Tag: DeSmog

Roger Pielke Jr.: Guilty as Charged (DeSmog backfires again)

Desmog Blog continues to profile climate and energy realists as if their views (against climate exaggeration and magical energy policy) were prima facie proof of wrongdoing.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

Desmog Blog continues to profile climate and energy realists as if their views (against climate exaggeration and magical energy policy) were prima facie proof of wrongdoing. MasterResource has documented many Desmog backfires where the evidence presented would be pretty much accepted by the targeted person–and most folks outside of the Climate Industrial Complex (including academics wed to ‘the cause’).

Not surprisingly, the DeSmog hit list has expanded to suggest a majority. The waiting list for inclusion is huge. I have suggested that many more be profiled as a badge of honor, of courage.

Here is the latest: a repeat on Roger Pilke Jr. that presents his legitimate, common-sense views. The open-minded alarmist is invited to follow Pielke’s empirically derived research to cure “climate anxiety,” in fact.

DeSmog begins:

Roger Pielke Jr. is a climate science policy writer who formerly worked at the University of Colorado Boulder before leaving academia in 2024 to join the American Enterprise Institute as a nonresident senior fellow. According to his bibliographic notes, he started studying extreme weather and climate in 1991 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. He discusses his views on climate policy in the book The Climate Fix.

While Pielke Jr. argues that he is not a climate change skeptic, and accepts that man-made climate change is a real problem, he has consistently opposed the idea that extreme weather events and climate change are connected, calling the latter “zombie science.” Critics have noted that Pielke Jr.’s work has often been cited by climate crisis deniers. Pielke’s father, Roger A. Pielke Sr., is also an outspoken critic of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Pielke Jr. is a prolific author on blogs including The Least Thing, Roger Pielke Jr, and The Honest Broker.

True, true, true. Now comes the first criticism–by one of the least credible alarmist barkers, Joe Romm (whose low-level scholarship has been repeatedly exposed by Pielke).

Joe Romm at ThinkProgress writes that “the websites that most prominently feature or reprint Pielke’s attacks are climate denial sites like WattsUpWithThat and ClimateDepot.”

Romm describes him as “probably the single most disputed and debunked person in the science blogosphere, especially on the subject of extreme weather and climate change.” Romm also notes that Roger Pielke Jr. was included on Foreign Policy‘s 2010 “Guide to Climate Skeptics” — something that Pielke informed FP that he strongly objected to.11 12

Romm has yet to look in the mirror to review his decades-long history of climate exaggeration and falsified predictions. Pielke relies on data (what has actually happened) instead of climate model projections on what “should” happen. The scientific method applies here in favor of Pielke.

DeSmog’s documentation of Pielke continues with numerous quotations that, once again, would probably elicit a response from him of “so what” or “and” ….

DeSmog is invited to keep expanding their “denier spotlight” list and providing documentation. The truth sometimes works in funny ways.

Appendix: Other DeSmog posts at MasterResource:

DeSmog Backfires Again (fundraising help for ‘skeptic’ organizations?)

DeSmog published an investigative piece (described as an “exposé”) on the Heartland Institute’s growing success and influence, particularly its new UK/Europe branch and connections to figures like Nigel Farage and policymakers in countries such as Austria, Poland, and Germany.

A large crowd gathered under a huge screen displaying a stern face, with the text 'ENJOY YOUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH WHILE YOU STILL CAN' prominently featured.

DeSmog published an investigative piece (described as an “exposé”) on the Heartland Institute’s growing success and influence, particularly its new UK/Europe branch and connections to figures like Nigel Farage and policymakers in countries such as Austria, Poland, and Germany.

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A portrait of a historical figure, wearing a suit and holding a hat, raised in a gesture of defiance against a vibrant green background.

From The Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

Logo featuring the word 'HEARTLAND' with iconic European landmarks in silhouette, along with a green leaf, and the text 'UK/EUROPE' below.

Ed. Note: The previous successes of the Heartland Institute in the EU/UK have been chronicled here and here. This post provides the latest DeSmog “expose” of Heartland’s successes, which is a fundraising/donation coup for James Taylor, as he explains below.

DeSmog’s investigative hit pieces are backfiring, which should concern financial supporters of this Left Progressive group. The latest example was amplified by James Taylor, head of the Heartland Institute and architect of its climate-related programs in the U.S. and abroad.

“Last week,” his recent fundraising letter went, “one of our loudest critics accidentally told the truth.” Taylor continued:

An activist website called Desmog published an article attempting to attack The Heartland Institute. Instead, it exposed just how far our influence now reaches.  The article maps Heartland’s growing network across the UK and Europe. What was meant as a smear reads more like a progress report, documenting how our ideas are shaping energy and climate debates far beyond the United States. 

