For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the fossil fuel industry’s rapid takeover of the Trump administration, Vox posted a piece from Dave Roberts yesterday mapping the major and minor figures now playing key roles on the Hill. Turns out Rex Tillerson is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg, and with so many positions within the administration yet unfilled, there will no doubt be an even greater handoff of the government in store in the future.
We can’t say we’re surprised to what depths fossil fuels have permeated the administration. But what is surprising is the growing malaise among the climate denial blogosphere. We’re sensing that instead of feeling rejuvenated, bloggers appear to be slowing down in the Trump era.
Most recently and notably, Anthony Watts announced on Tuesday that after ten years of near-constant denier nonsense, he’s taking a month-long break from Watts Up With That (and asking for donations to fund a vacation). He has been relying on others to keep up a steady stream of content, and those guest contributors will continue posting, so the site isn’t going dark.
But the announcement is interesting as a benchmark, since Watts is one of the biggest blog names in the denier space. However, he is far from the only one we’ve noticed slowing down. Beyond Judith Curry’s retirement from Georgia Tech, Roger Pielke’s halfhearted attempts to stay away from the climate debate and the retirement of Steve McIntyre (and his ClimateAudit blog) that Watts mentions in his post, a number of blogs that were once main drivers of denial have quieted considerably.
Even before Bishop Hill’s Andrew Montford went over to GWPF, that blog (which was a big driver of Climategate, especially in the UK) had turned into little more than a repository for dumb anti-alarmist cartoons while another key Climategate node, The Air Vent, now goes months between posts. CEI’s globalwarming.org hasn’t had a post since November and the Science and Public Policy Institute’s blog page is now mainly just rehosted content from elsewhere.
Seems like only those with money on the line are still going strong. JunkScience’s Steve Milloy has been posting plenty, in part promoting his book, and Marc Morano’s Climate Depot remains a steady aggregator as he promotes CFACT’s Climate Hustle movie. Oil-funded, PR shop-run Energy in Depth continues pumping out pro-fracking and anti-Exxon Knew posts. And of course the Koch operatives at Daily Caller are still pumping out propaganda, and the same goes for the Mercers’ Breitbart.
Perhaps with Trump in power, deniers feel like it’s “mission accomplished.” Or maybe they’re just getting old and bored with repeating the same baseless attacks that have little to no influence on the science.
Or maybe they recognize that the Russians are much better than they at spreading fake news, and figure they’ll let the pros handle it.