The Wonk Room

After Inhofe’s Endorsement, Carly Fiorina Challenges Climate Science

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Following the endorsement of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Wednesday for her campaign to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina questioned the science of climate change. Boxer, as the chair of the Senate environment committee, is the chamber’s leading advocate for action to create jobs, make America more energy independent, and cut global warming pollution. Ranking environment committee member Inhofe — “Senator Climate Change Denier” — led a failed boycott of Boxer’s Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733). After news of Inhofe’s endorsement of Fiorina came out, a reporter asked whether she believes in global warming. Fiorina admitted she is skeptical about climate science:

I think we should have the courage to examine the science on an ongoing basis.

Fiorina’s refusal to recognize the science of climate change and her belief that cap and trade legislation “will kill jobs” puts her in opposition to California’s business and political leadership.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), the leader of the California Republican Party, recently noted that California is “already experiencing” the devastating impacts of global warming:

In California, we are already experiencing rising sea levels eroding our coastal infrastructure, reduced snow pack in the Sierra leading to prolonged droughts and more conflict over water, drier forests suffering more frequent and ferocious forest fires, and worsening smog-related public health threats and crop damage. The implications for our state if these trends continue are simply staggering.

Fiorini’s opposition to binding reductions of global warming pollution will make it very difficult to encourage innovation and create jobs, accord to her Silicon Valley neighbor, venture capitalist John Doerr, who testified in July that the United States “must put a price on carbon and a cap on carbon emissions” because “no long-term signal means no serious innovation at scale, which means fewer new American success stories.”

On the same day he endorsed Fiorina, Inhofe “proudly” declared in a speech on the Senate floor that 2009 is “the Year of the Skeptic.”

Inhofe Orchestrates Shameless Boycott Of Clean Energy Jobs Act »

Our guest blogger is Josh Nelson, publisher of EnviroKnow.com.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the most prominent climate change denier in the United States Senate, has concocted a new and innovative strategy to thwart the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). To wit, he and his Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee have worked up a plan to simply not show up for this week’s markup:

But Boxer cannot hold the markup unless at least two Republicans show up, and EPW ranking member James Inhofe (R-OK) signaled that he has unanimous support among the panel’s minority members to boycott the session until they get more data on the legislation from U.S. EPA and the Congressional Budget Office.

Late Friday, Inhofe spokesman Matt Dempsey announced “Republicans will be forced not to show up” at the markup hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Sadly, this is a continuation of the GOP’s longstanding strategy of delaying clean energy legislation:

– As Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) shepherded his American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) through the House Energy and Commerce Committee this June, committee ranking member Joe Barton (R-TX) employed multiple parliamentary tricks to “nitpick the bill into legislative oblivion.” Democrats responded to these “nefarious stall tactics” by calling Barton’s bluff, even hiring a speed reader.

– House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) filibustered the final vote on the ACES Act for hours by reading the text of the bill on the House floor.

– Last year during the debate over the Climate Security Act, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) demanded that the entire 491 page bill be read on the floor of the United States Senate. A strategy memo was leaked at the time detailing the Republican strategy for delaying the bill as much as humanly possible.

While this Republican obstructionism is not necessarily surprising, it is especially egregious this time. Here are a few things about this episode that struck me: More »« Less

Who’s Who On The EPW: Senate Committee Begins Landmark Climate Hearings »

This week, hearings begin in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733). This comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), will establish a mandatory global warming pollution reduction market that will fund clean energy and climate adaptation, as well as establish new renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. The 19 members of the committee — 12 Democrats and 7 Republicans — are overseeing a three-day marathon of legislative hearings this week, starting with Administration witnesses today.

The committee members can be sorted by their degree of support for clean energy, progressive reform, and strong climate action:

– STRONGEST ACTION: Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
– STRONG ACTION: Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Tom Udall (D-CO)
– CENTRIST: Max Baucus (D-MT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Arlen Specter (D-PA)
– ANTI: Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mike Crapo (R-ID), George Voinovich (R-OH)
– EXTREME ANTI: John Barrasso (R-WY), Kit Bond (R-MO), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), David Vitter (R-LA)

Below is the Wonk Room’s summary of some key issues that will be debated at the hearings, ranging from support for policies to ensure a clean energy future to favored attacks on any action by the Republican members.

CLEAN FUTURE

CLEAN AIR: “We must act to reduce black carbon,” Carper says, “a dangerous pollutant emitted by old, dirty diesel engines like those in some school buses and thought to be the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.” “Among my top priorities was to be sure that we not only address challenges that carbon dioxide poses to our planet, but sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide and mercury.”

