Here they are in descending order [I am quoted on #5, Tom Donahue President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce]:
12. Fred Upton: Upton, a moderate who has backed new standards for more efficient light bulbs and admitted that “we need to reduce emissions,” won the chairmanship by shamelessly transforming himself into a Tea Party wanna-be. He now claims he is “not convinced” that carbon needs to be regulated and denounces climate legislation as “an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs.” As chairman, Upton is expected to further boost his credibility with the Tea Party by launching an all-out war on new regulations proposed by the EPA, including stricter air-quality standards and tougher limits on toxic coal ash. In fact, Upton has promised that EPA officials will spend so much time being questioned before his committee that “we will give them their own parking place” on Capitol Hill.
11. Bj¸rn Lomborg [technically, he doesn't belong on the list since he is neither a politician nor an executive, but who could object?]: The Danish statistician, a self-proclaimed “skeptical environmentalist” who has spent the past decade downplaying the risks of global warming, has long been the darling of do-nothing politicians who cite his bogus numbers to justify their inaction on climate change…. “He’s a performance artist disguised as an academic,” says Howard Friel, an independent researcher who has systematically debunked Lomborg’s work.
10. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): The new chairman of the House Oversight Committee has vowed to use his subpoena powers to “investigate” climate scientists, denouncing federal funding of their work as part of a “tsunami of opacity, waste, fraud and abuse.” Insisting that the planet is only going through a temporary and natural “warming cycle,” Issa points to the bogus “climategate” scandal as evidence that scientists “played fast and loose with both the truth and our money.” Money is certainly something Issa knows well: His car-alarm empire has made him one of the richest members of Congress, with an estimated fortune of $160 million. And while he has absolutely no background in science, he has a unique set of credentials for ferreting out wrongdoing: He has been charged twice with auto theft and once with carrying a concealed weapon, and owned a factory destroyed by suspected arson.
9. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): “I’m concerned that powerful voices continue to argue that climate change is a myth,” Rockefeller declared last year. “Greenhouse gas emissions are not healthy for our Earth or for her people, and we must take serious action to reduce them.” But Rockefeller’s deeds don’t match his lofty rhetoric. Last year, he led the charge in the Senate to prevent the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, insisting that Congress should be the one to “determine how best to reduce greenhouse gases in a way that protects West Virginia’s economy.” Given that there is no chance lawmakers will take action on carbon pollution anytime soon, Rockefeller’s move was just another excuse to burn more coal. What’s worse, it also provided Republicans with bipartisan cover in their crusade to strip the Obama administration of its last remaining way to cut planet-warming pollution on its own. “Who does Senator Rockefeller think will protect Americans from the dangers of global warming if the government is left with no tools to do so?” asks Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
8. Ken Cuccinelli: Here’s a novel strategy to make sure nobody thinks too hard about the risks of global warming: Criminalize climate science. Cuccinelli, Virginia’s ultraright attorney general, is using his prosecutorial power to harass and intimidate those who are raising the alarm about climate change….
7. Tim Phillips: As leader of AFP, a corporate front group that funnels cash to the Tea Party, Phillips is on a mission to convince Americans that global warming is a plot hatched by Al Gore to take away their freedom and destroy the economy….
6. Rex Tillerson: As the world’s biggest carbon polluter “” its oil spews an estimated 1 trillion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year “” ExxonMobil has the most at stake in the battle over climate legislation. In a sharp and cynical ploy, Tillerson rejected the cap-and-trade system being considered by Congress last year and instead backed a direct tax on carbon pollution “” perhaps the most effective way to halt global warming, but one he knew had absolutely no chance of passing. To cover his bets, Tillerson also poured $27 million into lobbying, much of it directed toward killing the climate bill….
5. Tom Donahue: “The main purpose of the Chamber,” says climate expert Joe Romm, “is to launder money from large industries and multinational corporations to affect public policy.” Last year, the Chamber spent $81 million on lobbying, far more than any other group. During the midterm election, it also pledged $75 million for ads to help elect Republicans, nearly all of whom are ardent climate deniers. After helping to derail climate legislation and calling for a new “Scopes monkey trial” on the science of global warming, Donahue is now taking aim at the EPA….
