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Ficha técnica

Fundadores:

Ted Nordhaus, Rachel Pritzker and Michael Shellenberger

Año de fundación:

2003

Presidente:

Michael Shellenberger

Director:

Ted Nordhaus

Negacionistas de referencia:

Ted Nordhaus
Michael Shellenberger

Linus Blomqvist
Roger Pielke, Jr.
Mark Sagoff
Daniel Sarewitz

Sede actual:

Oakland, California

Misión declarada:

Breakthrough’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a future where all the world’s inhabitants can enjoy secure, free, prosperous, and fulfilling lives on an ecologically vibrant planet. Our core values are integrity, imagination, and audacity.

The Breakthrough Institute is a paradigm-shifting think tank committed to rejuvenating liberal thought for the 21st Century. Our core values are integrity, imagination and audacity. Breakthrough Institute was founded in 2003 to modernize liberal-progressive-green politics.

«We believe all knowledge is partial, contingent, and subjective, and thus try to bring a ruthlessly critical eye to underlying assumptions, especially our own.»

Orientación religiosa:

Sin especificar

Orientación económica:

«Ecomodernista» (neologismo de su invención)
«Liberal» en terminología USA (socialdemócrata moderado)

Agencias de PR

Saatchi & Saatchi

Medios de comunicación:

Breakthrough Journal
Pandora’s Promise

Documental de apoyo a la energía nuclear, ampliamente rebatido

Eco-chamber:

National Review
The Washington Post (George Will)

Posicionamiento negacionista climático:

No hay relación entre el calentamiento global y los fenómenos meteorológicos extremos (Pielke)

Otros negacionismos:

Límites al crecimiento
Peligros de la energía nuclear
Es posible reducir las emisiones sin aumentar el precio del carbono

Otros:

Ejerció fuerte presión y consiguió evitar la legislación estadounidense de mercados de carbono (proyecto Maxman-Markey)
Promueve la energía nuclear
Coautores del «Hartwell Manifiesto», que promovía la reducción de otros gases GHG distintos al CO2

Origen de la financiación documentada:

Breakthrough is a fiscal project of, but not funded by, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Comer Family Foundation
The Nathan Cummings Foundation
The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation
Nau
The Bellwether Foundation
The Anthropocene Institute

Financiación personal

Frank Batten
William Budinger
Ross Koningstein
Ray Rothrock
John Crary

Referencias

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (2005) – The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World – The Breakthrough Institute – 01/01/2005 – Executive Director of the Breakthrough Institute + Lumina Strategies + Business Ethics Network + Communication Works (Fenton Communications); Evans/McDonough + Director of Strategic Values Science Project – http://thebreakthrough.org/PDF/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf
«If, for example, environmentalists don’t consider the high cost of health care, R&D tax credits, and the overall competitiveness of the American auto industry to be “environmental issues,” then who will think creatively about a proposal that works for industry, workers, communities and the environment? If framing proposals around narrow technical solutions is an ingrained habit of the environmental movement, then who will craft proposals framed around vision and values?»

Michael Shellenberger et al (2008) – Fast, Clean, & Cheap: Cutting Global Warming’s Gordian Knot – Harvard Law & Policy Review 2:94-118 – Breakthrough Institute
“The energy challenge has been framed thus far as a forced choice between poverty and environmental ruin. With a choice like that, it is no surprise that the world has failed to make real strides towards a cleaner energy future. Global warming and energy independence are new challenges that require new ways of thinking. The outmoded regulation-centered approach, which seeks to curb pollution by merely imposing costs on polluters, is inadequate to deal with this new challenge.”

Joseph Romm – Shellenberger and Nordhaus smear Gore by making stuff up – Climate Progress, 17/11/2008 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/11/17/203347/shellenberger-and-nordhaus-smear-gore-by-making-stuff-up/
“Yes, I understand that Shellenberger and Nordhaus are desperate for any media attention they can get, which is why they go after Democrats and not Republicans, see “S&N go after Obama by recycling GOP talking points.” And everybody understands S&N don’t get global warming at all ever since Nordhaus made his amazing admission on this blog, “We have argued for five years now that efforts to build the clean energy economy needed to be centrally defined around energy independence not global warming.” So of course it really isn’t a surprise that they have attacked Al Gore for the umpteenth time (see below). ”

Joseph Romm – Don’t believe the fossil-fuel lies – Salon.com, 22/04/2009 – http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/22/romm_cap_and_trade/
“This disinformation campaign is almost entirely driven by fossil fuel companies and conservative media, politicians and think tanks. It is also advanced by the Breakthrough Institute and its president, Michael Shellenberger. His central myth — a science fiction fantasy, really — is that it would be possible to sharply reduce emissions without raising the cost of carbon pollution … Mind-boggling. Just 18 months ago, Shellenberger and Nordhaus endorsed a plan — heck, they said it was their plan all along — that they now label political suicide.”

Joseph Romm – The dynamic duo of disinformation and doubletalk return – Climate Progress, 22/04/2009 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/04/22/203995/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-pielk/
“Mind-boggling.  Just 18 months ago, Shellenberger and Nordhaus endorsed a plan — heck, they said it was their plan all along — that they now label as not serious, as political suicide and as doomed to fail. The Waxman-Markey Bill is almost identical to what Obama campaigned on. Turns out Shellenberger and Nordhaus were for the Obama plan before before they were against it. ”

The Breakthrough Institute – Sourcewatch, 20/05/2009 – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Breakthrough_Institute
“Describes itself as a «a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors», is a think tank established by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. On its website it states that it is «committed to creating a new progressive politics, one that is large, aspirational, and asset-based. We believe that any effective politics must speak to core needs and values, not issues and interests, and we thus situate ourselves at the intersection of politics, policy, philosophy, and the social sciences.”