COAL PLANT GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATION: Kerry-Boxer follows Gillibrand’s call that “the EPA has to have authority to regulate coal plants under the Clean Air Act.” Baucus opposes the retention of this authority.

EMISSIONS LIMITS: As Sens. Cardin, Lautenberg, Merkley, Sanders, Whitehouse requested, the 2020 target for greenhouse pollution reductions has been strengthened to 20 percent below 2005 levels, instead of Waxman-Markey’s 17 percent target. Baucus has criticized the stronger targets.

GREEN TRANSPORTATION: Kerry-Boxer includes Sen. Carper’s push for green transportation, devoting “a guaranteed share of revenues from carbon regulation to transit, bike paths, and other green modes of transport.” The SmartWay Transportation Efficiency Program is modeled on the Clean, Low-Emission, Affordable, New Transportation Efficiency Act (S. 575 / H.R. 1329), co-sponsored by Sens. Specter, Merkley, Lautenberg, and Cardin.

NATURAL RESOURCE ADAPTATION: Whitehouse and Baucus have submitted language to support efforts for natural resource adaptation.

INDUSTRY

More »« Less

Obama: ‘It’s Hard To Say’ Why Critics Of Clean Energy Accuse Him Of Socialism

This afternoon at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President Barack Obama challenged the nation to explore the “new frontiers” of the “clean energy economy of tomorrow.” He praised Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for working on legislation to make our energy system “more efficient, far cleaner, and provide energy independence for America.” But Obama challenged critics “whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action,” saying the status quo “endangers our prosperity” and the “only purpose” of those who question climate science “is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary”:

The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. But I think it’s important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we’ll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we’re engaged in. There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy — when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs. There are going to be those who cynically claim — make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary. So we’re going to have to work on those folks.

Following the speech, the Wonk Room asked President Obama why such critics accuse the president of socialism. Obama replied:

You know, it’s hard to say. Maybe if you have an answer to that, you’ll let me know.

Watch it:

Among the critics of President Obama’s clean energy agenda who say it will destroy the economy are Glenn Beck, Marc Morano, Fox News, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and even Democratic candidate for the governor of Virginia, Creigh Deeds. Beck believes the White House energy and environment adviser Carol Browner is a socialist. Morano, Inhofe’s former blogger, argued limits on global warming pollution is the “biggest threat to freedom” at the Accuracy in Media conference today. Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer calls the regulation “cap and tax.” Inhofe warns of a “global tax” from the United Nations. And Deeds is now running ads claiming the “cap and trade bill” would “hurt the people” of Virginia.

The reason Obama’s critics accuse him of socialism is because, for reasons of “interest or ideology,” they support a system of economic inequity based on an unsustainable fossil-fuel economy. The current system has reaped great rewards for the ultra-wealthy and the industrial polluters at the expense of the health and welfare of their fellow Americans. To avoid blame for their malfeasance, they must paint Obama as the villain, and his essential reform agenda as even scarier than the status quo, with language that taps into the darkest fears of the American public.

FLASHBACK: In Bush Era, Inhofe Decried ‘Chilling Effect’ Of Probing White House ‘Regardless Of Administration’ »

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who attacked investigations into the years of interference on global warming regulation by the Bush White House, is now calling for probes into Obama’s “Presidential czars” who are taking action. Yesterday, Inhofe, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson “requesting specific information about White House Coordinator of Climate and Energy Policy Carol Browner, and how her office has exercised authority over the Environmental Protection Agency.”

This champion of “transparency,” however, attacked an investigation into the White House’s interference with the EPA last year, saying that “regardless of Administration, the President acting through the entire executive branch is fully entitled to express his policy judgments to the EPA Administrator”:

Instead we are here to politicize the internal deliberative process of the Administration under the guise of an update on the science of global warming hearing. While I welcome the opportunity to discuss the latest science on global warming, doing it in this heavily political setting with a predetermined outcome focused on internal deliberations of the Executive is not the right venue for such discussion. It is my view that regardless of Administration, the President acting through the entire executive branch is fully entitled to express his policy judgments to the EPA Administrator, and to expect his subordinate to carry out the judgment of what the law requires and permits. It can be argued that the “unitary Executive concept” promotes more effective rulemaking by bringing a broader perspective to bear on important regulatory decisions. . . .

