So how does Sen. Inhofe (R-OIL) spread his disinformation, other than his website (see “Uber-denier Inhofe misquotes Hadley, gives big wet Valentine’s kiss to Pielke — go figure!“)? This post first run in WonkRoom, “Marc Morano’s Pack Of Climate Denial Jokers,” explains.
Marc Morano, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)’s environmental communications director, sits at the center of the right-wing global warming denier propaganda machine — of fifty-two people. Conservative columnist Fred Barnes recently refused to tell TPM Muckraker who’s informed him “the case for global warming” is falling apart, but all signs point to Marc Morano.
Morano’s “entire job,” Gristmill’s David Roberts explains, “is to aggregate every misleading factoid, every attack on climate science or scientists, every crank skeptical statement from anyone in the world and send it all out periodically in email blasts” to the right-wing echo chamber.
The Wonk Room has acquired Morano’s email list, and we can now reveal the pack of climate skeptics, conservative bloggers, and corporate hacks who feed the misinformation machine. Promoted on the Drudge Report and Fox News, Morano’s moronic misinformation enters mainstream discourse through columns by Barnes, George Will, Robert Samuelson, and others. Many in the Morano gang are funded by right-wing think tanks, though a few are committed activists, conspiracy theorists who believe their homebrew interpretations of climate data. Others are aging scientists with strong conservative beliefs, motivating them to challenge action on global warming not because they disbelieve its existence, but because they are ideologically opposed to regulation of pollution:
Marc Morano’s Pack Of Climate Denial Jokers
Marc Morano, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Committee on the Environment and Public Works
| The Scientists | ||
| Bob Carter | James Cook University, Queensland, Australia | |
| John Christy | University of Alabama at Huntsville | |
| David Deming | University of Oklahoma / National Center for Policy Analysis | |
| David Douglass | University of Rochester | |
| Don Easterbrook | Western Washington University | |
| Stanley Goldenberg | NOAA | |
| Vincent Gray | New Zealand Climate Science Coalition / Natural Resources Stewardship Project | |
| William Gray | Colorado State University (ret.) | |
| Ben Herman | University of Arizona | |
| Craig Idso | co2science.org | Arizona State University / Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change |
| Richard Lindzen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | |
| Roger Pielke | Colorado State University (ret.) | |
| James A. Peden | Extranuclear Laboratories (ret.) | |
| Hans Schreuder | ilovemycarbondioxide.com | Rocky Mountain Research Station |
| Thomas P. Sheahen | Western Technology, Inc. | |
| Fred Singer | University of Virginia (ret.) / Science and Environmental Policy Project / National Center for Policy Analysis |
|
| Roy Spencer | drroyspencer.com | University of Alabama at Huntsville / Marshall Institute / Interfaith Stewardship Alliance |
| Philip Stott | University of London (ret.) | |
| Willie Wei-Hock Soon | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics / Marshall Institute / Fraser Institute / Science and Public Policy Institute | |
| The Bloggers | ||
| Michael Asher | dailytech.com | |
| Joseph Bast | globalwarmingheartland.org | Heartland Institute |
| Edward John Craig | planetgore.nationalreview.com | National Review |
| Dan Gainor | newsbusters.org | Media Research Center |
| Barry Hearn | junkscience.com | |
| Steven Milloy | junkscience.com | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Tom Nelson | tomnelson.blogspot.com | |
| Lubos Motl | motls.blogspot.com | Harvard University (ret.) |
| Roger Pielke, Jr. | sciencepolicy.colorado.edu | University of Colorado |
| Jon Jay Ray | jonjayray.blogspot.com | |
| Gabriel Rychert | co2sceptics.com | |
| Marc Sheppard | opinioneditorials.com | Frontiers of Freedom |
| Noel Sheppard | newsbusters.org | Media Research Center |
| Matthew Sheffield | newsbusters.org | Media Research Center |
| Phil Valentine | philvalentine.com | The Phil Valentine Show |
| Anthony Watts | wattsupwiththat.com surfacestations.org |
|
| The “Think Tankers” | ||
| Dennis Avery | hudson.org | Hudson Institute |
| Mike Burita | accf.org | American Council for Capital Formation |
| Terry Dunleavy | climatescience.org.nz | New Zealand Climate Science Coalition |
| Robert Ferguson | scienceandpublicpolicy.org | Science and Public Policy Institute |
| Tom Harris | climatescienceinternational.org | International Climate Science Coalition |
| Christopher Monckton | scienceandpublicpolicy.org | Science and Public Policy Institute |
| Craig Rucker | cfact.org | Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow |
| James Taylor | heartland.org | Heartland Institute |
| The Weathermen | ||
| William M. Briggs | wmbriggs.com | statistician |
| Richard S. Courtney | CoalTrans International | |
| Joseph D’Aleo | icecap.us | Weather Channel (ret.) |
| Art Horn | theartofweather.com | weatherman (ret.) |
| Alan Siddons | ||
| George E. Smith | Monsanto, Hewlett Packard (ret.) | |
| James Spann | jamesspann.com | weatherman, ABC 33/40 |
| Herb Stevens | weatherman (ret.) | |
– The Scientists: Ph.D.s, often with strong industry ties, who may or may not have experience in climate science, but are ready to denounce the scientific consensus
– The Bloggers: They flood the Web with “news” and opinion, ready to be picked up by Drudge, Fox News, and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber
– The “Think Tankers”: Ready spokesmen associated with impressive-sounding organizations, often founded by themselves
– The Weathermen: Meteorologists, statisticians, and corporate scientists not associated with a think tank or university, but happy to give reporters their “expert” opinion
Update 1: Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard responds, “I’m sure I speak for all my fellow jokers when I say that I am honored to be mentioned with these highly-respected climate realists.”
