insisting on direct vision is one step in that direction, but perhaps it’s only direct action that will get us the whole way there.  

‘Near Miss’

In 2017 Cycling UK wrote that 20 percent of men report being ‘regular’ cyclists, compared with eight percent of women; men travel on average 86 miles per year by bike, while women travel 21. Three quarters of women never cycle. 

In response, the same champion of UK cyclists published its aspirational 100 Women in Cycling list in June 2018.

‘Women’, Cycling UK wrote, ‘have always lagged being men in taking up cycling’. Despite some good work, something in the language here jars, to say the least. 

June was a busy month. A report published by the charity Sustrans detailed some aspects of the gender gap in UK cycling in great detail, but didn’t include statistics on gender-based traffic violence or harassment, despite the stark female mortality figures. 

A report compiled by the Near Miss project, and published in the Journal of Transport and Health, utilised 1500 cyclists’ testimonies regarding incidents that didn’t result in injury. They found that women cyclists are twice as likely than their male counterparts to experience harassment or bad driving. 

Is it simply the case that women are ‘lagging behind’?

Ovarian Psycos

By contrast, the Goldsmiths research project Bikes and Bloomers highlighted some of the ways in which women on bikes were at the centre of historical debates around gender, mobility, and public space. 

Women’s innovate insistence that they too would take to the wheel underscores important connections between freedom of movement and freedom of identity that are as relevant today as ever. 

Today, collectives such as 56a Bikespace London emphasise the relationships between autonomy, community, and environmental sustainability.

Further afield, films such as Ovarian Psycos show how women cyclists – the ‘runaways and throwaways’ – confront racism and violence along the barrios and boulevards of Los Angeles. 

Our roads are the fault lines that trace a huge range of connected issues: violence, poverty, pollution, toxicity.

Rather than corporate developments such as the Underline, Skycircle or the Thames Deckway, might we turn instead to radical, communal reclamations of our transport network in order to encourage and protect cyclists?

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is contributing editor for The Ecologist, focussing on change makers. She is also a PhD candidate at Birkbeck College and a lecturer in English literature at Canterbury Christ Church University. @curiousvolumes.

Drivers who spot roadkill can actually help conservationists. The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) is calling on the public to record sightings of mammals – dead or alive – while driving along Britain’s roads.

Submissions will form part of PTES’s annual Mammals on Roads survey, designed to spot changing trends in populations and identify where conservation action is needed most.

According to a recent report by the Mammal Society, compiled with PTES’s help, one in five wild mammal species in Britain is at risk of extinction. But getting an idea of the size of populations and how numbers are changing remains difficult.

David Wembridge, surveys officer at PTES, explained: “At the moment, a lot of what we know is still a ‘best guess’ and what we really need are good records of mammals and of all sorts of species, more generally. Better estimates of numbers will help us understand our wildlife and the ‘natural health’ of the nation.”

Get involved

David continued: “Together with the more traditional, paper-based methods, we hope the app will encourage more people to get involved in conservation and wildlife recording. The survey, of course, should only be done by passengers in the car – drivers should always have their full attention on the road and other vehicles.”

This year, the survey runs from Sunday 1st July through to Sunday 30th September and participants in this citizen science project can take part either online or via an app on a smart phone or tablet.

Over the three summer months, PTES is asking families, car-sharing commuters or anyone on Britain’s roads, to record sightings of mammals and submit the records online, or with the Mammals on Roads app, available for free from the App Store and Google Play. 

The annual Mammals on Roads survey will help ongoing conservation efforts, building a countrywide picture from records submitted by the public of how the numbers of hedgehogs, badgers and other species are changing.

Previous findings have revealed the shocking decline in hedgehog numbers, which led to the launch of the nationwide campaign Hedgehog Street, run with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, which now has almost 50,000 volunteers committed to helping save the humble hedgehog.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a press release from People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES). To support PTES’ ongoing conservation work, you can donate £3 by texting ‘PTES18 £3’ to 70070.

This summer has seen devastating weather across the world, driven by climate change. Record-breaking temperatures have occurred in several countries including the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and Oman.

Wild fires have also taken hold in Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, northern Europe – including within the Arctic Circle – and further afield in Canada and the US, while those in Greece claimed at least 70 lives.

And the high temperatures and ensuing droughts are threatening harvests across Europe, which could reduce food supply and push up consumer prices later in the year.

