#downplay — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #downplay, aggregated by home.social.
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🔥The US government-funded a ‘private social network’ which posts personal attacks on pesticide critics 🔥
In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly #regulate #dangerous #pesticides, which they said were a “global human rights concern”, citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other health problems.
Publicly, the pesticide industry’s lead trade association dubbed the recommendations “unfounded and sensational assertions”.
👉 In private, industry advocates have gone further.👈⚠️Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies.
Members can access a wide range of #personal #information about hundreds of individuals from around the world deemed a threat to industry interests,
including the US food writers Michael #Pollan and Mark #Bittman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana #Shiva and the Nigerian activist Nnimmo #Bassey.🆘 Many profiles include #personal #details such as the names of family members, phone numbers, home addresses and even house values.
The profiling is part of an effort – that was
💥financed, in part, by #US #taxpayer #dollars
– to #downplay pesticide dangers, #discredit opponents and #undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-funded-social-network-attacking-pesticide-critics?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other -
Revealed: #Shell #Oil non-profit donated to anti-climate groups behind #Project2025
Foundation says it ‘does not endorse any organizations’
-- while funneling hundreds of thousands to rightwing causesA US foundation associated with the oil company Shell has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to #religious #right and #conservative organizations,
many of which #deny that #climate #change is a crisis, tax records reveal.Fourteen of those groups are on the advisory board of Project 2025,
a conservative blueprint proposing radical changes to the federal government,
including ♦️severely limiting the Environment Protection Agency.♦️"Shell USA Company Foundation" sent $544,010 between 2013 and 2022 to organizations that broadly share an agenda of building conservative power,
including advocating #against #LGBTQ+ rights, #restricting access to #abortions, creating school lesson plans that #downplay #climate #change and drafting a suite of policies aimed at overhauling the federal government.Donees include the "Heartland Institute"
a longtime purveyor of climate #disinformation, which published a video on YouTube in May stating incorrectly that
“the scientific data continue to show there is no climate crisis”.Other groups that have received donations include the "American Family Association", which claims that the “climate change agenda is an attack on God’s creation”,
as well as the "Heritage Foundation",
the lead organization behind Project 2025.“Shell has every reason to want to maintain close relationships with organizations that wield outsize political influence -- and just happen to reliably support the interests of the fossil fuel industry,”
said Adrian Bardon, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University who has studied the religious right and climate denialism.The Shell USA Company Foundation helps employees boost their charitable giving to non-profits.
A Shell USA spokesperson wrote via email that the company’s workers make the initial decision to donate “to non-profit (tax exempt) organizations of their choice”.
According to the company’s online donation portal, Shell will match individual donations up to $7,500.