Update 2: DeSmogBlog is “working to research the individuals on Morano’s list” and compiling this handy referral guide; we’re linking the names to their backgrounders as they’re added.
Update 3: George E. Smith (gsmith@avagotech.com) writes in to inform the Wonk Room that he is not the George E. Smith formerly of Bell Labs who invented the charged coupled device. In fact, this Smith is a different inventor with “no discernible experience in climate or earth sciences.” He writes: “I think you owe George E. Smith, Bell Labs (ret) an apology.” The Wonk Room agrees, and apologizes for sullying that George E. Smith’s reputation.
Related Posts:
- Inhofe and Morano keep making stuff up, this time utterly misquoting Revkin on Hansen
- Scientist: “Our conclusions were misinterpreted” by Inhofe, CO2 — but not the sun — “is significantly correlated” with temperature since 1850
- Inhofe recycles long-debunked denier talking points — will the media be fooled (again)?
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
The funny this about this article is that you could substitute “climate crisis” for “financial crisis” and it would be just as accurate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rich.html
The same mentality that leads people to deny AGW allowed them to believe that “the fundamentals of our economy are sound.”
The only difference is, the eco-system meltdown is going to dwarf the effects of the economic collapse.
Weatherman are to climatologists as journalists are to historians.
Agreed, Gail. The parallels between the two CCs are uncany. By the time reality crushes denial the damage is already done and we all pay the price.
That particular GE Smith worked on wireless mouse technology, but I didn’t know he purveyed propaganda at a scale beyond blog comments…
Best,
D
Well, for a long time I have thought of George Will as unreal. Now I know of a bunch more.
Ultimately the bloggers and think-tankers can be dismissed as they have no qualifications in the science of climate change. The weatherman are quasi-scientific, but can be dismissed because they, too, do not have the appropriate training (I use the comparison of a pharmacist is in the field of medicine, but that doesn’t qualify him to perform surgery). Finally, each of these scientists must be researched to determine: 1. What is their actual field of study? 2. What research have they conducted? 3. What have they peer reviewed? When I have done that for bona fide climate scientists I typically find that at best, they are expressing an opinion but not basing it on any research they or anyone else has done.
Why doesn’t this list include Will Happer, physics professor at Princeton? It’s gotta be in Morano’s listed favorites….
In an interview last month with the Daily Princetonian (link below), Happer said that carbon dioxide does not cause climate change. “This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the Earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” he told the campus paper. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/01/12/22506/
Happer is chair of the board of the George C. Marshall Institute that spends nearly a third of its budget on climate change (on the contrarian side of the issue) and has received three quarters of a million dollars from Exxon.
Thanks to Inhofe and Morano for providing the entertainment portion of the upcoming Feb 25 Senate EPW Committee hearing on the state of the science in climate disruption. Happer will “testify” alongside Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Christopher Field, director of the global ecology department, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University; and Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Looks like a who’s who of top climate scientists to me. Roy Spencer, Fred Singer, Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen. I wonder if the folks criticizing the “deniers” ever finished freshman physics. We must remember, the moron who started all the AGW hype, Al Gore, made near failing grades in every math and science class he ever took.