4. Gregory Boyce: As head of the world’s largest publicly held coal company, Boyce is the darling of Wall Street, beloved for his crisp management style, nice suits and political muscle. To keep America addicted to coal, Peabody spent $5 million on lobbying last year, arguing that any attempt to limit carbon pollution will jack up energy prices and destroy the U.S. economy…. The greatest global danger, Boyce declared, is “not a future environmental crisis predicted by computer models” but the “human crisis” of 3.6 billion people who lack easy access to electricity. The solution? More coal, which Boyce laughably referred to as “the only sustainable fuel with the scale to meet the primary energy needs of the world’s rising populations.” It was the kind of statement that made sense back in 1910. A century later, it’s a recipe for climate catastrophe.
3. Sarah Palin, Retired half-term governor, Alaska: No state suffers more from global warming than Alaska, where glaciers are already melting, methane is bubbling up through the permafrost, and animals are being forced to alter their migration patterns. Yet Palin, the host of Sarah Palin’s Alaska, continues to ridicule climate change as a “bunch of snake-oil science.” On her reality show, Palin tromps through the wilderness gushing about what she has called “the grandeurs of God’s creation.” But in the real world, she disses climate scientists, trashes clean-energy jobs and throws her political weight behind candidates who deny the reality and risks of global warming. (More than half of the 64 candidates she endorsed in the midterm elections won.)
2. Charles and David Koch: With a combined worth of $43 billion, these two aging, archconservative brothers are America’s leading funders of the climate-disinformation machine. By perpetuating the use of fossil fuels, they in turn fuel their sprawling empire of oil refineries and pipelines “” the second-largest private corporation in the country. The Kochs have contributed $5 million to Americans for Prosperity, the driving force behind the Tea Party. They also gave nearly $25 million to conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, two of the leading players in the climate-denial racket. And to help kill climate legislation in Congress, Koch spent $38 million on lobbying “” more than any energy company except ExxonMobil and Chevron. Last year, besides underwriting a host of conservative candidates in the midterm elections, the Koch brothers backed Proposition 23, the unsuccessful effort to end California’s crackdown on climate pollution, and funded attacks against the EPA’s right to regulate carbon emissions. In David Koch’s twisted view, global warming is actually good for us. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people,” he says, “because a far greater land area will be available to produce food.”
1. Rupert Murdoch: No one does more to spread dangerous disinformation about global warming than Murdoch. In a year of record heat waves in Africa, freak snowstorms in America and epic flooding in Pakistan, the Fox network continued to dismiss climate change as nothing but a conspiracy by liberal scientists and Big Government. Glenn Beck told viewers the Earth experienced no warming in the past decade “” the hottest on record. Sean Hannity declared that “global warming doesn’t exist” and speculated about “the true agenda of global-warming hysterics.” Even Brian Kilmeade, co-host of the chatty Fox & Friends, laughed off the threat of climate change, joking that the real problem was “too many polar bears.”
Murdoch’s entire media empire, it would seem, is set up to deny, deny, deny….
Murdoch knows better. In 2007, he warned that climate change “poses clear, catastrophic threats” and promised to turn News Corp. into a model of carbon neutrality. But at his media outlets, manufacturing doubt about global warming remains official policy. During the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the Washington editor of Fox News ordered the network’s journalists to never mention global warming “without immediately pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.” Murdoch may be striving to go green in his office buildings, but on air, the only thing he’s recycling are the lies of Big Coal and Big Oil.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Good quote, Joe.
There is an article in the New Yorker about Darrell Issa that is worth reading. I find it hard to believe this type of person has so much power in our country.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_lizza
Just a quick “heads up!” . There seems to be text about Cucinelli appearing under Rockefeller. You may need to edit.
[JR: Oops!]