He continued:

Heartland has been active in Europe for several years, and last December we formally launched the Heartland UK/Europe branch, led by Lois Perry. That decision strengthened our ability to engage directly with policymakers across the UK and the continent, bringing science and economic realism into debates too often dominated by climate alarmism. This week, I am in London, meeting with key leaders and partners. We are also celebrating the one-year anniversary of Heartland UK/Europe.

The good news? “The conversations taking place here reflect a growing willingness among policymakers to question net-zero mandates and reassess the real costs of extreme climate policies.” Taylor expands:

The article highlights Heartland events featuring leaders such as Nigel Farage, who has spoken at multiple Heartland gatherings, including our 40th Anniversary Benefit Dinner in Chicago and energy forums in London. 

These relationships matter. They position Heartland as a trusted advisor to reform-minded leaders who are pushing back against policies that threaten jobs, families, and energy security. Across Europe, Desmog also maps our engagement with lawmakers in Austria, Poland, and Germany. 
 
The focus of those conversations is straightforward: Affordable energy. Food security. National sovereignty. 

Results!

“That work is already producing results,” Taylor continued:

The European Union recently narrowed and delayed implementation of its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This protects businesses and consumers from sweeping regulations that would have driven up costs and restricted freedom, aligning directly with an open letter that Heartland signed alongside 31 allied organizations.

Taylor ended with a (DeSmog-helped) fundraising request:

This is no longer a domestic fight. It is a global movement. And Heartland is helping lead it. 

If you are able to continue or deepen your support, you are helping ensure Heartland remains on offense, both here and abroad. Your partnership allows us to move quickly when opportunities arise and to respond decisively when critics attempt to silence us…. Thank you for standing with Heartland and for your commitment to freedom.

Previous Backfires

DeSmog’s list of “climate deniers” has become so large that it is taking on the appearance of a growing, majority movement. More many ‘skeptics’ want to be included. Here are some posts on this theme:

And then there are the quotations where the “exposé” makes the target look rationale, even heroic. The “guilty as charged” list follows:

I have had an exchange of note re DeSmog Blog:

And I welcomed DeSmog’s post on me:

Keep them coming, DeSmog….

A stylized portrait of Karl Marx against a red background, with industrial structures in silhouette behind him.

“Who Are the Climate Deniers Fighting the Endangerment Finding?” (the new majority, DeSmog)

The headline reads: “DeSmog has been tracking the efforts of fossil fuel trade associations, policymakers, and industry backed-groups out to demolish U.S. climate policy for years.”

A cartoon eagle character with a superhero cape holding a sign that says 'Save the Planet!', standing in front of industrial buildings and a parked car.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

The headline reads: “DeSmog has been tracking the efforts of fossil fuel trade associations, policymakers, and industry backed-groups out to demolish U.S. climate policy for years.” Yes, and add to that list the hundreds if not thousands of climate and energy realists who challenge climate alarmism and forced energy transformation every hour on different social media platforms, such as on Facebook and LinkedIn (I being one of them).

Author Geoff Dembicki lists the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Project 2025, Heartland Institute, the “Koch Network,” and “Trump’s Climate Working Group.” That’s a start, but what about the nearly 1,000 “climate deniers” listed in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database?

Perhaps it would be more efficient and better to instead list all of the climate alarmist organizations and magical thinking energy groups. They are shrinking. There is an emerging majority, growing by the day. Political correctness is out; economic realism is in, after all.

How about me? DeSmog has not included me in the above, despite my direct request. Surely my decades of work on energy and climate realism–and pushback on crony Enron (a solar and wind savior in the U.S.)– qualifies me. Get busy, DeSmog!

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Other DeSmog posts at MasterResource:

Heartland UK/Europe: More Progress! (DeSmog confirms again)

MasterResource has posted on the success of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute in the UK/EU fight for energy/climate realism and social justice. DeSmog just provided an update that should be very encouraging to Heartland and its supporters.

From Watts Up With That?

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“For the Heartland Institute and its supporters, DeSmog’s reporting serves as a ringing endorsement of their effectiveness. Even in the UK, the exaggerated arguments for the green scam are being revealed.”

MasterResource has posted on the success of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute in the UK/EU fight for energy/climate realism and social justice. DeSmog just provided an update that should be very encouraging to Heartland and its supporters.

In “Nigel Farage to Headline Tufton Street Climate Denial Event” (June 18, 2025), authors Adam Barnett and Sam Bright report:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is set to speak at an event today organised by a pro-Trump think tank and held in the home of the UK’s main climate science denial group.

Farage, whose party campaigns to scrap the UK’s goal of achieving net zero emissions, is the star speaker at the event, described as a “ground-breaking conversation about climate policy….”

Authors Adam Barnett and Sam Bright continued in their report, self-described as a ‘reveal’.

The event has been convened by the UK-EU branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. group that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. It is being hosted in 55 Tufton Street, the home of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims – like Farage – that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

True, CO2 is not a pollutant. Not so true on anthropogenic climate change, which skeptics of climate alarm note has beneficial features.