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger – The Green Bubble – New Republic, 20/05/2009 – The Breakthrough Institute – https://newrepublic.com/article/62327/the-green-bubble
«Green had moved beyond politics. Gestures that were once mundane—bringing your own grocery bags to the store, shopping for secondhand clothes, taking the subway—were suddenly infused with grand significance. Actions like screwing in light bulbs, inflating tires, and weatherizing windows gained fresh urgency. A new generation of urban hipsters, led by Colin Beavan, a charismatic writer in Manhattan who had branded himself “No Impact Man,” proselytized the virtues of downscaling—dumpster-diving, thrift-store shopping, and trading in one’s beater car for a beater bike—while suburban matrons proudly clutched copies of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and came to see the purchase of each $4 heirloom tomato at the farmer’s market as an act of virtue.»

“This isn’t the first time an eco-bubble has inflated and then burst. In fact, the modern environmental movement was born in a bubble. In 1969, an industrial pollution fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, generated national publicity and outrage. The first photographs of Earth in its entirety transmitted from outer space were received as signs of a new ecological consciousness. The first Earth Day was held in 1970, and, over the next three years, Congress passed and (a Republican) President Nixon signed into law sweeping environmental statutes. But, in 1973, soaring oil prices pushed the country into recession. By the time Jimmy Carter suggested, a few years later, that profligate American lifestyles were partly to blame, the public reacted with resentment and ridicule. Three years later, Ronald Reagan was tearing Carter’s solar panels from the White House and blaming trees for pollution. The second green bubble began to grow in the summer of 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen testified to Congress about the arrival of global warming. ”

Joseph Romm – Memo to Media: Don’t be Suckered by Bad Analyses from the Breakthrough Institute – The Huffington Post, 26/05/2009 – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/memo-to-media-dont-be-suc_b_207822.html
“I would ignore TBI if the media did, but because they don’t, I can’t. In just the last few months, TBI, and its founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have gone on a disinformation rampage with the help of the media: … The key point everyone in the media must understand is that Shellenberger and Nordhaus need for Waxman-Markey to fail. Otherwise all their claims that the environmental movement keeps imploding would be seen by everyone as the sham that it is … The latter piece has gotten a lot of media attention, including in Time magazine, the WSJ, and NPR, so you’d never know that the TBI analysis is devoid of any analysis — or understanding — of the offset market.”

Joseph Romm – The Audacity of Nope: George Will embraces the anti-environmentalism — and anti-environment — message of The Breakthrough Institute – Climate Progress, 04/06/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/04/the-audacity-of-nope-george-anti-environment-message-of-the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus/
“But here comes George Will to show us all why a semi-serious anti-science journalist would cite TBI founders, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus: They have the exact same worldview. They are, to use the popular term, BFF. Will’s piece, Green With Guilt, is an extended diatribe against all environmental action. No surprise, then, that Will cites at length TBI’s New Republic piece, “The Green Bubble.” Will loves the Shellenberger and Nordhaus piece, of course, and not for the reason you might think, namely that the S&N piece is a string of factually untrue, egregious statements just like his entire body of work. No, oddly enough, even though most of the media treats TBI as if it were part of the environmental movement, uber-conservative George Will share S&N’s entire Weltanschauung, which I call “The Audacity of Nope.”

“The article notes, “William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, implored Republicans to ‘go for the kill.’” The GOP reminds me of Groucho Marx in Horsefeathers — though more Groucho than Marx brother, I’m afraid.”

George F. Will – Going Green to Alleviate Guilt — but Not Much Else – The Washington Post – 04/06/2009 – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/03/AR2009060303240.html
“The point of «utopian environmentalism» was to reduce guilt. During the green bubble, many Americans became «captivated by the twin thoughts that human civilization could soon come crashing down — and that we are on the cusp of a sudden leap forward in consciousness, one that will allow us to heal ourselves, our society, and our planet. Apocalyptic fears meld seamlessly into utopian hopes.» Suddenly, commonplace acts — e.g., buying light bulbs — infused pedestrian lives with cosmic importance. But: «Greens often note that the changing global climate will have the greatest impact on the world’s poor; they neglect to mention that the poor also have the most to gain from development fueled by cheap fossil fuels like coal. For the poor, the climate is already dangerous.» Now, say Nordhaus and Shellenberger, «the green bubble» has burst, pricked by Americans’ intensified reluctance to pursue greenness at a cost to economic growth. The dark side of utopianism is «escapism and a disengagement from reality that marks all bubbles, green or financial.» Reengagement with reality is among the recession’s benefits. ”

Joseph Romm – A Breakthrough Institute primer – Climate Progress, 17/06/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/17/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/
“The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) has dedicated the resources of their organization to trying to kill prospects for climate and clean energy action in this Congress and to spreading disinformation about Obama, Gore, Congressional leaders, Waxman and Markey, leading climate scientists, Al Gore again, the entire environmental community and anyone else trying to end our status quo energy policies, including me. So I just wanted to collect in one place some responses to set the record straight and to defend the reputation of the many, many scientists and environmentalists and leading political figures that they routinely attack.”