Do you have a good answer to why people oppose efforts to reduce global warming? I can think of a number. The two extremes may be: Some may actually not believe it. Others may believe it but are too selfish and too short-sited to care.
But what about the rest? What about people who do seem to care to some degree about the future of the planet and who are open to the possibility that global warming may produce a disaster?
Jay Rockefeller is an interesting case. Presumably he is neither skeptical nor (overly) selfish. I guess he thinks he is representing the (current) interests of his constituents. So what about him? Or more to the point, what about the people of West Virginia whose livelihood depends on mining coal? Their concern isn’t at the same level of selfishness as that of the Koch’s. They think (possibly with good reason) their lives will be a lot worse off if we institute climate controls. How does one talk to them?
Rolling Stone did a piece like this last year as well entitled “The Climate Killers” which then mysteriously disappeared from their website (ruffled some powerful feathers maybe?)
In any case, it is reprinted here: http://weirddream.com/
…
Anybody want to start a climate denial hall of shame website with me?
It’ll be a great resource in 50 years when our grandkids want to know WHY our generation did absolutely nothing to stop the problem we knew full well was coming.
I want to make sure shills like Inhofe all the way to Anthony Watts each get their just place in history!
It is absolutely correct, in my opinion, to make Murdoch no.1. In Australia his news rags are the very epicentre of fanatic denialism. To add insult to injury they then have the unspeakable gall to declare themselves even-handed, and claim that their editorials (which no sane person reads, nor those with weak stomachs)acknowledge the climate change reality. They are living proof of the contention that market capitalism is the root cause of our global catastrophe, because it empowers the very, very, worst people in society.
It is a real shame how many leaders in this country are against alternative energy initiatives, green jobs, and fixing our environment. In addition to this list, EVERY single Republican just elected to the 112th Congress is a climate change denier. What is really shameful is that we lost a lot of great politicians supporting alternative energy policies for solar, wind, and fuel cell power.
“Table for 13, please” Murdoch says to the rather red maitre d’, whose coat of tails doesn’t quite hide his tail, and who has Italian shoes cobbled for his cloven hooves. . .
Quick! Print up some easter egg type stickers with the likeness of our dirty dozen, to place on a dozen eggs. If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. Right? Green omelet, anyone? Or organize an egg roll.
I voted for Ken Cuccinelli before I understood about global warming and climate change. I won’t ever vote for him again.
When Climategate happened, I really thought it was strange that people would believe e-mails stolen and posted on the Internet. I knew I couldn’t really understand emails written by scientists without the context.
I didn’t want to believe in global warming; still, I really tried to read both sides, and I soon saw that the denialists mischaracterize what the scientists are saying. They use the tactics of Russian political police operatives–kompromat and threatening legal action.
I researched Cuccinelli and learned that his dad was a long-time lobbyist for the American Gas Association.
Later, the dad was an executive with companies that provide public relations/advertising type services.
I wonder if the “professional services” that some of these companies charge their clients are really a way of laundering money to politicians.
One of these companies Cuccinelli’s dad owns reportedly has “European clients.” Who are these European clients? I wonder if these “European clients” might even be fronts for Russian fossil fuel companies who give money to the elder Cuccinelli so he can finance denialist politicians like his son Attorney General Cuccinelli. Maybe the money is formally for professional services, but is really campaign donations.
I have asked Cuccinelli’s deputy W. Russell about this and he won’t even respond, although I really did vote for Cucccinelli. Cuccinelli got 96,000 dollars from one of his dad’s companies.
In his EPA suit, Cuccinelli cited an article from Russia’s official press agency RIA Novosti that claimed that British scientists were dishonest about the temperature in Russia. This article was a short version of an article that appeared in Kommersant, which is owned by Gazprom operative Alisher Usmanov. Kommersant cited the Cato Institute’s Andrei Illarionov was their expert. Illarionov is an economist who used to be Putin’s adviser, and he also worked for Chernomyrdin–the Soviet head of the Gas Ministry and later Gazprom.
Well, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. The CATO Insitute doesn’t like the EPA but they seem pretty tight with Russian government agencies.