Lois Perry, Heartland’s head on the UK/EU side, shot back against critics, as quoted in the DeSmog piece:

The fact that Professor Prins is associated with the GWPF, and that our event is held at 55 Tufton Street, should be seen as a badge of honour – it signifies a hub of independent thought brave enough to challenge a catastrophic group think…. Heartland is proud to be supported by private citizens who believe in intellectual freedom. [Net Zero] is proving economically ruinous for ordinary British families, damaging to our industrial base, and a direct threat to our national energy security.

Bravo!

The authors try to minimize the effect of Heartland’s push. But in another DeSmog article, How MAGA Lobbying is Undermining EU Climate Rules, author Sam Bright admits to the opposite.

European leaders are bending to the demands of U.S. climate science deniers. “The CSDDD is the greatest threat to America’s sovereignty since the fall of the Soviet Union,” the Heartland Institute, a pro-Trump U.S. think tank, tweeted on 31 March.

Bright describes the foe as follows:

The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading climate science denial groups. … Over recent months – along with a host of other Trump allies – the Heartland Institute has set its sights on a new target: the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The Heartland Institute and its anti-climate, anti-regulation peers are vocal opponents of the law – and launched an aggressive campaign to water it down, or even to see it scrapped entirely.

For the Heartland Institute and its supporters, DeSmog’s reporting serves as a ringing endorsement of their effectiveness. Even in the UK, the exaggerated arguments for the green scam are being revealed. I can conclude this article with the opening paragraph of my earlier post on their international initiative:

Great news! As reported by DeSmog, James Taylor and the Heartland Institute are off to a resounding start with their new offices in the UK/EU. What a return on investment for donors–and reason to attract more philanthropy to help consumers, taxpayers, and a greener environment.

Chris Wright: Guilty as Charged (DeSmog backfires again)

DeSmog’s “Climate Disinformation Database” is so filled with quality and quantity that non-members are itching to join. The thousand or so should be doubled, tripled. Maybe a phone book will be necessary as the political winds shift from stale alarmism to CO2/fossil fuel optimism.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr. 

“The energy and climate dialog is fraught with so many challenges. Let’s not compound the problem by using destructively deceptive terms like climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy. These terms are nonsense. Let’s just be honest.” (- Chris Wright, quoted below)

DeSmog’s “Climate Disinformation Database” is so filled with quality and quantity that non-members are itching to join. The thousand or so should be doubled, tripled. Maybe a phone book will be necessary as the political winds shift from stale alarmism to CO2/fossil fuel optimism.

The latest profile belongs to the new head of the U.S. Department of Energy, Chris Wright, who blew through his confirmation hearings and was confirmed in a bipartisan vote, 59 to 39.

Democrats, not only Republicans and independents, are excited. What a great person! And a great pick! But he needs to shut down and minimize the civilian side of DOE for consumers, taxpayers, and fiscal responsibility.

Here is DeSmog’s “exposé,” really a tribute.

According to Wright, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition.” He has also claimed that “any negative impacts from climate change were clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption.”8

Wright described Bjorn Lomborg, who downplays the climate crisis, as a “friend” and Lomborg’s book as “fantastic” in a 2020 interview.9

The CO2 Coalition, which celebrates carbon dioxide as “essential for life,” approved Wright and mentioned him in their newsletter. 10 11

In an interview with DeSmog, CO2 coalition executive director Gregory Wright commented, “The main thing that he [Wright] and I and the CO2 Coalition agree on is that increasing CO2 is a net benefit, it’s not the demon molecule, it’s the miracle molecule.”12

Alex Epstein, who has described the green movement as “fundamentally an anti-human movement,”13 and has claimed there is no climate emergency, 14 wrote a commentary piece titled “Why I Strongly Support Chris Wright for Secretary of Energy.”15

According to Wright’s LinkedIn account, he has been a board member of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) since January 2007 and also a board member of the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) since the same date.16

PERC and PRI have long been US members of the Atlas Network, and the network still publishes its membership online.17 DeSmog has reported on the Atlas Network’s behind-the-scenes influence on issues such as the vilification of climate activists.18

And these quotations:

““There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.“

“These five terms: climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy are not only deceptive, but they are also in fact destructive deceptions. Destructive because they drive centrist politicians and regulators to oppose life-critical infrastructure like building pipelines and natural gas export terminals.”

“…  any negative impacts from climate change were clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption.“

“We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods, despite endless fear-mongering of the media, politicians and activists. This is not my opinion. This is the facts, as contained in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.”

“Energy transition is another term that has been used to justify policies that deploy large government subsidies and mandates to enrich well-off and connected, while impoverishing everyone else. Yes, I am one of those needlessly enriched by these destructive policies, as increasing barriers to oil and gas production have predictably driven up prices and delivered record profitability in the oil and gas industry. “

“haven’t these trillions of dollars of subsidies over 20 or 30 years driven at least the start of a real energy transition? In short, no. World demand for oil, natural gas, and coal hit all-time records last year.”