Joseph Romm – Debunking Breakthrough Institute’s attacks on Obama, Gore and top climate scientists – Climate Progress, 17/06/2009 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/06/17/204250/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/
“So I just wanted to collect in one place some responses to set the record straight and to defend the reputation of the many, many scientists and environmentalists and leading political figures that they routinely attack: …”

Joseph Romm – Why does the New York Times hate science? Why do deniers like Pielke shout down any talk of a link between climate change and extreme weather? – Climate Progress – 22/06/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/22/roger-pielke-jr-denier-john-tierney-link-climate-change-extreme-weather/
“Pielke has one primary mission in his professional career — other than working with his colleagues at The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) to spread disinformation aimed at stopping any serious climate action, of course — and that is to shout down any talk of a link between climate change and extreme weather.”

Michael Shellenberger – Welcome NPR Listeners – BreakThrough Institute, 24/06/2009 – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/06/welcome_npr_listeners_1.shtml
“NPR’s Morning Edition ran a segment on the Breakthrough Institute this morning, featuring our work to re-frame global warming as an economic opportunity and advance a fundamental shift in policy capable of seizing that tremendous opportunity.”

Roger Pielke Jr. – Are Some Thoughts Best Left Unsaid? – Roger Pielke Jr., 14/08/2009 – http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/08/are-some-thoughts-best-left-unsaid.html
«Not a day goes by that I read something I cannot believe has been said in the debate over global warming. It makes blogging easy, but it sure cannot help the case of climate policy making. In an interview, Nobel Prize winning economist Thomas Schelling explains to The Atlantic why politicians need to exaggerate the threat of global warming and why he hopes for massive disasters.»

Michael Shellenberger – The Trouble with «Sustainability» – The Breakthrough Institute, 15/09/2009 – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/09/the_trouble_with_sustainabilit.shtml
«There’s little doubt that chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been abused. But to focus exclusively on the unintended consequences of those technologies while ignoring the extraordinary accomplishments of a revolution that virtually ended famine and malnourishment in most parts of the world is ingratitude at its worst. And Borlaug’s innovations, along with those of other agricultural pioneers who came before him, did more than save lives. »

Joseph Romm – Markey spokesman: “The Breakthrough Institute seems to believe, much as the Bush administration did, that technology will solve all, even without a market.” – Climate Progress, 28/09/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/28/markey-the-breakthrough-institute-romm-technology-climate-bill/
“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.” Those words, “attributed” to the 18th century English essayist Samuel Johnson, are a perfect summation of the oeuvre of The Breakthrough Institute (TBI). So it is with their latest attack on the climate and clean energy bill — “Climate Bill Analysis Part 20 [!!!]: Over-Allocation of Pollution Permits Would Result in No Emissions Reduction Requirement during Early Years of Climate Program.”

The Breakthrough Institute and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant – The Breakthrough Institute and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – 01/11/2009
«Asia’s rising “clean technology tigers” – China, Japan, and South Korea – have already passed the United States in the production of virtually all clean energy technologies, and over the next !ve years, the governments of these nations will out-invest the United States three-to-one in these sectors. Large, direct and sustained public investments will solidify the competitive advantage of China, Japan, and South Korea. Should the investment gap persist, the United States will import the overwhelming majority of clean energy technologies it deploys. Proposed U.S. climate and energy legislation, as currently formulated, is not yet sufficient to close the clean tech investment gap. If the United States hopes to compete for new clean energy industries it must close the widening gap between government investments in the United States and Asia’s clean tech tigers and provide more robust support for U.S. clean tech research and innovation, manufacturing, and domestic market demand.»

Brian Treanor (2010) – Turn Around and Step Forward: Ideology and Utopia in the Environment Movement – Environmental Philosophy 7:27–46 – Philosophy Department, Loyola Marymount University – http://ephilosophy.uoregon.edu/Treanor_EP7.1.pdf
“Insufficiently radical environmentalism is inadequate to the problems that confront us; but overly radical environmentalism risks alienating people with whom, in a democracy, we must find common cause. Building on Paul Ricoeur’s work, which shows how group identity is constituted by the tension between ideology and utopia, this essay asks just how radical effective environmentalism should be. Two “case studies” of environmental agenda—that of Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and that of David Brower—serve to frame the important issues of cooperation and confrontation. The essay concludes that environmentalism must lead with its utopian aspirations rather than its willingness to compromise.”

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger – The End of Magical Climate Thinking – Foreign Policy, 13/01/2010 – http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/13/the_end_of_magical_climate_thinking
«Green groups insisted that the bill would reduce emissions and pointed reporters and green donors to allegedly independent analyses by the World Resources Institute (WRI). But the WRI, a major party to the cap-and-trade agreement negotiated by the EDF and NRDC with energy companies, simply used a magic accounting trick that was visible in plain sight: counting carbon offsets as real reductions of U.S. emissions.»

