The winners? ED, NRDC, The Pew Center for Climate Change, and other familiar faces

The first round of grants (PDF) from the $100 million climate fund established last year by the Doris Duke Foundation were announced last week. Funding priorities and grant recipients were identified in an exhaustive 18-month process of extensive literature reviews and interviews with more than 75 distinguished scientists, economists, environmental leaders, investors, energy industry representatives, and public policy experts.

The result?

A total of $3.6 million will be distributed to five environmental organizations -- ED and NRDC ($500K), Pew Center on Global Climate Change ($395K), World Resources Institute ($750K), and Resources for the Future ($750K) -- and two universities -- Harvard ($750K) and MIT ($500K). Three climate action strategies will be pursued:

1. devise "optimal domestic and international pricing policies for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases";
2. develop policies "that bring available technologies to market more quickly"; and,
3. "identify adjustments" to reduce climate-change impacts.

That the $100 million Duke Foundation fund will be expended on a decades-old strategy that has not worked is no surprise, as no coherent alternative to our present approach is available. However, the Duke Foundation announcement may portend change in two important respects.

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When bad science still doesn't get the result you want, why not spice it up with a bit of plain and simple fraud?

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