“Carbon pollution is the most shameful marketing term that I’ve ever heard….  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas. Confusing these two is frightening kids.”

““Clean energy and dirty energy are two other fact-free, shameless marketing labels….  It would be hard to call wind or solar clean or low environmental impact with a straight face.

“The energy and climate dialog is fraught with so many challenges. Let’s not compound the problem by using destructively deceptive terms like climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy. These terms are nonsense. Let’s just be honest.”

Heartland Institute in the UK/EU: Guilty as Charged! (DeSmog backfire)

Great news! As reported by DeSmog, James Taylor and the Heartland Institute are off to a resounding start with their new offices in the UK/EU. What a return on investment for donors–and reason to attract more philanthropy to help consumers, taxpayers, and a greener environment.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“Heartland’s immediate success in the UK/EU reflects a ready opportunity to dial back climate exaggeration and undo forced energy transformation…. Call it “social justice,” a movement that DeSmog continues to promote (unintendedly) through its truth bombs.”

Great news! As reported by DeSmog, James Taylor and the Heartland Institute are off to a resounding start with their new offices in the UK/EU. What a return on investment for donors–and reason to attract more philanthropy to help consumers, taxpayers, and a greener environment.

As DeSmog previously reported, Heartland last December announced that the new branch would provide “resources to conservative policymakers throughout Europe.” And the early results are in, detailed by Sam Bright and Clare Carlile in “U.S. Climate Denial Group Using Far-Right to Attack EU Green Policies” (January 22, 2025). Excerpts follow:

The pro-Trump Heartland Institute claims it spearheaded opposition to a flagship European nature law.

In a post on its website published on 10 January, the Heartland Institute claimed that it helped to encourage Hungarian lawmakers to withdraw their support for the legislation in March. The Nature Restoration Law, which eventually passed in June, sets targets for restoring degraded ecosystems, habitats, and species across the EU.

The Heartland Institute claims that it was assisted by Austrian Members of European Parliament (MEPs) Harald Vilimsky and Roman Haider, who represent the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and have forged close ties with the institute in recent years. 

Results!

Following several meetings between Vilimsky, Haider, and Heartland Institute president James Taylor, the latter was invited in March to speak in the European Parliament. 

“During the session, Taylor explained why there is no climate crisis according to the best available data, and he warned of the economic, political, and geopolitical suicide that net zero would bring,” the Heartland blog post states. “After the session, Taylor met informally with many of the Hungarian MEPs, continuing the conversation over dinner.”

Csaba Molnar, an MEP for the Hungarian Democratic Coalition, told DeSmog it is “more than plausible” that Hungary withdrew its support for the Nature Restoration Law due to the influence of the Heartland Institute. 

Continuing:

Vilimsky and Haider are vocal opponents of EU climate policies – known as the Green Deal – and have called into question long-established climate science. Vilimsky has called the EU Green Deal “eco totalitarianism” and has claimed its supporters are the “eco Taliban,” while Haider has called the climate crisis “conceited bullshit” ….

The full article should be read. The bad guys and gals do not like Heartland.

Final Comment

Heartland’s project to export intellectual advocacy is still in early days, but its immediate success in the UK/EU reflects a ready opportunity to dial back climate exaggeration and reject forced energy transformation. The elitist Climate Industrial Complex is out of excuses for wasting resources in a false cause. Call it “social justice,” a movement that DeSmog continues to promote (unintendedly) through its truth bombs.

The Cato Institute has a Friedman Prize every other year for the international figure that has done most to advance liberty. With results like this, the responsible figure(s) of the Heartland Institute should be a candidate for the award for their US/UK/EU work on energy and climate.

Earthquakes, Leakage, Expense, Death by Asphyxiation – Is There No Beginning to the Advantages of Carbon Capture?

If carbon capture and storage (CCS) was fracking for gas, it would have been banned years ago. Both processes can cause earth tremors – equivalent to a man falling off a chair in the case of fracking, but potentially much greater with carbon capture. This is because it involves millions of tonnes of pressurised carbon dioxide being pumped into rock cavities possibly compromised by prior drilling holes. Waste water from pressurised oil and gas projects has been known to escape from degraded drill plugs causing geysers 100-foot high. Such a catastrophe on land with millions of tonnes of CO2 waiting to escape is not a good prospect.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

If carbon capture and storage (CCS) was fracking for gas, it would have been banned years ago. Both processes can cause earth tremors – equivalent to a man falling off a chair in the case of fracking, but potentially much greater with carbon capture. This is because it involves millions of tonnes of pressurised carbon dioxide being pumped into rock cavities possibly compromised by prior drilling holes. Waste water from pressurised oil and gas projects has been known to escape from degraded drill plugs causing geysers 100-foot high. Such a catastrophe on land with millions of tonnes of CO2 waiting to escape is not a good prospect. On August 21st, 1986 the sudden high pressure release of magmatic CO2 from the bed of Lake Nyos in Cameroon led to heavier-than-air CO2 suffocating all living beings in the surrounding villages including 1,746 people.