Gwyn Prins et al (2010) – The Hartwell Paper: A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009 – Institute for Science Innovation and Society University of Oxford, 11/05/2010 – http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf  – 14 authors

Michael Tobis – The Breakthrough Idea – Only In It For The Gold – 13/09/2010 – http://initforthegold.blogspot.com.es/2010/09/breakthrough-idea.html
“The thing is that the Breakthrough people and their allies, among whom one must include Lomborg and Pielke Jr. at this point (and I’m betting on Kloor to line up real soon), are not asking for the technologically impossible. They are asking merely for the technologically possible at an economically impossible cheap price. This really makes mindbogglingly little sense to me.”

“We already have the technology. All the Breakthrough people are trying to do is negotiate with Nature over price. But Nature doesn’t haggle. … Breakthrough thinking basically amounts to an idea that if we delay action on climate forcing, the price will go down. [but] It’s clear that at some point, if we delay too long, the price will start to go up. The argument is only whether we have passed that point.”

Jonathan Koomey (2010) – Learning From an Example of The Rebound Effect – 13/11/2010 – Consulting Professor, Stanford University – https://files.me.com/jgkoomey/0aqqfm
«Proponents of large energy-efficiency rebound effects fail to prove their case. Advocates of the thesis that “rebound” effects will offset much, most, all, or more than all energy savings from increasing end-use efficiency—a thesis popularized by David Owen’s recent and controversial New Yorker article—were asked in an early-2011 email exchange to illustrate their proposed rebound mechanisms with a hypothetical numerical example. Jesse Jenkins from the Breakthrough Institute obliged them. Jim Sweeney (Stanford) and Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) then pointed out specific apparent errors whose correction would reduce Jenkins’s calculated rebound by about 10–20-fold (to a few percent, consistent with their own estimates). Further, the macroeconomic effects that Jenkins and his fellow-advocates had claimed were very large turned out in his example to be very small. Yet neither Jenkins nor his co-proponents rebutted the Sweeney and Lovins critiques. Jenkins now wants to abandon rather than uphold his own example, and big-rebound proponents appear to have withdrawn from the conversation. They insist that their economic calculations prove they’re right, no further proof is required, and the effects they posit are too complex for a numerical example to reflect. This behavior invites the inference that they won’t defend their sweeping claims because they can’t, and that inference will strengthen so long as they fail to do so. The exchange upholds the strength of the scientific process in clarifying understanding and exposing error, although it remains to be seen whether this goal is shared equally by both sides of the conversation. Asked for comment, Lovins quoted Harvard biology professor E.O. Wilson: “Sometimes a concept is baffling, not because it is profound but because it is wrong.”

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (2010) – The Emerging Climate Technology Consensus – The Breakthrough Institute, 09/07/2010 – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2010/07/the_emerging_energy_technology.shtml
«Think tanks on the left, center, and right — from Brookings to Third Way to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) to the Breakthrough Institute — have put out a growing number of policy proposals and analyses reinforcing the need for direct investments to overcome the technology gap and make low-carbon power (renewables and nuclear, alike) much cheaper. In Britain, this technology-centered approach to climate has been championed by leading thinkers from Oxford’s Steve Rayner, LSE’s Gwyn Prins, East Anglia’s Mike Hulme, (independently and in the recent Hartwell Paper, which we co-authored), as well as by think tanks such as the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on the left and Policy Exchange on the right. And recently, Bill Gates and executives from Xerox, General Electric, and other high-tech firms have begun to publicly and privately lobby President Obama and Congress for a tripling or more of U.S. energy R&D funding.»

Bjørn Lomborg – Go Ahead and Guzzle. Face it: There’s not much any one person can do about climate change – Slate, 10/12/2010 – http://www.slate.com/id/2277528/
«The Breakthrough Institute recently highlighted some startling—and important—research findings along these lines, published in August in the Journal of Physics by energy economist Harry Saunders and four colleagues from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories. As Saunders noted in a summary on the institute’s blog, he and his colleagues, drawing on «300 years of evidence,» found that «as lighting becomes more energy efficient, and thus cheaper, we use ever-more of it.»

Joseph Romm – Rebound effect: The Breakthrough Institute’s attack on clean energy backfires – Climate Progress, 01/02/2011 – http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/15/the-breakthrough-institute-attack-energy-efficiency-clean-energy-backfire-rebound-effect/
«Recently, the Breakthrough Institute launched a major attack on energy efficiency. They used talking points that right-wing think tanks have pushed for years (see The intellectual bankruptcy of conservatism: Heritage even opposes energy efficiency). This shouldn’t be terribly surprising to longtime followers of TBI. After all, last year they partnered with a right-wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, to push right-wing energy myths and attack the most basic of clean energy policies, a clean energy standard.»

Joseph Romm – Energy efficiency and the ‘rebound effect’ – Climate Progress – 23/02/2011 – http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/23/energy-efficiency-and-the-rebound-effect/
«Goldstein and Cavanagh join in the debunking of the Breakthrough Institute, which «fails to back up its accusations with facts».»

Mark Lynas (2011) – What the greens still keep getting wrong – Mark Lynas, 04/03/2011 – http://www.marklynas.org/2011/03/what-the-greens-still-keep-getting-wrong/
«They have since gone on to found The Breakthrough Institute (TBI), which seeks to move beyond the polarised politics of green activism vs. global warming denial, which so disfigures the climate change debate in the United States. Not everyone approves: the Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm frequently rails against TBI, and has ‘debunked’ (his word) Shellenberger and Nordhaus in several blistering attacks.»

