Rethinking the Think Tanks

Curtis Moore looks at corporate-funded think tanks like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy whose anti-environmental messages permeate the news. "Fashioning themselves after the very university research centers they deplore (or old-style "think tanks" that are only a step removed from universities), these groups have neither the neutrality nor the expertise of their academic counterparts," Moore writes. "They are simply self-described as 'libertarian' or 'market liberals,' as if this explains why their conclusions differ so sharply from those of academic or government researchers."