CCS divides a green movement riven with disagreements as its climate crisis grift starts to fall apart in the face of reality. Capturing CO2 and burying it in the ground has been described by one influential green think tank as a “colossal waste of money”. Wasting taxpayers’ money is not something most greens lose sleep over, but they dislike CCS because it allows a role, albeit limited, for future hydrocarbon use. As we recently reported in the Daily Sceptic, the penny has finally dropped in the U.K. that there is no backup to a 2030 renewable energy grid except gas, so the Mad Miliband has authorised a £22 billion CCS black hole. It is a colossal waste of money, but it provides a fig leaf to cover the continued use of hydrocarbons.

If governments in the United States and Europe are going to pump many billions of tonnes of pressurised gas into the substrata beneath our feet heavily pockmarked with thousands of filled drill holes, it might be a good idea to look into the wisdom and safety of this course of action. Such a task cannot be left to mainstream media, although they were quick to run stories of earthquakes and tap water catching fire in the cause of demonising gas fracking (yes really, check it out).

First some geology. Natural gas is found next to oil fields near the surface but it also accumulates at much deeper levels. It is held in place by a layer of sedimentary rock such as limestone or sandstone. In the U.S., the Permian basin runs across west Texas and south western New Mexico and its rich deposits have been drilled for over a hundred years. The area is riddled with hundreds of thousands of drill holes. Location records and safety checks on some of these holes are now non-existent.

In 2016, a group of Penn State researchers observed that when CO2 is stored underground in a process known as geological sequestration “it can find multiple escape pathways due to chemical reactions between CO2, water, rocks and cement from abandoned wells”. There are concerns that CO2 could leak into groundwater drinking aquifers or dissolve into saltwater deposits. As a result, the high acidity saltwater-CO2 can dissolve certain types of rocks as well as cement casing on abandoned wells. There are fears that a plume of CO2-saturated brine could break free to the surface, with presumably millions of tonnes of pressurised gas looking for a chance to follow.

Engineering professor Mary Kang of McGill University claims she has seen “countless instances” of plugged oil wells failing to hold. Cement is no match for earthquakes, heat and time, notes Eric Van Oort, an engineering professor at the University of Texas-Austin. “You have tectonic stresses, high temperatures – things are changing and shifting in the subsurface,” he said. He was of the view that plugged holes may start leaking in the future.

Current plans in the UK are to bury the CO2 under offshore waters. Hence some of the staggering costs involved. But nowhere is safe from the forces of nature and the British Geological Survey recently said that CCS needed to be “vigorously monitored” to provide an assurance of long-term storage integrity. That would be vigorously monitored for the thousands of years it is planned to keep the CO2 underground. Good luck with that one. Regulatory frameworks governing geological CO2 storage are being developed worldwide with issues of leakage and long-term stewardship being addressed. Again, good luck with asking future generations thousands of years hence to keep coughing up £22 billion (note to reader: feel free to invent your own very large figure at this point) to ensure vast quantities of highly pressurised gas are safely stored beneath the surface.

DeSmog was recently topped up with £400,000 from the Left-wing money tree Rowntree Foundation to continue promoting fracking scare stories and its notorious ‘blacklist’ of so-called climate deniers. On October 4th, it reported that a blowout in the Permian basin had created a 100-foot tower of oily water. Drilling and fracking uses millions of gallons of water a day in the area, noted DeSmog. “It’s a ripper,” said Hawk Dunlap, a libertarian candidate for the Railroad Commission. “It could be coming from anywhere and it’s not going to be an easy fix,” he said. DeSmog reports that Dunlap said the region where the geyser erupted has been plagued by earthquakes amid record wastewater production.

DeSmog is all in on the invented climate crisis and a fervent supporter of the political Net Zero fantasy. It obviously hates all hydrocarbon use and has reported on the problems of carbon capture. For its part, mainstream media just sticks with demonising fracking. Donkey nodding politicians in many jurisdictions accept the need for huge quantities of money to be poured down the CCS hole but are obviously uninformed about the risks involved.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

DeSmog: Climate Denier Nigel Farage Took Money from Big Oil, to Campaign for Cheaper Energy

DeSmog’s inference Farage is dancing to the tune of fossil fuel interests is absurd. It’s the other way around. Business people increasingly support Farage because they think Britain is being run by innumerate fools, who are leading the nation to ruin, and are clinging to the hope Farage will bring a return to Thatcher era economic sanity.

Anyone who ever met Nigel Farage in person knows straight away that Farage is not someone who compromises his principles.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Is DeSmog trying to provide reasons for ordinary Britons to vote for Farage?