David Roberts – Why I’ve avoided commenting on Nisbet’s ‘Climate Shift’ report – Grist – 26/04/2011 – http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-04-26-why-ive-avoided-commenting-on-nisbets-climate-shift-report
“If those arguments sound familiar, it’s because they faithfully echo a long-running critique of the environmental movement by a group of people I call, for lack of a better term, the «Breakthrough crowd,» after the folks at the Breakthrough Institute (BTI). I don’t mean anything nefarious or conspiratorial by this — as far as I know, Nisbet has no formal ties to BTI — just that there’s a distinct set of political and policy arguments, and to some extent a distinct style, being put forward by a distinct set of people. So I named ‘em.”

Rob Atkinson et al (2011) – Climate Pragmatism: The Hartwell Analysis In An American Context – The Breakthrough, 01/07/2011 – The Breakthrough Institute – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf – 12 authors

John Bellamy Foster (2011) – Occupy Denialism: Toward Ecological and Social Revolution – Monthly Review – 11/11/2011 – http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/foster111111.html
«This general approach emphasizes what is variously referred to as “sustainable capitalism,” “natural capitalism,” “climate capitalism,” “green capitalism,” etc.7 In this view we can continue down the same road of capital accumulation, mounting profits, and exponential economic growth — while at the same time miraculously reducing our burdens on the planetary environment. It is business as usual, but with greater efficiency and greater accounting of environmental costs. No fundamental changes in social or property relations — in the structure of production and consumption — are required. This is the magical world view advanced by such diverse figures as Al Gore, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken, and Jonathon Porritt — if not Thomas Friedman, Newt Gingrich, and the Breakthrough Institute, as well.»

«From a policy perspective, this normally divides into two streams, one state-centered and the other market-centered. Green Keynesians like to think that we can ameliorate our environmental problems (and our economic problems too) by having the state promote economic growth through the creation of green jobs. Green Schumpeterians, like Friedman, Gingrich, and the Breakthrough Institute, offer as a solution green technological innovations, supposedly a natural outgrowth of the market — but usually seen as requiring additional subsidies to corporations to harness its full strength. Here too the promise is one of heightened economic growth on greener terms, equated simply with greater energy efficiency.»

John Horgan (2011) – Killing Environmentalism to Save It: Two Greens Call for ‘Postenvironmentalism’ – Scientific American, 26/12/2011 – http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/12/26/killing-environmentalism-to-save-it-two-greens-call-for-postenvironmentalism/
“Now, I’m happy to report, Nordhaus and Shellenberger are back with an e-book, Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene (Breakthrough Institute, 2011), in which they and other thinkers–including the French philosopher Bruno LaTour, whose riff on Frankenstein gives the book its name–re-envision environmentalism in upbeat terms. What I like best about the book is its optimism, which I’m coming to believe is a prerequisite for progress. What follows is my email interview with Michael and Ted about their new book.”

Shakeb Afsah, Kendyl Salcito and Chris Wielga – Energy Efficiency Lives! Devastating Debunking of Rebound Effect and Breakthrough Institute – Climate Progress, 13/01/2012 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/12/403005/energy-efficiency-lives-debunking-rebound-effect-and-breakthrough-institute/
“We provide new statistical evidence to show that energy efficiency policies and programs can reliably cut energy use—a finding that is consistent with the policy stance of leading experts and organizations like the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) and the World Bank. Additionally, we take our policy message one step further—by using new insights from the emerging multi-disciplinary literature on “energy efficiency gap,” we recommend that the world needs more energy efficiency policies and programs to cut greenhouse gases—not less as implied by the BTI and its cohorts in the media.”

Shakeb Afsah, Eric Ness and Kendyl Salcito (2012) – CO2 Scorecard Responds to Breakthrough-Should Energy Rebound Reports be Retracted? – Scorecard CO2 – 20/01/2012 – http://co2scorecard.org/home/researchitem/22
“We therefore propose that Breakthrough should consider retracting or revising its rebound report. The same applies to the EU Environmental Commission report. Further in the interest of consistency, Breakthrough should adopt and follow the same standard on grey literature as their colleague Prof. Pielke Jr. requires of the IPCC and other such organizations.”

Frank Ackerman (2012) – Breakthrough Institute Fails to Flatten Climate Economics – Real Climate Economics, 17/05/2012 – http://realclimateeconomics.org/wp/archives/1275
“What should be done to reduce carbon emissions? Climate change actually is a crisis that demands massive, immediate response. Putting a price on carbon emissions, funding research on clean energy, and adopting traditional controls on the dirtiest technologies, all seem entirely compatible. We’ll need all of the above and more, right away, to stand a chance. What should be said to those, like Gernot Wagner, who may be overly committed to a single policy choice? As long as it’s a desirable policy, as Wagner’s is, let’s congratulate them on advocating it, and urge them to take an even broader view. It is so important to work together on this, that the help of Nordhaus and Shellenberger should be welcomed – as soon as they achieve one of those breakthroughs that’s normally required in kindergarten, namely learning to “play well with others.”

Clive Hamilton (2012) – Climate Change And The Soothing Message Of Luke-Warmism – The Conversation, 25/07/2012 – http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-and-the-soothing-message-of-luke-warmism-8445
“They are politically conservative and anxious about the threat to the social structure posed by the implications of climate science. Their “pragmatic” approach is therefore alluring to political leaders looking for a justification for policy minimalism. Among the notable US luke-warmists are Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute. They have been accused of misrepresenting data on the energy savings of investment in energy efficiency and have criticized almost every proposed measure to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions. Their Institute has allied itself with anti-climate science organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute.”