Therefore, I consider this debate over censorship within the Administration to be a nonissue. All administrations edit testimony and all documents go through interagency review before any final agency action. I cannot support any investigations that could have a chilling effect within the deliberative process of the Administration, and cause future career and political employees from refraining from an open and honest dialogue.

By some strange miracle, Inhofe has had a complete change of heart on the inviolability of the “unitary executive” during the Obama presidency. In yesterday’s letter, Inhofe requests “all correspondence and records” from “all meetings, discussions and conversations between EPA and Carol Browner,” which “includes but is not limited to the following: letters and other written communications, electronic communications, phone records, meeting notes, documents prepared to summarize meetings and agendas, meeting dates, including attendees of listed meetings, and transcripts and notes from stakeholder briefings.”

In June, Inhofe even supported a criminal investigation into whether the EPA was “suppressing science.” Inhofe’s newfound love for transparency in the executive branch stands in utter contradiction to his professed outrage last year: More »« Less

GE’s Right-Wing Media Hosts Jim Inhofe: CO2 Is Not A ‘Real Pollutant’ »

Appearing on General Electric’s conservative-skewing business network, CBNC, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) argued that carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, is not a “real pollutant.” In an interview with right-wing economist Larry Kudlow on Thursday, Inhofe repeated lies about the cost of climate legislation. Kudlow, praising Inhofe for telling Americans about this “very scary story,” attacked the prospect of global warming regulation as a “backdoor energy tax” that “can drive stocks into the ground.” Inhofe claimed that President Obama wants to “intimidate Congress” into passing “$300 to $400 billion a year” in taxes, so that the American people will blame Congress instead of him:

The reason why I don’t think they’ll try to do that through regulation is because certainly this president, President Obama knows that once the American people find out that they’re going to pay about $2,000 a year in taxes for something that doesn’t do anything, there’s going to be an outrage. And they want to be able to say, “Oh, no, that was Congress that did it.” My feeling is they’re using this for intimidation purposes and they’re going to try to intimidate Congress to do this.

Watch it:

CNBC’s promotion of right-wing fantasies originating from polluter-funded think tanks and conservative bloggers is nothing new. Energy and media multinational General Electric is often portrayed as a climate-friendly corporation which influences American politics to the left, primarily because of the presence of Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s afternoon programming. On Fox News, Glenn Beck rants that GE is going to get “all kinds of contracts from the government on green energy” because it is “in bed with Obama.” The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Steve Milloy claims the new Kerry-Boxer clean-energy jobs act is larded with “payoffs to GE.” Bill O’Reilly claims GE “is also pushing for the proposed cap-and-trade program” and “using its power and the airwaves to influence politics” so that it can “reap billions of dollars if the Feds OK the carbon deal.”

Not only does GE attack climate action through its CNBC network, it also supports several national lobbying campaigns against clean-energy legislation, through its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (GE Energy), the American Petroleum Institute (GE Oil & Gas), and the National Association of Manufacturers (GE Enterprise Solutions). Unlike GE, companies such as Duke Energy have abandoned NAM and ACCCE for their retrograde position on climate change.

Transcript: More »« Less

Inhofe Calls For Criminal Investigation Into Why EPA ‘Suppressed’ A Global Warming Denier

This morning, Fox News Channel’s Gregg Jarrett introduced a “very big story” that the Environmental Protection Agency “intentionally buried a study challenging some of Uncle Sam’s global warming research.” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) claimed the report, written by economist Alan Carlin of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics, vindicates his belief that man-made global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”:

The thing is phony. I feel so good about being redeemed after all of these years, because they have been throwing this thing in my face since 1998 when we realized that all of those scientists that Al Gore had lined up — and I’m talking about Claude Allegre in France, David Bellamy in UK, and Nir Shaviv in Israel — all of them used to be on his side. They all said, “Wait a minute, this science is not right.” That’s exactly what Allen Carlin said. We’ve already started a investigation.

Watch it:

When asked if there should be a criminal investigation, Inhofe replied, “There could be and there probably should be.” Continuing his attack, he claimed that the EPA “have been suppressing science and coming out with what they want people to say. You might remember — I talked to you about it on this station. When I first realized that this thing was a hoax and I made the statement that the notion that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2 cause global warming, it is probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated.”

In reality, what Fox News, Inhofe, and right-wing bloggers are promoting as a suppressed EPA report is nothing of the kind. Carlin’s paper, released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (”CO2: they call it pollution, we call it Life“), is a hodgepodge of widely discredited pseudoscience. Carlin was given permission by the NCEE to cobble the paper together even though he is not a climate researcher, and “the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists.”

