Here’s a fun fact! According to our records of more than 1,000 editorials, op-eds and columns, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page published more climate disinformation in March than it has in any month in more than 20 years: Twenty-six pieces covered for the fossil fuel industry’s massive profits resulting from the pandemic and Putin’s fossil fueled war on Ukraine, and otherwise advanced pro-industry propaganda.
The last time climate got so much play in the WSJ opinion pages, it was in 2009 when the Journal pushed “climategate” disinformation. That December during the Copenhagen climate COP negotiations, the Journal ran 28 op-eds, columns and editorials, 24 of which were a who's-who of climate disinfo, featuring Pat Michaels and Bjorn Lomborg, false attacks on climate science, and cheering political obstruction of climate policy and negotiations. The month kicked off with a column by Bret Stephens advancing the climategate lie and an op-ed by Richard Lindzen headlined “The Climate Science Isn’t Settled.”
In the years since, the Journal has churned out plenty of climate hit pieces, like Steve Koonin’s 2014 WSJ op-ed with the Lindzen-like headline “Climate Science Is Not Settled” (Couldn’t it at least come up with something new?), which Koonin then used for the title of his 2021 “Unsettled” book (Guess not…).
Most of the time, the quantity of content ranges from a handful to around a dozen pieces a month, with November and December, COP season, generally being the busiest. Climate disinfo during the Trump years was a bit less frequent than when there was policy to oppose under the Biden and Obama administrations.
The Journal more or less kept up that cadence until October of 2021, when in just three weeks, it ran 21 pieces on the UN COP negotiations and high gas prices, and every one pushed industrial disinformation.
In November 2021, it published a dozen pieces, just one of which, by U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, wasn’t full of fossil fuel disinformation. There were nine in December (all dumb), fifteen in January (uniformly uninforming), and 16 in February, as the Russian invasion began.
This set up the disinfo boom in March, when the opinion page ran 26 pieces of fossil fueled disinformation.
On March 1st, a WSJ editorial blamed Europeans for buying Russian oil. The Journal then ran two pieces on the 4th promoting fossil fuels and attacking Biden, and rounded out the week with an anti-ESG op-ed (denierland’s new hobby horse).
On March 8th, the Editorial Board ran editorials criticizing renewables and Biden’s climate and energy agenda. On the 11th they ran another one headlined “Democrats for Higher Gas Prices” and an op-ed by birdbrained Robert Bryce blaming California for high gas prices, “not Moscow.”
Apparently the Journal is playing to an audience eager to attack Democrats for trying to save the planet from fossil fuels instead of a petro-dictator committing war crimes.
On the 13th the Journal ran an op-ed claiming “Biden’s War on Oil Hits Consumers” by oil tycoon Harold Hamm, who has made so much money off of consumers he’s got to dodge taxes to pass it to his children and whose fracking company is returning billions to shareholders based on profits made by high prices.
Then on March 14th came a full Opinion page press, with editorial writer Gerard Baker running a column attacking Biden for blaming Putin for recent inflation; an editorial echoing the one it ran days earlier, but this time more specific because recycling ideas is easy: Whitmer Wants Higher Gas Prices. Another editorial praised Joe Manchin for opposing Sarah Bloom Raskin’s appointment to the Fed because praising fossil fuel millionaires is important content; and a final editorial calling on Biden to deregulate the fossil fuel industry, just in case anyone wasn’t sure where the paper stood in relation the industry (under its boots, tongue out).
The next day the Journal ran a piece blaming climate policy for oil and gas prices, and another dancing on Raskin’s Fed appointment grave. (The sole exception to the onslaught of climate lies on the WSJ opinion page the entire month was an op-ed on March 2nd rebutting the industry’s false attacks against Raskin, whose mere nomination is still cited as a reason for high fuel prices.)
On March 17th, the WSJ opinion page featured yet another combo of Biden/climate attacks and oil/gas defense. And on the 20th, it gave space to some Republicans to complain about the SEC’s overdue decision to require companies to disclose climate risks, which it followed up with an editorial on the 21st making the same points, because propaganda and disinformation is only effective when repeated. That’s why we’ll breeze past the last bunch, as they’re largely repeats, like an energy lawyer shamelessly using Ukraine to attack FERC, and the closing act, stalwart climate disinfo pro Bjorn Lomborg.
Halfway through April, and the Journal appears back on pace for more like 18 disinfo opinion pieces this month, suggesting we’re past the peak for the Wall Street Journal’s Putin-excusing and petro-praising propaganda push.
We’ll call it a Special Disinformation Operation. And unlike Putin’s so-called Special Military Operation, this one might be succeeding.