Renewables investment

Even before this summer, the UK population was worried about climate change. In April data from the BEIS Public Attitudes Tracker showed that 74 percent of people said they were concerned or very concerned about climate change.

Just fewer than half (46 percent) believe climate change to be caused mainly by human activity. Only 10 percent think it is mainly due to natural processes, with 39 per cent believing it is a combination of the two.

Yet, despite these very real concerns and the tangible effects of climate change, the government has developed a two-faced and contradictory energy policy.

On the one hand, it is pushing ahead with fracking for carbon-emitting shale gas, but it also attempting to tackle climate change and reduce the country’s carbon emissions.

And the forerunner to this Janus-like state of affairs was the Conservative party’s own policy changes in 2015 that led to a collapse in renewables investment.

Out of coal

Fracking firm Cuadrilla was issued a licence to start operations in Lancashire by the government on Tuesday, following a seven-year hiatus during which a new regulatory regime was developed for the sector.

The licence was finally granted after checks from other government bodies, including the Health and Safety Executive and Environment Agency.

The decision has drawn criticism from environmental groups for numerous reasons, including what it means for the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

In recent years the UK has made huge strides in removing coal from its electricity generation. Coal generated only 6.7 percent of electricity last year, and there have been long periods this year with no coal.

The phase out of coal so far contributed to a 17 percent fall in emissions from energy supply in 2015-2016, and a 47 percent drop since 1990.

Nuclear generation

The government has set a target of October 2025 for removing unabated coal-fired power generation from the electricity system.

But the UK also needs to remove unabated gas from its power system if it is to meet its legally binding target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 compared to levels in 1990. This means the importance of electricity from renewables is going to increase, and more needs to be deployed.

Total generation from renewables in the UK hit a record high of 29.3 percent of all electricity last year, according to data published on Thursday by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

This was an increase the 24.5 percent share for the sector in 2016. Crucially for UK efforts to decarbonise and tackle climate change, electricity generation from coal and gas-fired plants both fell. Fossil fuel generation has fallen by 44 percent since 2010, with renewables growing three-fold over this time.

When nuclear power is included, low carbon electricity’s share of generation increased to a record 50.1 percent, from 45.6 per cent least year. This increase was driven by the increase in renewables generation, as nuclear generation actually fell by 1.9 percent year on year.

Offshore wind

Yet despite the success of the renewables sector, its expansion is likely to stop. In May the government was strongly rebuked by the independent Environmental Audit Committee for the decline in clean energy investment in the UK.

According to the committee, investment in clean energy fell by 10 percent in 2016 and 56 percent in 2017. The EAC highlighted key policy decisions taken in 2015 which this government has made no attempt to redress, including:

·         a ban on new onshore wind farms

·         withdrawing subsidies for solar        

·         cancelling the Zero Carbon Homes policy due to come into force in 2016

·         cancelling the £1bn Carbon Capture & Storage competition

·         privatisation of the Green Investment Bank

While the policy changes have severely damaged the renewables sector, they are also far removed from public opinion on renewables. In April’s public attitudes tracker, a staggering 85 percent of people in the UK support renewable energy, with just three percent opposed to it.

This was the highest level of support since the polling began in July 2012, and the joint-lowest figure for people against. The number of people who ‘strongly support’ the use of renewables was also at a record high of 37 percent.

Solar generation was the most popular with 87 percent of people in favour of it, ahead of offshore wind (83 percent), wave and tidal (81 percent), and onshore wind (76 percent).

Extreme weather

The decision to recommence fracking is also at odds with public opinion. In April’s attitudes tracker only 18 percent of people said they support fracking – though this was an increase from 16 percent in the previous tracker in February.

But this remains someway below a total of 35 percent opposed to it. And opposition to fracking has been higher than support for it on every tracker since the spring of 2014.

With the government intent on developing shale gas at-scale in the UK, but not seeking to reverse the renewables policy changes it has made since 2015 it is difficult for BEIS and minister of state Claire Perry to maintain that the UK is serious about climate change and decarbonisation.

And as climate change drives more and more extreme weather in the UK and across the world, the government will struggle to defend its regressive climate policies.

This Author

Joseph Dutton is a policy adviser for the global climate change think-tank E3G. All views are his own. He tweets at @JDuttonUK

We stood outside Euston Gardens, gathering placards and people amid the rallying cries of change-makers. I weaved through the crowd reading the signs, ‘the seas are rising and so are we’, ‘system change, NOT climate change’, and ‘last warning, stop the warming’.

