Talk:Searle Freedom Trust

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Intentionally ambiguous wording re: "environmental policy"

The source at [1] lists "environmental policy" as one of the topics the Trust supports. In fact, the Trust has been documented to be one of the biggest donors to the climate change denial movement [smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-money-behind-the-climate-denial-movement-180948204/], which has been documented by independent research. The "Foundation Center" source is merely a directory with no editorial or independent research background, and it's very likely that the wording on that site comes directly from the Trust (Foundation Center says it gets its info primarily from IRS reports, grantmaker web sites and annual reports) and is intentionally ambiguous. There is no reason or obligation to cite a source verbatim when more detailed information is available. In the spirit of being bold, I made the change outright but it has been reverted twice by Marquardtika so I'm suggesting it here in case anyone else wants to chime in. 81.208.84.31 (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't belong in Mission where you would put it. Their mission involves environmental policy- not merely denying climate change. One may disagree with what their environmental policy is but that doesn't mean it's not their broader mission. Discuss climate change somewhere else (it's fine where it is now) but a group's mission is what they state that their mission is. Your source doesn't discuss climate change denial being a mission of Searle, just it's name on a pie chart about groups that fund climate change denial. That's hardly proof that it's mission is climate change denial.Tchouppy (talk) 21:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes clearly the group's mission isn't "climate change denial." No sources support that. What we have is a blog post about a sociologist who listed this group as part of a "climate countermovement" and who says "You can't say how many dollars went from this foundation to this organization specifically for climate change, because most of the grants that come to the climate countermovement organizations have no conditions. They're for general support, so we don’t know how much the organization is actually spending." So this proves precisely nothing regarding alleged "climate change denial funding" and certainly isn't strong enough sourcing to stand on to make these types of claims. Marquardtika (talk) 17:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is significant coverage in a number of reliable sources (not just the Smithsonian article cited in the article, but others like Scientific American and the Guardian). There is coverage of funding specifically dedicated to "compile research questioning the scientific consensus on climate change" in Inside Philanthropy. I've restored the sourced material to the article.

We appear to have multiple, reliable sources explicitly reporting on the organization's noteworthy levels of funding to climate science denial advocacy groups. I have re-added in the language.--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]