Meme with Wings: Are Western Anti-Fracking Activists Funded by Putin's Russia?

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At a June 19 speaking event at London’s Chatham House,ย North Atlantic Treaty Organizationย (NATO) secretary-generalย Anders Fogh Rasmussen claimed the Russian government is covertly working to discredit hydraulic fracturing (โ€œfrackingโ€) in the west fromย afar.

โ€œI have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations โ€”ย environmental organizations working against shale gas โ€”ย to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,โ€ said Rasmussen, the former Prime Minister ofย Denmark.

Rasmussen’s commentsย were relayed to the press by someone in attendance who apparently broke the โ€œChatham House Ruleโ€ by telling outsiders about the content of aย Chatham Houseย meeting.


Anders Fog Rasmussen; Photo Credit:ย Wikimediaย Commons

But Rasmussen left out some key context from his presentation, which he said โ€œis my interpretationโ€ and did not further elaborate on his โ€œdisinformation operationsโ€ย comments.ย ย ย 

That is, while powerful actors have claimed on multiple occasions that western-based anti-fracking activists are funded by the Kremlin, no one has ever documented such a relationship in the form of a money paperย trail.

Meme withย Wings

Rasmussen’s allegation that western โ€œfracktivistsโ€ are or might be funded by the Kremlin is a meme withย wings.ย 

In a June 2010 email revealed by Wikileaks, private intelligence firm Stratfor (shorthand for Strategic Forecasting, Inc.) speculated that Josh Fox,ย director of โ€œGaslandโ€ and โ€œGasland: Part IIโ€, might be funded by the Russian government or the coal industry.ย According to a January 2010 email, Stratfor’s โ€œbiggest clientโ€ is the American Petroleumย Institute.

Stratfor published a white paper titled โ€œShale Gas Activism,โ€ย an analysis of anti-fracking opposition groups and leaders,ย in December 2009.

Emails show Stratfor sent the white paper toย Stanley Sokul,ย then-ExxonMobil corporate issues senior advisor and now XTO Energy’s manager of public and government affairs. Sokul formerly served as chief of staff and general counsel for the White Houseย Office of Science and Technology Policy under President George W.ย Bush.

Further, in the industry-funded documentary film โ€œFrackNation,โ€ climate change denier James Delingpole also stated that anti-fracking activists are likely funded by the Kremlin (beginning at 2:30ย below).

Most recently, climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomborgย โ€”ย whoseย Copenhagen Consensus Center was recently exposed by DeSmogBlog’s Graham Readfearnย โ€” also recently wrote that he concurred with his fellow Daneย Rasmussen’s assessment.ย 

โ€œThe accusations do not seem too far-fetched. Russia is very keen on dissuading Europe from exploiting its shale reserves,โ€ Lomborg wrote in Forbes. โ€œMoscowโ€™s goal clearly is to keep the EU dependent onย Russia.โ€

Memesย Work

While in reality, U.S. oil and gas companies maintain close ties with Russiaย โ€” including in the fracking sphereย โ€” the meme brought to the forefront again by Rasmussen is the one that has caught much moreย fire.

Originally conceptualized in scholar Richard Dawkins‘ 1976 book โ€œThe Selfish Gene,โ€ one conclusion reigns supreme: memes work and can have a majorย impact.

For example, Occupy Wall Street’s โ€œWe are the 99-percentโ€ is a meme. So too is โ€œGlobal warming is a hoax.โ€ย 

โ€œIn my opinion, the problem is not with the meme concept itself, but with some of the ways in which it has been used, and especially those that undermine the role of agency in [deploying memes],โ€ย Limor Shifmanย โ€” senior lectureer at the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the book, โ€œMemes In Digital Cultureโ€œย โ€” said in a recent interview on her book.

With loud megaphones and ongoing geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Russia with no end in sight, one can rest assured Rasmussen will not be the last one to repeat this meme, just as he was not theย first.ย 

Photo Credit: Wikimediaย Commons

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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