The Carlin document cites the usual array of global warming deniers, including Joe D’Aleo, Don Easterbrook, William Gray, Christopher Monckton, Fred Singer, and Roy Spencer — all of whom worked with Sen. Inhofe’s former aide Marc Morano to disseminate denials of climate science. Carlin’s references come from denier blogs such as ICECAP.us and Watts Up With That, as well as publications from the Heartland Institute, the Science & Environmental Policy Project, and the Friends of Science Society, all conservative front groups. RealClimate’s Gavin Schmidt summarizes the paper as “a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at.”

Similarly, although the 76-year-old botanist David Bellamy, 72-year-old geochemist Claude Allegre, and 32-year-old astrophysicist Nir Shaviv publicly question man-made global warming, they represent a steadily dwindling number of scientists, few of any of which actively study climate change, that argue fossil fuel emissions are not warming the planet.

What’s really shocking, however, is that “the CEI press release was reported with a more or less straight face by at least two media outlets, CBS News and New York Times Greenwire, without any questioning of CEI’s own motivations or role in the affair.” Both stories show the effect of the collapsing of the mainstream media industry — the CBS story is crossposted by CNet.com reporter Declan McCullagh, the libertarian who fabricated the “Al Gore invented the Internet” story. And the New York Times story is crossposted from E&E News, an independent subscription news service.

Climate Depot Alert! Global Warming Denier Marc Morano Sets Up Shop! Now With Crazier Formatting! »

The Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a toxic pollution front group founded by the Richard Mellon Scaife fortune, recently hired Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) climate denier guru, Marc Morano, to set up shop at ClimateDepot.com. Morano’s slanderous Senate releases were notorious for their enthusiastic formatting. Thanks to DeSmogBlog, the Wonk Room has received his pitch to the media as an “anti-Gore Global Warming Expert,” seemingly qualified by his ability to creatively use the toolbar on his word-processing software:

Here’s your counter guest debater to Al Gore and Global Warming Climate change disinformation plus how Obama’s Policies are affecting our economy.

For your on-air expert contributor talent files: Credentialed “Counter Guest” to popular global warming ideology: Here’s your anti-Gore Global Warming Expert who offers the science to counteract partisan and ideologically driven Environmental entities and issues.

Yes, that’s right, if you have as little respect for aesthetics and the rules of grammar as you do for science, you can get your very own “counter guest” for a “lively, fair and balanced discussion” about flat-earth lunacy. Roll Call TV was his trial run last week, to the great excitement of Morano joker Noel Sheppard.

Morano’s new site, Climate Depot, “aims to redefine global warming reporting,” by attacking professional science journalists like “ABC’s Bill Blakemore, the Associated Press’ Seth Borenstein, Newsweek’s Sharon Begley, CBS’s Scott Pelley, NBC’s Anne Thompson” as lackeys of Al Gore and praising Sen. Jim “Hoax” Inhofe as “Churchillian.” Climate Depot is sure to fit seamlessly into Morano’s alternate-reality right-wing universe of Newsbusters, the Drudge Report, and Glenn Beck.

Full release: More »« Less

After His Climate Denial Machine Is Exposed, Marc Morano Will Leave Senate Post

Marc Morano

A top aide for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be leaving his Senate post after a Wonk Room investigation revealed how he coordinates the right-wing climate denial machine. Marc Morano, Inhofe’s environmental communications director, joined the Senate in 2006 to promote Sen. Inhofe’s denial of manmade global warming via the Drudge Report and other right-wing outlets. E&E News reports that Morano will return to the conservative media network as a blogger for Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT):

Marc Morano, the spokesman for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.), will leave the committee later this month to become executive director and chief correspondent for a fledgling Web site that will serve as a “clearinghouse and one-stop shopping” for climate and environmental news.

Morano joined the Senate, with a $134,000 a year salary, from the rightwing website Cybercast News Service (CNS), where he launched the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in 2004 and attacked the war record of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) in 2006. Morano was Rush Limbaugh’s “Man in Washington” in the 1990s. Limbaugh, of course, still promotes global warming denial.

Both CNS — a subsidiary of Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center — and CFACT are part of the Scaife network of conservative front groups, supported by the Richard Mellon Scaife family fortune and corporations like Exxon Mobil. CFACT and the Media Research Center are co-sponsors of the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change, a global warming denier extravaganza that begins Sunday, March 8.