«Although more high-brow and nuanced than literal deniers, the lines of argument of luke-warmists are remarkably similar. In 2010 several leading luke-warmists—including Nordhaus, Schellenberger, Pielke, Sarewitz, Hulme, and Oxford University anthropologist Steve Rayner—came together at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, UK, to write a paper advocating a “new direction for climate policy”. The Hartwell paper claims to present a “radical” alternative to the failed UN process, although why the authors felt it necessary to describe a slow, cautious and conservative approach to climate policy as “radical” is a puzzle. The paper begins by repeating allegations that the “Climategate” emails suggest that climate scientists cannot be trusted … Following the deniers’ lead, the Hartwell authors emphasize the “inherent unknowability” and “systematic doubt” in the body of scientific knowledge. They express misgivings about the desirability of investments in renewable energy, referring to their “chilling history” and “serious financial and social consequences”, a theme pursued by the Breakthrough Institute and more recently taken up by Tea Party Republicans … The purpose of the Hartwell report is to administer a bromide to the climate policy debate, a kind of sedative to slow the world down, dispensed at a time when those with most scientific expertise are saying the evidence calls for urgent action.»

The Energy Collective – Climate Change Pragmatism in the White House – Roger Pielke, Jr. – 04/04/2013 – http://theenergycollective.com/roger-pielke-jr/205201/climate-pragmatism-white-house
 «The advice by Obama’s advisors is also broadly consistent with the recommendations advanced over the past several years by The Breakthrough Institute, especially its 2011 report “Climate Pragmatism” (PDF), my 2010 book The Climate Fix, and more broadly in the internationally focused Hartwell Paper of 2010 (PDF). It is encouraging to see that despite all of the venom found in the climate debate, good ideas can still rise above the fray.»

Linda Pentz Gunter – Another case of a vanishing Pandora – Beyond Nuclear – 10/04/2013 – http://www.beyondnuclear.org/pandoras-false-promises/2013/4/10/another-case-of-a-vanishing-pandora.html
“Why do Pandora plugs keep vanishing? The latest was a blatant puff piece guest blog on Scientific American’s website by nuclear power booster David Ropeik. Ropeik is of course another of The Breakthrough Institute’s cronies (which he fessed up to on the Blog) – although his Breakthrough page seems also to have disappeared! But he still has a URL on the Insitute’s site: http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/site/author-tag/David-Ropeik. The Breakthrough Institute is promoting the film and its personnel feature heavily in it. Ropeik’s piece was so full of holes, suppression of facts and fallacies that just maybe SA had the good sense to pull it. After all, should a fellow of the Breakthrough Institute be reviewing a film featuring its president, Michael Shellenberger, and which is a vehicle for the Institute’s agenda? ”

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger – Global Warming Scare Tactics – The New York Times, 08/04/2014 – Breakthrough Institute – http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/opinion/global-warming-scare-tactics.html
“Nonetheless, virtually every major national environmental organization continues to reject nuclear energy, even after four leading climate scientists wrote them an open letter last fall, imploring them to embrace the technology as a key climate solution. Together with catastrophic rhetoric, the rejection of technologies like nuclear and natural gas by environmental groups is most likely feeding the perception among many that climate change is being exaggerated. After all, if climate change is a planetary emergency, why take nuclear and natural gas off the table? While the urgency that motivates exaggerated claims is understandable, turning down the rhetoric and embracing solutions like nuclear energy will better serve efforts to slow global warming.”

Linda Pentz Gunter – More fuzzy math from The Breakthrough Institute – Beyond Nuclear, 29/05/2013 – http://www.beyondnuclear.org/pandoras-false-promises/2013/5/29/more-fuzzy-math-from-the-breakthrough-institute.html
«The nuclear deniers and climate luke-warmers at The Breakthrough Insitute are once again damning solar energy (and their favorite target, Germany) through fuzzy math and factual omissions, something at which they excel. In the Wall Street Journal – which you can’t access unless you subscribe – on their own website and on a rather dodgy website called The Energy Collective, articles have appeared that suggest the embattled and unfinished Finnish reactor at Olkiluoto will generate electricity that is four times cheaper than Germany’s solar energy.»

Joseph Romm – The Brutally Dishonest Attacks On Showtime’s Landmark Series On Climate Change – Climate Progress, 09/04/2014 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424593/showtime-years-dangerously-response/
“The New York Times op-ed is from the founders of the Breakthrough Institute — the same group where political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. is a Senior Fellow. It pushes the same argument that Pielke made in his fivethirtyeight piece — which was so widely criticized and debunked that Nate Silver himself admitted its myriad flaws and ran a debunking piece by an MIT climate scientist. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, two widely debunked eco-critics who run The Breakthrough Institute (TBI), begin by asserting “IF you were looking for ways to increase public skepticism about global warming, you could hardly do better than the forthcoming nine-part series on climate change and natural disasters, starting this Sunday on Showtime.” But they never cite anything other than the trailer in making their case, dismissing the entire enterprise on the basis of 2 minutes of clips!”

