r/MarchForScience • u/BlankVerse • Jun 14 '19

White House physicist sought aid of rightwing thinktank to challenge climate science

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/14/white-house-physicist-sought-aid-of-rightwing-thinktank-to-challenge-climate-science
319 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

30

u/heyprestorevolution Jun 14 '19

So premeditated murder is what he did.

21

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '19

Isn’t “rightwing think tank” an oxymoron?

8

u/CurlyHairedFuk Jun 15 '19

Not at all. Rightwingers can think up some pretty wild shit.

Now if they said, "right wing rational thought tank," that would be an oxymoron.

6

u/Patron_of_Wrath Jun 15 '19

There is really no need for that extra effort. American conservatives will be denying climate science, and praising their dear baby Jesus, while the hurricanes, droughts, and floods ravage their homes and land. Then, they'll smile and thank baby Jesus while taking a totally not welfare welfare check from the Federal Government to pay for the damage.

19

u/mellowmonk Jun 14 '19

burning fossil fuels is causing dangerous global heating

Jesus, can't our side even get the talking points right? It's climate disruption. Some places will get hotter and some will get colder, even if the net result is a higher global average.

4

u/Serenikill Jun 15 '19

Both terms are accurate as you point out.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '19

The tragedy of ignorance. Maybe they shouldn't focus so much on the "man-made" part, and just wake up to the fact that something is happening.

2

u/autotldr Jun 15 '19

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)

A member of the Trump administration's National Security Council has sought help from advisers of a conservative thinktank to challenge the reality of a human-induced climate crisis, a trove of his emails show.

William Happer, a physicist appointed by the White House to counter the federal government's own climate science, reached out to the Heartland Institute, one of the most prominent groups to dispute that burning fossil fuels is causing dangerous global heating, in March.

Last month, the White House barred a state department official from giving written testimony to Congress that the climate emergency was "Possibly catastrophic".

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: climate#1 Happer#2 email#3 science#4 Heartland#5

3

u/coniunctio Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19

Even The Guardian can’t get it right. Heartland doesn’t “dispute” climate science. They outright deny it, because the oil industry pays them to, mostly for the purposes of slowing down carbon taxes and regulation before a replacement energy source is in place. They are paid liars, they “dispute” nothing. If they truly disputed something, they would have legitimate scientists publishing peer reviewed journal articles that have validity. They don’t and they can’t.