Yesterday on reddit, we happened to notice a “list of recommended alarmist-free sites” and, ever curious about new sources for content, we were eager to check out what sorts of places a regular /r/climateskeptics poster goes for their climate denial. We know who the professionals are, but what amateur climate content might an amateur poster have found?
Unfortunately, there wasn’t really much new, as the list was heavy on professional disinformation sources. And on top of that, a bunch of the links haven’t been updated in ages.
Out of 35 links, the first seven links were affiliated with Heartland (6 directly, the 7th being Heartland fellow Anthony Watts’ blog), followed by Steve Milloy’s Big Tobacco-created Junk Science, followed by Climate Depot, CFACT, CO2Coalition, denial aggregator ClimateChangeDispatch, GWPF’s rebranded NetZeroWatch, and CoolerHeads. This means only one of the first 13 links, ClimateChangeDispatch, is not a part or product of the industry’s professional disinformation machine.
Or, 12 out of the first 13 links to non-alarmist content are propped up, at least in part, by the fossil fuel industry’s past or present funding.
Later in the list, there’s 9 more nodes in the professional climate contrarian ecosystem (Dr. Judith Curry, MasterResource, Cornwall Alliance, the International Climate Science Coalition, Science & Environmental Policy Project, Cato, SPPI, NIPCC, WiseEnergy, and CO2Science).
That makes 22 of the 35 links to people funded by or affiliated with the fossil fuel industry, who spread climate disinformation at least semi-professionally. (Dr. Judith Curry is a retired professor with a side-business consulting for the fossil fuel industry on weather forecasting and a real passion for emphasizing her doubts about climate science.)
The remaining are mostly just those individuals who seem to do it because they take some perverse delight in being wrong in public, like above-group-feted scientist Roy Spencer, Australian blogger Joanne Nova, ClimateAudit’s Steven McIntyre, and climate conspiracist in denial about being a debunked conspiracy theorist, Tony Heller. [Edit: Heller is now a member of the CO2Coalition.]
Aside from climate denial’s reliance on the fossil fuel industry, the other thing that really stood out was how many of the websites are barely publishing, if at all. While the Cooler Heads email goes out every Friday, continuing the brand that Exxon started funding back in 1998, the listed link to their prime-name website, GlobalWarming.org, hasn't been updated since May 17, 2021. The Cato Institute quietly shuttered its science center in May 2019, only a few months after SPPI’s most recent website update, and YouTuber 1000Frolly hasn’t updated in 10 months (with the next most-recent from July, 2019).
Tom Harris has basically stopped posting at the International Climate Science Coalition website since this summer, though it appears the videos he’s making with his not-hostage not-disney-princess granddaughter are still getting posted to YouTube for their literally dozens of fans.
Of the 35 links, 5 are essentially defunct. Of the remaining 30 sources of climate denial, 23 are pro’s, meaning 76% of the still-publishing links from this organic user's list of climate content serve as a form of false advertising backed by the fossil fuel industry’s funding.