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

The anti-net zero party has been bankrolled by oil and gas investors, aviation entrepreneurs, and those who reject climate science.

By Adam Barnett and Sam Bright
on Jun 4, 2024 @ 04:35 PDT

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations. 

…

In the past 12 months, Reform has received £200,000 from First Corporate Consultants. The firm is owned by Terence Mordaunt, a director and former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s leading climate science denial group. 

…

“No political party should be taking any money from fossil fuel interests whatsoever,” Caroline Lucas, until recently the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told DeSmog. 

…

Speaking on GB News in August 2021, Farage said that he was “very much an environmentalist” and that he couldn’t “abide things like plastics in our seas, pollution in our rivers.” However, on the issue of climate change, he added: “What annoys me though, is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science.”

…

“The deniers are those who continually gaslight the public into thinking you can stop these powerful natural forces. We must use the energy under our feet, rather than send our money and jobs abroad.”Read more: https://www.desmog.com/2024/06/04/nigel-farage-reform-uk-party-2-3-million-fossil-fuel-interests-climate-deniers-polluters-since-2019-election/

Imagine using anything former Green MP Caroline Lucas has to say as your yardstick for appropriate political conduct, after her censure for misuse of public resources for political fundraising.

DeSmog’s inference Farage is dancing to the tune of fossil fuel interests is absurd. It’s the other way around. Business people increasingly support Farage because they think Britain is being run by innumerate fools, who are leading the nation to ruin, and are clinging to the hope Farage will bring a return to Thatcher era economic sanity.

Anyone who ever met Nigel Farage in person knows straight away that Farage is not someone who compromises his principles.

I once had the privilege of a 20 minute one on one conversation with Nigel Farage. At the time Farage was campaigning hard in the leadup to a London Assembly election. I told him straight out I was leaving Britain, so there was no political advantage to be gained by talking to me. This was before I started writing for WUWT, so other than a few letters to the editor I didn’t have any public profile. But he found what I was saying interesting, so he hung out with me for 20 minutes and talked about politics. Farage is that kind of guy – human being first, politician a distant second.

DeSmog painting fossil fuel interests as universally unscrupulous and greedy is equally ridiculous.

Take Caudrilla Energy. Caudrilla CEO Francis Egan has been trying since 2007 to get a permit to extract the 6.5 billion cubic feet of frackable gas sitting under Lancashire.

Can you imagine hanging in there for 17 years with your business on hold, in the hope that one of the useless bureaucrats and politicians who infest Whitehall will find the guts to sign a piece of paper? Egan is not a young man, he’s near retirement age – he could die of old age before he gets that permit.

Does anyone seriously believe Egan slogged it out for 17 years, campaigning tirelessly to bring affordable energy to the British people, because he’s a greedy fossil fuel entrepreneur? He could easily have taken his skills and experience somewhere they would be appreciated, rather than waiting 17 years for a day which might never come.

Can you imagine how much lower heating bills would be, if some of those billions of cubic feet of natural gas were pushed into Lancashire’s gas network? People might actually be able to turn on their home heating without checking their bank balance first. I’m sure Egan can imagine this, and that this vision of a Britain where energy is affordable is what keeps Egan going – no other explanation makes sense.

DeSmog Blog also pushes the absurd claim that renewable energy is affordable.

People might have once fallen for the cheap renewable falsehood, but even with the far left government funded BBC in the green corner, the days when people in Britain took everything greens say at face value went up in flames along with their retirement savings, after prices went crazy following the Russian gas embargo.

If Caudrilla had been allowed to ramp up to full production a decade ago, if Britain was fully energy independent thanks to abundant supplies from local fracking, the Russian gas embargo would have had no impact on domestic British energy prices.

Farage’s Reform UK is the party with a rational plan to make Britain great again, by using fossil fuel windfall revenues to lower everyone elses taxes, and by flooding Britain’s gas network with affordable British energy, rather than exposing Britain to the uncertainties and high prices of the global energy market. No other mainstream British political party has a credible plan for achieving this. Perhaps we should thank DeSmog Blog for helping to publicise why a vote for Reform is a vote for lower home heating bills and better job prospects.

Update (EW): A lot of discussion on this article is about whether I should have pictured Farage next to a “convicted felon”. Judge Merchan has just sent a letter to trial participants which suggests at least one juror in the Trump hush money case might have been breaking the rules and acting in bad faith. This week could see some interesting developments.

DeSmog on IEA-UK: Guilty as Charged!

DeSmog’s enemies list has grown so long and distinguished that it refutes its “hit-piece” mission. Fact is, there is a vast scientifically literate middle that exposes the flawed case for climate catastrophism and forced energy transformation.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“Great work, Institute for Economic Affairs! May the honor of being on DeSmog’s hit list raise awareness of your noble mission and attract new donors.”

DeSmog’s enemies list has grown so long and distinguished that it refutes its “hit-piece” mission. Fact is, there is a vast scientifically literate middle that exposes the flawed case for climate catastrophism and forced energy transformation.