Joseph Romm – The Brutally Dishonest Attacks On Showtime’s Landmark Series On Climate Change – Climate Progress, 09/04/2014 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424593/showtime-years-dangerously-response/
“I asked one of the country’s top climatologist, Michael Mann, to respond to that, and he replied: The statement is disingenuous, very carefully worded to imply doubt where there is none. The term “the latest” is used as a sleight of hand. Of course, we don’t attribute individual meteorological events to climate change in a purely causal manner, because the link is statistical. It is like the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, or the link between a baseball player taking steroids and the number of home runs he hits in the season. We don’t talk about any one home run being caused by the steroids. Its the wrong question, the wrong framing. We know that statistically, the player hit more home runs because of the steroids. And, analogously, we know that we’re seeing more severe and prolonged heat waves and drought, extreme flooding, and more devastating hurricanes, because of human-caused climate change. Just the opposite of what the authors appear to want you to think.”

Paul D. Thacker – The Breakthrough Institute’s Inconvenient History with Al Gore – Edmund J. Safra Centre for Ethics, Harvard University, 14/04/2014 – Edmund J. Safra Centre for Ethics, Harvard University – http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/breakthrough-institutes-inconvenient-history-al-gore
“For Nordhaus and Shellenberger, Gore and his documentary are a favorite talking point and topic for bashing. In fact, it’s hard to find anything they haven’t written that doesn’t contain some reference to this documentary and the former Vice President. This personal obsession has sent the two running in circles, and tying themselves in contradictory knots—at times claiming Gore has increased partisan divisions on climate change, at other times claiming that his documentary was irrelevant. For instance, the two again charged Gore with inciting partisan divisiveness back in February 2011, on the Breakthrough’s website: ”

Clive Hamilton – The Technofix Is In – Earth Island Journal, 21/04/2015 – Professor of public ethics, Charles Sturt University – http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/the_technofix_is_in/
«The institute frequently attacks renewable energy and energy efficiency, at times with a highly tendentious use of data. For an organization concerned about spiraling greenhouse gas emissions, it’s hard to work out why the group is so dismissive, except as a way of differentiating itself from mainstream environmentalism. Conversely, it vigorously promotes nuclear power, also deploying data and arguments in a misleading way.»

«Nuclear power has become an obsession for the institute, a kind of signifier by which players in the environmental debate are allocated to the “good guys” box or the “bad guys” box. In a perfect example of mimesis, the dogmatic stance of some anti-nuclear campaigners is reflected back by these pro-nuclear campaigners.

“Undeterred, and as if emboldened by the dismay, The Breakthrough Institute has now gone one better. An Ecomodernist Manifesto, signed by 18 “scholars, scientists, campaigners, and citizens” associated with the institute, is not satisfied with proclaiming that we can look forward to a good Anthropocene. The manifesto declares that we are entering a great Anthropocene. What force can turn a gloomy prognosis into a golden future? The answer, of course, is technology. The manifesto’s authors are convinced that “knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.” ”

“The ecomoderns believe that human beings are not destructive creatures — and certainly not sinful ones as some greens imply — but creative, ingenious and basically well-meaning. If it is our destiny to inherit Earth, then the arrival of the Anthropocene is the fulfilment of that destiny. One scientist close to The Breakthrough Institute, landscape ecologist Erle Ellis, began to do what no one had anticipated. He started to put the word “good” next to the word “Anthropocene.” Hewrote of humanity’s transition to a higher level of planetary significance as “an amazing opportunity” and of how “we will be proud of the planet we create in the Anthropocene.” For many, this was a jaw-dropping reframing of Anthropocene science. But for conservative environmentalists, like the influential Andrew Revkin at The New York Times, the “good Anthropocene” neatly reversed the dispiriting message of a collapsing Earth system, and so it had immediate appeal. (You can find more of Revkin’s thoughts on the Anthropocene here and here.).”

“Predictably, the manifesto has been greeted with enthusiasm by various purveyors of climate science denial, like the National Review, the Fraser Institute and, in Australia, the Murdoch media’s chief promoter of climate denial and denigrator of renewables (the Australian’s Graham Lloyd.) We cannot be held responsible for the supporters our ideas attract. Yet in pursuit of its bold new vision, The Breakthrough Institute has allied itself with some unsavory characters, like the American Enterprise Institute which has been active in promoting climate science denial and has been partly funded by Exxon and the Koch Brothers. Is this the “post-partisan politics” foreshadowed by “The Death of Environmentalism”? If so, it’s a tarnished vision and reflects The Breakthrough Institute’s self-defeating policy of cozying up to environmentalism’s natural enemies and alienating its most stalwart friends. ”

John Asafu-Adjaye et al (2015) – An ecomodernist manifesto – The Breakthrough Institute, 22/04/2015 – http://goo.gl/Fc6E9H – 18 authors
«In this, we affirm one long-standing environmental ideal, that humanity must shrink its impacts on the environment to make more room for nature, while we reject another, that human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse.»

Merijn Knibbe – An ecomodernist manifesto – Real-World Economics Review Blog – 22/04/2015 – https://rwer.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/an-ecomodernist-manifesto/
«Eighteen scientists published an alarmist but optimistic, though pretty ‘western’, ecomodernist manifesto. It’s main message: considering the still growing population of spaceship earth the only solutions of the problem of combining reasonable prosperity with at least a little real nature as well as an end to global warning are urbanization and other kinds of social-economic-technological progress. My 1 cent: I like it, as its analysis and solutions are consistent with what I (an economic historian) know about economic history. Eating localy produced organic fruit is not the solution. Eating less, efficiently produced, meat is (mind however that even ‘organic’ chicken, like label rouge, is much more sustainable than whatever kind of ‘efficiently’ produced beef). Here, a competing alarmist manifesto by seventeen scientists, which, to my liking, contains way too much ‘we should’ (i.e: you should) thinking.»

