As the real world celebrated Earth Day with 170 countries signing on to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the denier world was celebrating in the same way it does every year: by throwing every argument against the wall in hopes that one will stick. Hold your nose, because we’re diving in to sift through them. (Scroll to the bottom for the “Too Long; Didn’t Read” summary.)
Denial seems to have found a sympathetic ear at USA Today, which is still embracing false balance on the climate front and ran pieces from both John Coleman and Bjorn Lomborg (as well as a pro-climate editorial and op-ed from a trio of scientists on short-lived climate pollutants.) Coleman’s piece is little more than a plug for the Climate Hustle movie wrapped in the usual conspiracy theory rhetoric of politics corrupting science. Lomborg’s piece focuses on his thoroughly and totally debunked Paris analysis, and is all-but identical to his NY Post piece from February. (Seriously it’s the exact same structure and sentiment: an intro about Paris being unduly praised; quotes from various leaders and a claim that Paris is all rhetoric with a reference to his study; a mention of a past failed UN agreement; and a conclusion that instead of deploying renewable energy we focus on Research & Development.)
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Meanwhile, the Koch Institute Internship Partner and Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller has a variety of bottom-of-the-barrel attacks, too numerous and baseless to name (and one actually fairly straight news story.)
Earth Day even managed to slip through Breitbart’s wall-to-wall Trump coverage, with a short video of Alec Baldwin saying he believes "climate change denial a form of mental illness” and a piece featuring Peabody’s “energy poverty” argument by oil and gas funded Marita Noon.
WUWT does its duty as a denier PR headquarters, running a press release for Heartland of their (non)expert reactions to the Paris signing as well as a post of a GOP letter claiming that due to a law prohibiting the US from giving money to organizations that recognize Palestine, Americans can’t send money to the UNFCCC. Fox News ran an op-ed from the senator leading this quixotic charge, Wyoming Republican John Barrasso. The State Department’s reviewing the issue for a formal response, but an initial look via E&E says that the law doesn’t apply, since the UNFCCC isn’t a specialized agency of the UN.
Fox also had two other pieces, one by someone from the Reason Foundation (another free-market think tank funded by oil and gas interests with David Koch on its board) about how the Paris Agreement is just a ruse to enrich climate cronies. The second was on how the Earth is not only doing fine but actually getting better, written by someone affiliated with not one but two different Koch/Exxon/etc funded groups. Of course, Fox failed to disclose either author’s fossil fuel funding, particularly ironic since the first is about climate conflicts of interest.
TL;DR: People ruining the Earth trying and failing to ruin its holiday.
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