Can Koch Brothers Lock in Fatal Climate Delay for $889 Million in 2016 Election?

The multi-billionaire Koch brothers are planning to spend a staggering $889 million in the 2016 election cycle, more than double what they spent in 2012. Politico called it “a historic sum that in many ways would mark Charles and David Koch and their fellow conservative megadonors as more powerful than the official Republican Party.”

Remember, the Koch family put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure.  Koch Industries surpassed Exxon Mobil in funding climate science disinformation and clean energy opposition years ago.  They have already become the biggest force for anti-science politicians at every level of government.

This $889 million announcement is a declaration of dependence on fossil fuels, a figurative declaration of war on a livable climate and the health and well-being of countless future generations.  As Mayor Michael McGinn put it in 2013, “We’re the first generation to see the effects of climate change, and the last generation who can do anything about it.  To refuse to use every tool at our disposal in this fight — to embrace inaction — is to endorse a trajectory that will lead to suffering, privation, and calamity.”

A quarter century of ignoring the warnings from the world’s top scientists has brought us to the point where we are already seeing dangerous climate impacts on every continent — and brought us perilously close to the first of many serious tipping points.  Another decade of inaction would be fatal to a livable climate.  It would essentially rule out stabilizing near 2°C (3.6°F), a temperature target we should beat to have the greatest chance of avoiding multiple catastrophes.  Climate action delayed is climate action denied.

The Koch brothers clearly intend to use every tool at their disposal to pursue the trajectory of inaction, which will indeed lead to suffering, privation, and calamity — or severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for billions of people, as the world leading scientists and governments put it last year.

Worse, the Kochs want much more than mere climate inaction — their goal is to roll back every major climate and clean energy action we’ve already started.  The New York Times explains that the goal of the $889 million 2016 Koch machine is “leveraging Republican control of Congress and the party’s dominance of state capitols to push for deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government.”

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