My DeSmog’s 1,000: A Badge of Honor congratulated the army of truth-seekers, while noting that many deserving individuals and groups remain. (Our Mark Krebs and Kassie Andrews are just two–all can apply.) [1]

Here are some rebuttals that mostly reprint what DeSmog has to say about its enemies as correct–and even heroic against the termite aspirations of the governmental Climate Industrial Complex.

In alphabetical order:

Robert Bryce (April 28, 2020)

John Christy (February 5, 2019)

Derrick Hollie (February 13, 2019)

Steven Koonin (December 7, 2022)

Isaac Orr (October 21, 2019)

Vaclav Smil (April 28, 2022)

and myself: Robert L. Bradley Jr. (March 7, 2018)

The latest from DeSmog, IEA Think Tank Contributes to Climate Science Denial Documentary, by Sam Bright (April 5, 2024), mentions a lot of good analysis and conclusions from the Institute for Economic Affairs (London). The quotations below speak for themselves, leaving out the ad hominem and guilt-by-association paragraphs that assert rather than debate. [My reactions are in bold.]

In the documentary [Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth], [IEA’s Stephen] Davies claims that climate activists want to impose an “austere” life on ordinary people. “Behind all the talk about a climate emergency, climate crisis” is “an animus and hostility towards” working-class people, “their lifestyle, their beliefs and a desire to change it by force if necessary,” he says. [Correct] …

The film suggests that we shouldn’t be worried about greenhouse gas emissions, because plants need carbon dioxide. “We’re in a CO2 famine,” one interviewee claims. [True]

Climate The Movie producer Thomas Nelson told DeSmog that “I see the misguided fight against carbon dioxide as being as crazy as fighting against oxygen or water vapour, and I think scaring innocent children about this is deeply evil”. [True … and fantastic]

The IEA has extensive influence in politics and the media. It was pivotal to Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership as prime minister, and has boasted of its access to Conservative ministers and MPs. During the year ending March 2023, the IEA appeared in the media on 5,265 occasions, a figure 43 percent higher than its previous peak in 2019. [Bloody Good!]

The group has also received donations from a number of philanthropic trusts accused of channelling funds from the fossil fuel industry and helping to support climate science denial groups. The IEA is a member of the Atlas Network – an international collaboration of “extreme” free market groups that have been accused of promoting the interests of fossil fuel companies and other large corporations. [True … good going]

The IEA is a prominent supporter of the continued and extended use of fossil fuels. The group has advocated for the ban to be lifted on fracking for shale gas, calling it the “moral and economic choice”. The IEA has also said that a ban on new North Sea oil and gas would be “madness,” has criticised the windfall tax imposed on North Sea oil and gas firms, and said that the government’s commitment to “max out” the UK’s fossil fuel reserves is a “welcome step”. [Correct!]

“Clearly the IEA is now ramping up its climate culture war and the Conservative Party has been following suit. The cross-party consensus on climate action we used to have in Parliament is under strain like never before.” [True … great deliverable]

During the documentary, Davies suggests that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is being used to limit the freedom of individuals. He claims that climate activists want to impose “a much more austere simple kind of lifestyle” on people “in which the consumption choices of the great bulk of the population are controlled or even prohibited.” [True]

Davies adds that: “What you have here is a classic example of class hypocrisy and self-interest masquerading as public spirited concern. You could take these kinds of green socialists more seriously if they lived off grid, they cut their own consumption down to the minimum, they never flew. Instead you get constant talk about how human consumption is destroying the planet but the people making all this talk show absolutely no signs of reducing their own.” [True]

The documentary also features an interview with Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – the UK’s leading climate science denial group. Peiser has previously claimed that it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis,” while the GWPF has expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mischaracterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet.” [Sound] …

The documentary also features Claire Fox, a member of the House of Lords who was nominated for a peerage by former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020. Fox used the documentary to claim that, by tackling climate change, people will be forced to pay more “to simply live the lives that they were leading.” She suggests that supporters of climate action are trying to “take away what we consider to be not luxuries but necessities.” [True]

The brochure also lists the IEA’s chief operating officer Andy Mayer, who has said that the government should “get rid of” its target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which he called a “very hard left, socialist, central-planning model.” [Correct]

Great work, Institute for Economic Affairs! May the honor of being on DeSmog’s hit list raise awareness of your noble mission and attract new donations.”

[1] To be considered for DeSmog’s “Climate Disinformation Database,” contact them here.

Online Rag Funded by Green Billionaires Peddles Cheap Smear About Tory MP and Shoots Itself in Foot

Hold the front page! DeSmog reports that the U.K.’s Energy and Net Zero Minister Claire Coutinho has taken a donation from a “climate science denial funder”. Lord Michael Hintze is alleged to have given £2,000 to the minister’s local constituency – a sum that should keep local volunteers supplied with paper clips and instant coffee for a short while.