Cuccinelli also got 55,000 dollars from a Florida criminal named Bobby Thompson, whose lawyer told reporters that he may have run off to E. Europe or the Middle East.
Cuccinelli sometimes reminds people that Virginians rebelled against foreign tyrants. That’s pretty hypocritical since he may be getting money from people who aren’t even in the United States.
Cuccinelli’s EPA suit cited allegations made by a Kremlin/Gazorom mouthpiece that is owned by a really big Russian billionaire with an education and career that suggest an affiliation with the KGB. Just look up Alisher Usmanov.
If I don’t have all my information exactly correct, that is Cuccinelli’s fault because his office won’t release this information or say what I have wrong.
I always voted Republican, but now I see what they are.
Cuccinelli hounds Dr. Mann, but I think that Cuccinelli is the one who isn’t transparent and who is using the government to benefit business interests who bought him.
Some guy on the Internet criticized me because I don’t use my real name. He didn’t address my concerns but only that I don’t use my real name. Well, Cuccinelli’s criminal donor used a fake name—”Bobby Thompson.”
“Bobby Thompson” stole money from people who thought they were giving to a charity for Navy Veterans, and he gave some of it to Cuccinelli and other politicians who were in a position to change the laws that govern charities.
Then a law was passed in Virginia that military charities didn’t need to register and disclose information about themselves. Now any criminal can claim to be a military charity and scam people. How can politicians be so dumb? Even though I voted for Cuccinelli, I never would have voted for a law like that!
All this was done by a criminal with a fake name. I use my real name to Cuccinelli’s deputy, W. Russell, but he has never once answered my questions about what is going on here with his campaign contributions.
Cuccinelli runs his mouth about our founding fathers, but I don’t think they ever expected that politicians would just do the bidding of big fossil fuel companies.
Kochs and Cuccinelli seem to making lots of lists http://bit.ly/fnCJg2
The rot of empires starts from within.
Oil is not an energy resource, it’s an existential contaminant.
Say hello to the president’s new atomic advisers (from GE and J.P. Morgan). Plutocracism continues ascendant.
And where is James Inhofe on this list???
Hats Off To Rolling Stone
Back in the early 70s and later, I’d mainly read Rolling Stone to see who’d be going on tour: Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and on and on. These days it seems that they are often the only magazine willing to tell things as they are on the largest of issues. Bravo to them.
Jeff
Got to love this insightful article, and the even more insightful comments.
Snapple has to take the prize on this one, although the others are top notch.
Joe, you and Climate Progress, and your bevy of astute fans, are a godsend.
More of the usual breathtaking hypocrisy from Rupert’s News Ltd. From the spiritual home of News Ltd – Adelaide, South Australia. Hope Fox News is also carbon neutral now, maybe Roger Ailes could give a rundown on how Fox has been progressing.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/news-limited-leads-charge-to-become-carbon-neutral/story-e6frea8c-1225993926137
Murdoch, the Kochs, and Obama.
Do something, Mr. President.
These guys deserve recognition for their great service to taxpayers and their resistance to the rent seekers in the environmental movement. Murdoch should be given Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Jeffrey #16, Obama is an employee. If he forgets who is the real boss, well, let’s just say he’ll get the Dallas Treatment.
the hottest 10 years globally have all been since 1997
what are the odds of that happening randomly??
6.9 billion humans on the planet
Increasing @ 200,000 per day
You do the maths
Suprised that Marc Morano did not make this list.
Why don’t people believe global warming? Do you ever consider the statements made by the global warming community that are completely unsubstantiated such as those that claimed the lack of snow during milder winters was evidence of global warming? Including one that said English children will soon never see snow. Well that statement looks pretty silly.
Then statements were made about the Australian drought resulting from global warming. Well are the floods the result of global warming too.
As the Danish parliamentary head stated, the case for global warming has been vastly overstated. It is basically an unproven theory at this point.
As John Christy states, there is some evidence that the planet has gotten warmer in the last 30 years but we don’t really know why.