The Guardian reports:

A 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. [Continue reading…]