Google takes heat for funding top climate-change denier James Inhofe

July 14th, 2013

Peter Nolan

Ironically, Google took Greenpeace’s Cool IT award last year for its commitment to using renewable energy resources to power its massive computer production factories.

However, according to Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the Facts, “after the selection of former Republican representative Susan Molinari to head its lobbying operations last year, Google has dramatically increased its support for anti-science politicians and front groups, from Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) to the Koch-founded Mercatus Center.”

Greenpeace and other activist groups protested outside the $250- to $2,500-per-plate luncheon at Google’s Washington headquarters during the event. In recent weeks Google has also reportedly donated $50,000 to the ultra-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

Greenpeace describes CEI as a company that specializes in filing public record requests from universities to gain access to climate scientists’ emails and other correspondence as fodder for filing lawsuits aimed at discrediting their work on climate change, while accusing them of fraudulent practices. They have yet to win a single case on such grounds.

Last month, Facebook also contributed $25,000 to the CEI, raising the ire of environmentalists and activists worldwide.

The Guardian reported that Google maintains two data centers in Oklahoma, which is the state of big gas and oil, but brags on its website that it is building a web that is better for the environment by investing $1 billion in renewable energy that allows them to save electricity at their data centers.

Today, anti-science Republicans hold key positions on energy committees in the House and Senate, with clear intentions to scuttle any effort by the Obama administration to combat climate change. This week there was a Republican-led vote in the House to gut the regulating power of the EPA just as it is preparing to carry out Obama’s climate plan.

James Inhofe represents a state plagued with natural disasters that will only amplify under growing evidence that calamitous weather will be hitting harder every year. Yet he stands in Congress ready to block any meaningful legislation to reduce harmful greenhouse pollution.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) describes members of Congress who share Inhofe’s antediluvian mentality on global warming as members of “the flat-earth society.”

Google issued the following statement regarding the fundraiser, which was first reported in ThinkProgress this week.

We regularly host fundraisers for candidates, on both sides of the aisle, but that doesn’t mean we endorse all of their positions. And while we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.

But critics see Google’s increasingly questionable funding activities for people like Inhofe as hypocritical and two-faced on a vital issue that needs the commitment of corporate leaders more than ever before.

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