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Interior Officials Are Citing Coal Execs And Crank Bloggers To Defend Climate Stances
Retweeted by RogueAltGov: https://twitter.com/RogueAltGov
“They’re in the bubble of the climate misinformation world and ignoring their own scientists.”
Link to tweet
POLITICS 03/09/2018 04:41 pm ET Updated Mar 10, 2018
Interior Officials Are Citing Coal Execs And Crank Bloggers To Defend Climate Stances
At the federal agency in charge of 20 percent of the U.S. landmass, blogs like “Watts Up With That” trump The New York Times.
By Alexander C. Kaufman and Chris D’Angelo
WASHINGTON ― Top officials at the Department of the Interior cited former coal executives and crank bloggers to challenge the overwhelming evidence of the threat posed by man-made climate change, according to department emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request by former Interior scientist Joel Clement.
On Sept. 26, Indur Goklany, a science and technology policy analyst at the Interior Department, cited a study briefing from a group called CO2Science, highlighting a selective finding that some plankton communities may benefit from increased levels of carbon dioxide, which causes the oceans to acidify. ... CO2Science is the shortened nickname for the Arizona-based Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an oil-funded think tank run by former Peabody Energy executive Craig Idso. Rebekah and Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaires who bankrolled candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and funded the right-wing news site Breitbart, donated $125,000 to the organization last year.
On Aug. 14, Goklany ― whose degrees are in electrical engineering, according to his website ― sent an email to Doug Domenech, the assistant secretary for insular areas at Interior, which handles U.S. island territories like Guam. In the email, Goklany rejected data in a New York Times story detailing the threat Guam faces from climate change, claiming it “doesn’t show any acceleration in sea level rise due to man-made global warming or whatever.”
He then linked to a “very good article” from “Watts Up With That,” a blog run by former television meteorologist Anthony Watts that promotes doubt over the existence and causes of climate change. The article ― a diatribe republished from another climate change denier website and written by Kip Hansen, a blogger whose primary concern appears to be challenging New York Times stories about climate change ― suggests, without evidence, that massive coral reef bleaching is a natural phenomenon, and states that the existence of mountains on Guam makes sea level rise unconcerning.
....
Alexander C. Kaufman
Business & Environment Reporter, HuffPost
Chris D’Angelo
Reporter, HuffPost
Interior Officials Are Citing Coal Execs And Crank Bloggers To Defend Climate Stances
At the federal agency in charge of 20 percent of the U.S. landmass, blogs like “Watts Up With That” trump The New York Times.
By Alexander C. Kaufman and Chris D’Angelo
WASHINGTON ― Top officials at the Department of the Interior cited former coal executives and crank bloggers to challenge the overwhelming evidence of the threat posed by man-made climate change, according to department emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request by former Interior scientist Joel Clement.
On Sept. 26, Indur Goklany, a science and technology policy analyst at the Interior Department, cited a study briefing from a group called CO2Science, highlighting a selective finding that some plankton communities may benefit from increased levels of carbon dioxide, which causes the oceans to acidify. ... CO2Science is the shortened nickname for the Arizona-based Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an oil-funded think tank run by former Peabody Energy executive Craig Idso. Rebekah and Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaires who bankrolled candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and funded the right-wing news site Breitbart, donated $125,000 to the organization last year.
On Aug. 14, Goklany ― whose degrees are in electrical engineering, according to his website ― sent an email to Doug Domenech, the assistant secretary for insular areas at Interior, which handles U.S. island territories like Guam. In the email, Goklany rejected data in a New York Times story detailing the threat Guam faces from climate change, claiming it “doesn’t show any acceleration in sea level rise due to man-made global warming or whatever.”
He then linked to a “very good article” from “Watts Up With That,” a blog run by former television meteorologist Anthony Watts that promotes doubt over the existence and causes of climate change. The article ― a diatribe republished from another climate change denier website and written by Kip Hansen, a blogger whose primary concern appears to be challenging New York Times stories about climate change ― suggests, without evidence, that massive coral reef bleaching is a natural phenomenon, and states that the existence of mountains on Guam makes sea level rise unconcerning.
....
Alexander C. Kaufman
Business & Environment Reporter, HuffPost
Chris D’Angelo
Reporter, HuffPost