Kurt Cobb – An Ecomodernist Manifesto’: Truth and confusion in the same breath – Resource Insights – 03/05/2015 – http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/an-ecomodernist-manifesto-truth-and.html
“I really do want to applaud the Breakthrough Institute’s recently released paper called «An Ecomodernist Manifesto.» It speaks with candor about the possible catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change. It recognizes the large footprint of humankind in the biosphere. It wants to address both, and it wants to do so in a way that offers a positive vision for the human future that will attract support and, above all, action. But, I can’t applaud it because of its underlying assumption: that humans are in one category and nature in another. The key paragraph starts with the key sentence: Humans will always materially depend on nature to some degree. Even if a fully synthetic world were possible, many of us might still choose to continue to live more coupled with nature than human sustenance and technologies require. What decoupling offers is the possibility that humanity’s material dependence upon nature might be less destructive. «Humans will always materially depend on nature to some degree.» This statement seems reasonable only if humans and nature are in different categories. But, they aren’t–a concept that is distressingly NOT clear to most everyone who styles himself or herself as an environmentalist. Humans and their creations are as much a part of nature as everything else. Humans don’t «materially depend on nature to some degree.» Humans are entirely and completely dependent on nature (of which they are a part) for EVERYTHING. Even every synthetic substance uses feedstocks and energy from the natural world. ”

Ian Angus – Hijacking the Anthropocene – Climate and Capitalism – 20/05/2015 – http://climateandcapitalism.com/2015/05/19/hijacking-the-anthropocene/
“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass— What can lobbyists do when science contradicts their political messages? Some simply deny the science, as many conservatives do with climate change. Others pretend to embrace the science, while ignoring or purging the disagreeable content. That’s what the Breakthrough Institute (BTI) is doing with one of the most widely discussed issues in 21st century science, the proposal to define a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. ”

David Callahan – Rachel Pritzker: A Philanthropist Takes on “Wicked Problems” by Backing New Ideas – Inside Philanthropy, 29/05/2015 – http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/5/29/rachel-pritzker-a-philanthropist-takes-on-wicked-problems-by.html
“Looking ahead to her longer term goals, Pritzer says that she’s trying to create a new “ecosystem” of people and groups who are exploring big ideas related to ecology, energy, and human needs. “Our goal is to broaden over time the number of groups populating this space.” The ecosytem around the organizations the Pritzker Innovation Fund supports is already pretty well developed, and the Breakthrough Institute is a main hub of conversation for these folks. Recently, the institute released an Ecomodernist Manifesto that aims to get past the longstanding view in environmental circles that economic growth always stands at odds with protecting the environment. The essay argues that “both human prosperity and an ecologically vibrant planet are not only possible, but also inseparable.” Pritzker is one of the 18 authors of the manifesto. ”

Mark Sagoff – A Theology for Ecomodernism – The Breakthrough Institute – 21/06/2015 – Professor of philosophy + Senior fellow at George Mason University’s Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy – http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/issue-5/a-theology-for-ecomodernism
«Ecomodernism is best-known as a positive paradigm of cities and high-technology to lift up the poor and save the environment. But what does ecomodernism have to say about humanity’s relationship to nature? In a new article for Breakthrough Journal, «A Theology for Ecomodernism,» philosopher Mark Sagoff argues that ecomodernists should view humans as «guardian spirits» of the natural world. Ecomodernists, like Christians, believe humans have special powers and responsibilities. At the same time, ecomodernists view nature as more than resources to be exploited or «virgin» wilderness. Nature is not just for humans to consume but also for humans to appreciate for spiritual and aesthetic reasons. “The theological hope of ecomodernism,» Sagoff writes movingly, «is that we can understand nature to be many, many places, each with its own guardian spirit.».»

Talk:Breakthrough Institute – Sourcewatch, 02/07/2015 – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Talk:Breakthrough_Institute#cite_ref-2 –
«TBI is not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; it operates under the umbrella of nonprofit Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, so it files no IRS Form 990s documenting revenues, programs or expenditures … In early 2011, Ted Nordhaus said «Virtually all of our funding comes from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, trustees of the …Sara Lee pound cake fortune, and the Lotus Foundation, funded by members of the Pritzker family.».»

“Advisory Board: As of March 2011 … Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S.”

Alex Trembath – The Dramatic Shift in Our Climate Thinking – Zocalo Public Square – 09/12/2015 – http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2015/12/09/the-dramatic-shift-in-our-climate-thinking/ideas/nexus/
«Quietly, We’ve Moved to Relying on Technological Innovation, Not Efficiency, to Save the Planet”

«Fortunately, as the world watched the climate policy happenings in Paris this week, Bill Gates announced the formation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group of individual and institutional investors determined to fund the R&D needed for next-generation energy technologies. In parallel, world leaders announced Mission Innovation, a commitment by 20 national governments around the world to double public spending on clean energy R&D. In context of the two decades of progress on energy innovation, this is tectonic.»

Última actualización 13/01/2016