The "climate emergency" pushers have pompously predicted planetary doom within ten years for more than 30 years. Why are they never checked? Author Kevin Mooney has a new book titled Climate Porn, and we discuss the remarkable imbalance of climate coverage and the nasty tendency on the Left to punish people who even gently question the panic.
MRC Business Associate Editor Joseph Vazquez joined the conversation. The subtitle of the book is How and Why Anti-Population Zealots Fabricate Science, while Targeting American Capitalism, Freedom, and Independence. In the year we celebrate America's 250th anniversary, Mooney -- who was a colleague of ours with CNSNews.com back when George W. Bush was president -- argues that the climate doomsayers threaten a climate crisis to undermine our prosperity and liberty.
One of the most embarrassing alarmists of our times, the biologist Paul Ehrlich -- who became famous with his book The Populaton Bomb in 1968, has just passed away at the age of 95. The New York Times was mocked on X when they suggested “his predictions proved premature.” He predicted mass famines in the 1970s. In 1989 and in 1990, NBC gave over chunks of the Today show to Ehrlich. He was not interviewed. He was the reporter-slash-narrator. We never stop talking about his prediction that soon, you’d tie your boat to the Washington Monument. That never happened.
But scientists lost their grants for being on the wrong side of the "emergency." State climatologists were shown the door. One scientist in Britain was compared to the KKK for being skeptical. Joe Romm suggested climate deniers might be strangled in their beds when doom becomes true. The leftist site Talking Points Memo in 2017 asked "at what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?"
Our overarching point in this episode is about fairness and balance. It feels like a religion – there is a dogma, and the heretics must be cast out and persecuted. This is not just about the difference between capitalists and socialists. It’s about panic vs. non-panic. And just taking the non-panic position as a scientist or a politician is perceived as something worth jail time. They won’t ask the hard questions about climate authoritarianism -- about taking away your gas-powered car, making you ride a bike, banning your grill and your lawn mower. There's only so far they can push. But they saw the Covid lockdowns as a beautiful thing. That kind of control is what these elites want over the climate, a "climate lockdown." Democracy -- being able to object -- dies in darkness.
Unlike other Republican presidents, Trump has shown the courage to pull out of global climate agreements and reassert American energy. The last UN climate conference was a dud, and even elitist media outlets are laying off their climate reporters. Greta Thunberg grew up and moved on to crusading to "free Palestine." The trend is not going their way on the Left.
Enjoy the podcast below, it's on YouTube and Rumble. The audio version is here.