Net Zero Minister Claire Coutinho 

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Hold the front page! DeSmog reports that the U.K.’s Energy and Net Zero Minister Claire Coutinho has taken a donation from a “climate science denial funder”. Lord Michael Hintze is alleged to have given £2,000 to the minister’s local constituency – a sum that should keep local volunteers supplied with paper clips and instant coffee for a short while. A pathetic smear, of course, simply blowing imaginary smoke where no fire exists. The donation is legal and without such local fund-raising political parties would cease to exist. But curiously missing from DeSmog’s reportage is any note of its own funding where, needless to say, the usual list of green billionaires are to be found.

DeSmog is an unpleasant operation noted for running a ‘blacklist’ of scientists who stick to the scientific method and discuss the causes of climate change with reference to empirical evidence. Called the ‘Climate Disinformation Database’, it lists many of the scientists who dispute the notion that humans control the climate thermostat and society must de-industrialise around a collectivist Net Zero agenda to avoid thermageddon. As part of a global political campaign, billionaire foundations are currently pouring hundreds of millions of dollars every year into organisations that can lobby for ‘green’ causes, as the Daily Sceptic has noted in a number of previous articles. Unsurprisingly, DeSmog is funded by some of these sources that seek to exert influence in all forms of media, politics and academia..

DeSmog is “predominantly” funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation, the Climate Emergency Collaboration and the Minor Foundation. Interestingly, the Board of Directors of DeSmog includes a representative from ClientEarth, a fund supported by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and the European Climate Foundation (ECF), both groups heavily funded by Extinction Rebellion paymaster Sir Christopher Hohn. Also listed in this group is the Grantham Foundation, a green billionaire fund known for pumping money into British universities. This latter operation also helps fund the Imperial College-based World Weather Attribution which uses computer models to state with unassailable conviction that humans cause individual weather events. Another board director works for Climate Outreach, a lawfare outfit funded by ECF, along with IKEA and Joseph Rowntree. Sitting on a research advisory board of Climate Outreach is Saffron O’Neill, a geography lecturer from Exeter University who in the past has speculated on the need for “fines and imprisonment” for those heretics expressing scepticism about what she calls “well supported” science.

If all of this was oil money, we would never hear the end of it from the Guardian – $12 million from Bill Gates over the last decade and counting – as noted by the investigative journalist Ben Pile. “But climate change is a fig leaf,” he continues. “It allows corporate, big business and billionaire lobbying to go unchecked, despite the obvious consequences for democratic control of policymaking.”

Recently, DeSmog teamed up with the Guardian to state that 16 of the 31 presenters at the fast-growing GB News channel “attacked” U.K. climate policies including the Net Zero 2050 target. The Guardian reported that 10 of the presenters made statements rejecting or challenging “widely accepted scientific findings” about how humans are affecting the climate and the role the climate crisis plays in extreme weather events.

Neil Oliver, whose Saturday evening monologue is a social media hit, was singled out for criticism. In December 2022, he is said to have asserted that polar bears are “doing fine”, and the ice in Antarctica is getting thicker every year. In fact, polar bears are doing fine with surveys suggesting their numbers are at recent highs. Meanwhile, a paper in Nature noted that over the last seven decades, the Antarctica sea ice area has “modestly expanded”, and warming has been “nearly non-existent”. Terminally silly Brighton green MP Caroline Lucas noted the “truly toxic misinformation” on GB News, adding: “Ofcom cannot allow these statements to go unchallenged and un-investigated.”

Both GB News and the rival Murdoch-owned TalkTV allow journalists to discuss and consider all the facts and opinions surrounding climate change and Net Zero. But care needs to be taken with Ofcom. Any loon can talk about ‘global boiling’ and ‘climate collapse’ on the BBC and nobody bats an eyelid. But Ofcom seems to require ‘balance’ whenever anyone departs from the set text. For some inexplicable reason, no ‘settled’ climate science practitioners will debate their findings in public with critical interviewers, so both GB News and TalkTV are reduced to ‘balancing’ their coverage by platforming Armageddon hysterics.

Ben Pile has had practical experience of appearing on the 10 minute ‘debate’ slots and observes that over the last year he has appeared with a grown man wearing dungarees and plaits in his beard calling himself a “professor”, weather bloke Jim Dale, fire-and-brimstone eco-zeolot Donnachadh McCarthy and Dale Vince. “The Green Blob does not send out its best and brightest to fight its cause,” concludes Pile. “This is because it is not a movement that is founded on the best and brightest. It has no culture of debate, democracy or science, and it eschews these things, requiring only obedience and emotion from its adherents.”

Which brings us nicely back to DeSmog, with its factitious stories about piddling constituency donations, nasty attempts to destroy the reputations and employment prospects of eminent scientists, half-baked attacks on genuine, questioning journalists and sources of funding from agenda-driven green billionaires.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.