Inhofe Staffer Marc Morano On Deadly Snow Storm: ‘HA! HA! HA!’ »

Last night, Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) office responded to forecasts of a dangerous storm with mockery. A winter storm sweeping up the East Coast with rain, snow, and ice has caused 350 car crashes in New Jersey, a 15-mile-long traffic jam in North Carolina, and four deaths from car accidents in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Long Island. Hundreds of thousands of households lost power from Georgia to Maine. Marc Morano, Sen. Inhofe’s environmental communications director, mocked the threat of the storm by pointing out it would take place at the same time as a protest of fossil-fueled global warming in Washington D.C.:

BREAKING: Not again! Big DC Snowstorm to Greet ‘Largest public protest of global warming ever in U.S.!’ – Unseasonably Cold March Temps! [Note: All I (Marc Morano) can say is: HA! HA! HA! - The ‘Gore Effect’ Strikes again – this time it impacts NASA’s James Hansen! See also: GORE HEARING ON WARMING MAY BE PUT ON ICE – Jan. 26, 2009 ]

Spurred by his email blast and pumped by Drudge, the conservative blogosphere went into a tizzy that the East Coast has a snowstorm in the beginning of March:

Drudge Report: “‘Largest public protest of global warming’ ever in USA faces DC March snowstorm!”

Stop the ACLU: “As usual, great timing by the Climahysterics.”

Gateway Pundit: “The global warming religionists have been planning this protest in Washington DC for months. They’ve billed it as the largest public protest of global warming in the United States ever. Today, Mother Nature greeted the junk science enthusiasts with a record storm and a foot of snow.”

Watts Up With That reprinted part of Morano’s email and writes: “It seems like the Climate Crew has had some trouble getting their messages across.”

In addition, The Politico’s Glenn Thrush blogged:

John Bresnahan correctly points out that it seems that a disproportionate number of GW events coincide with winter storms (and no, we’re not going to provide other examples).

The Politico has run with this line of argument before — in print. The Wonk Room checked with Bresnahan, a veteran reporter, and he explained in an e-mail that it was “a joke” that “was never meant to be posted.” He continues:

As someone who wrote his first story on global warming and climate change while a reporter for the newsletter “Clean Air Report” back in 1993, I have no doubt that global climate change is occurring, it is anthropogenic in source, and the US gov’t, as well as other industrialized nations and India/China, need to take action to reduce/combat it asap.

Bresnahan followed up in a phone call with another joke (we hope!): “Glenn Thrush’s days are numbered.”

(HT: Hall of Record)

Marc Morano’s full email: More »« Less

How Drudge Pumps The Marc Morano Jokers

Recently, the Wonk Room unmasked the fifty-two men who work with Marc Morano, the environmental communications director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), to obfuscate the threat and deny the scientific consensus of man-made global warming. This core network of conspiracy theorists and right-wing media operatives generate stories for broadcast by the conservative media network, from Glenn Beck to George Will. But one other man is especially responsible for getting their work out — Matt Drudge. Drudge is a masterful editor, countering real headlines of the climate crisis with tales of “global cooling” and scientific skepticism.

As it turns out, practically every single one the Drudge Report’s headlines of climate misinformation uses a story constructed by Morano’s minions, as the following review of recent Drudge Report headlines reveals:

Every single member of this deck of jokers was involved in the creation and dissemination of Marc Morano’s magnus opus, a sprawling PDF headlined “UN Blowback: More Than 650 Scientists Dissent Over Warming Claims,” released December 10, 2008. And so it appeared on the Drudge Report that very day:

REVEALED: Marc Morano’s Pack Of Climate Denial Jokers

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:

– 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

Inhofe And Fox News Anchor Bumble Through ‘Socialist Czar’ Talking Points »

This morning, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly balefully intoned that Carol Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s selection as his White House climate adviser, was “a leader of a socialist group.” As banners blared “BROWNER BELONGED TO SOCIALIST GROUP SEEKING ‘GLOBAL GOVERNANCE’” and “SOCIALIST TIES,” Kelly interviewed inveterate climate denier Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who called Browner “pretty extremist” and wondered:

Where do you draw the line between an extreme liberal and a socialist?

Watch it:

The reality is, as the Wonk Room previously reported, that Browner was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society (CSWS), a climate change policy working group established in 2007 by Socialist International (SI), a global coalition of left-leaning political parties. The commission involves top officials and political leaders from democratic allies of the United States, including Great Britain, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Mexico, India, and Brazil. In a typical overreach to sell their talking points, Kelly and Inhofe demonstrated a shoddy understanding of reality: More »« Less