Atlas Network: Pursuing oil profits

Important ideas from an investigative article earlier this month in the New Republic: Meet the Shadowy Global Network Vilifying Climate Protesters

Background

In 1955, Antony Fisher founded a U.K.-based think tank called the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Funded by corporations whose identities they didn't disclose, they distributed articles to universities that supported the corporations' interests. The IEA "help[ed] spread conservative free-market ideology in British politics throughout the 1960s and ’70s" and grew into "a global network of more than 500 member think tanks advocating for 'free market' policies."

In 1981, he founded the Atlas Network, which "initially only included the first dozen or so think tanks Fisher had helped to found himself." He then set his sights on other countries, "particularly in Latin America, where oil executives were concerned about leftist movements. One of the first investments Atlas made was in Venezuela, where it funded the launch of the Center for the Dissemination of Economic Information, or CEDICE, in 1984." The Atlas Network "quickly expanded to include hundreds of like-minded member organizations, including all the Koch-affiliated think tanks in the U.S. (The Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council—some of the most influential forces shaping U.S. conservative politics—are all members.)" Today the Atlas Network is "a global network of more than 500 member think tanks advocating for 'free market' policies."

For more, see this book, mentioned in the New Republic article:

In 2018

The New Republic goes on to explain:

"When [Alejandro] Chafuen left his position as Atlas Network president in 2018, he went on to run one of the most prominent Atlas Network member think tanks: the U.S.-based Acton Institute, which has long pushed a Christian-flavored brand of climate denial. Acton also incubated the Tennessee-based Cornwall Alliance, an association of Evangelical think tanks with close links to another Atlas member, the Heritage Foundation. In a 12-part DVD series called Resisting the Green Dragon, released in 2010, the Cornwall Alliance described environmentalism as 'spiritual deception' and warned of 'dangerous environmental extremism.'"

This kind of rhetoric is exactly what we see today in countries moving swiftly to criminalize environmental and climate protest. While industries and governments around the world had plenty of their own reasons for categorizing environmentalists as extremists separate from the think tank influence, Atlas Network organizations have capitalized on that framing for decades. In recent years, they’ve packaged it in ways that have been turned into anti-protest legislation.

Today

Today, the Atlas Network organizations are portraying Indigenous-led environmental protests — in places like Guatemala, the U.S., Canada, and Australia — as terrorism.

This is also happening in Germany. For example:

In 2014, Frank Schäffler, a hard-right member of the German Parliament, founded a think tank, "Prometheus: Das Freiheitsinstitut," that joined the Atlas Network. Since early 2022, Schäffler "began describing them [the German climate organization Letzte Generation (Last Generation)] as terrorists, calling the group a 'criminal organization' and publicly demanding it be investigated for organized crime. Media outlets, including conservative publisher Welt and the more mainstream Der Spiegel, soon echoed Schäffler’s framing."

In early 2023, young Letzte Generation activists "obstructed streets in an effort to draw attention to the German government’s inaction on climate," per the New Republic. The police response was unusually harsh: "A young woman, with her hand glued to the asphalt, was ripped off the road by her hair; a young man was run over by a truck driver; a passerby punched protesters and was cheered on." A few months later, in May, police raided the homes of these activists across Germany and froze their bank accounts, alleging "the group was 'a criminal organization that was fundraising for the purpose of committing further criminal action.' It was almost exactly the response to Last Generation that Schäffler had recommended."

The Atlas Network has succeeded in persuading media outlets to frame climate activism within

"stories that discuss whether it’s 'appropriate' to throw tomato soup at the display case of a famous painting or glue oneself to a road — and whether these tactics endear climate activists to the public or not — rather than on what the protesters are actually trying to accomplish.

Media Matters’ analysis found that fewer than half of U.S. media stories on climate protest included anything about the scientific basis for climate change or the political stalemate driving the surge in protests. Meanwhile, the study found that Fox News has run four times the combined coverage of its competitors CNN (27 segments) and MSNBC (9 segments); all of the network’s 144 segments on the topic have painted climate protesters as dangerous radicals."

Source

Meet the Shadowy Global Network Vilifying Climate Protesters For decades, the Atlas Network has used its reach and influence to spread conservative philosophy—and criminalize climate protest. Amy Westervelt and Geoff Dembicki, New Republic, September 12, 2023. The article says: "Neither the Atlas Network nor any of the other member think tanks mentioned in this piece replied to requests for comment."