Bold red letters conveyed the sense of urgency that we all felt, the urgency that is so necessary if we are to reduce the impact of climate change, which is, I’m confident to say, the defining crisis of our time.

As we set off for the march, the unusually torrid midday sun beat down upon us like a confirmation, further evidence of our changing planet.

We left the brown, brittle grass of Euston Gardens and proceeded on our two mile walk to Parliament Square and, although we didn’t have thousands of people, we made up for it in passion as we chanted through the megaphones and flaunted our placards, feeling an overwhelming sense of solidarity.

I know of the stigma that clings tightly to the word ‘activist’ and I have, in the past, even experienced that sense of unease as I watched gaggles of seemingly gregarious activists marching for change.

Yet somehow when you want change you completely forget those inhibitions. You form an intense opposition to any policies that suggest apathy or bigotry and you want people to understand the importance of the issue immediately.

My involvement

I became involved with ‘This Is Zero Hour’ because of my role as a Born Free Foundation Youth Ambassador.

I have always had an interest and love of wildlife and animals in general, yet I only became deeply involved with conservation after being greatly inspired by the wonderful works of the Born Free Foundation.

I saw how climate change was having such adverse effects on so many species and I couldn’t sit back and watch as we walk obliviously into this sixth mass extinction.

Orangutans are being affected by forest fires, amphibians are impacted by temperature change and polar bears by ice melt. In fact, every species on earth is, or will be, affected by climate change.

Fortunately, it’s not too late at the moment and we still have time to take a stand against it. However, people are dissuaded from acting on this issue for several reasons.

Firstly, they feel an overwhelming sense of hopelessness because of the immensity of the issue.

Secondly, some deny climate change and deem themselves ‘realists’. They dispute the evidence and hide behind a facade of fallible statistics, yet shy away from hard scientific evidence that proves the warming of the climate system and human influence, which is unequivocal.

Lastly, they feel that they do not have the resources to effect change. However, as written in a previous article by Kathleen Maclay, “implementing measures to reduce the effects of climate change may cost money, but the results of global warming can be far more costly, particularly the rise in natural disasters”.

Furthermore, when we talk about climate change  we are not discussing a transient issue that may or may not affect us, this is quite possible humanity’s biggest challenge yet and, for this reason, we need to ensure that everyone is involved in the solution.

Youth involvement

As a result of the need for all-inclusive action, This Is Zero Hour was created as a youth-led movement to empower my generation to lead, or at least involve themselves in the fight against climate change. 

As much as I hate to say it, young people don’t have as much of a voice as we should be permitted. When we formulate opinions, we are seen as ‘indoctrinated’ or ‘influenced’ and this is part of the reason why Jamie Margolin founded This Is Zero Hour.

She is a connoisseur of youth empowerment and has implanted a sense of urgency within tens of thousands of people of all ages. This is now more important than ever.

Just four men own 80 percent of the press in the UK and for this reason it is vital that the voices and stories of those truly affected by climate change are promoted and provided with a platform.

Visceral and personal stories are always more effective than disconnected statistics. The video of a sea turtle with a straw lodged in its nostril began the ‘last straw’ campaign.

The footage of an orang-utan protecting its home from an intruding bulldozer galvanised people to abstain from using palm oil. Now we need to promote stories that will innervate people to act upon climate change.

The march

‘HEY HEY, HO HO, FOSSIL FUELS HAVE GOT TO GO!’

We chanted as we walked through Trafalgar Square. Throngs of people lifted their phones to video our congregation and it was with immense pride that we lifted our megaphones to our mouths and projected our very important message that would now be encapsulated in their camera rolls.

Upon arrival in Parliament Square our group assembled and, while we waited for our microphone and speaker to arrive, we all wrote down why we wanted to preserve our planet and what individual actions each of us was taking to protect it.

My eyes tracked the pens as they busily scribbled upon the papers. The papers contained hundreds of reasons why we should stay hopeful.

Each word bolstered my confidence in the human capacity for change. Once the paper was a vibrant kaleidoscope of hope, our microphone had arrived and I approached the platform with an intense feeling of responsibility.

The next words I spoke would need to be so impactful that they would help create a paradigm shift in humanity’s approach to climate and our planet. I began my speech…

This Author

Bella Lack is Born Free Foundation youth ambassador.