Most Hated Senator Shows Why in Denial Circus Hearing
December 9, 2015
Megyn Kelly did not hold back during the premiere of her new show, “The Kelly File,” Monday on Fox News, bluntly kicking off with her first guest Sen. Ted Cruz.
“What’s it like to be the most hated man in America?” Kelly asked the Texas senator.
From the epic compendium of climate denial canards in his opening, to his choice of one of the goofiest panels of hacks and right wing ideologues imaginable, yesterday’s hearing before Ted Cruz’ Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness was an exercise in hallucinatory disconnect from reality, given the unfolding dimensions of not only of a planetary disaster as we head into possibly a third year of record warmth, but a political disaster for climate deniers, as an expanding majority of Americans are now calling for real action on climate science – action that Senator Cruz and his party oppose more fiercely with each passing day.
One senior scientist tells me: “to me, this hearing was a love note to the Koch Brothers from Ted Cruz.
it’s his way of asking them if they would consider going steady w/ him…”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the climate science-denying presidential candidate who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, convened a December 8 hearing that purported to answer whether the “debate over the magnitude of human impact on earth’s climate” is being driven by “data or dogma.” One of Cruz’s star witnesses is frequent Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Mark Steyn, whose extreme attacks on a climate scientist appear to be the main reason he was invited to participate.
The most obvious explanation for Steyn’s appearance would seem to be that Cruz couldn’t find enough scientists who oppose the 97 percent of climate scientists that say human activities are causing climate change, so he had to turn to a talk radio shock jock instead. But the fact that Steyn is “not a scientist” only scratches the surface of why he is unqualified to testify on global warming.
Steyn has a long history of making extreme and scientifically illiterate claims that could give Cruz a run for his money. For instance, Steyn alleged in 2009 that “[t]here has been no global warming this century.” In 2010, he declared that “environmentalism is fundamentally anti-human.” Most recently, Steyn was seen proclaiming that Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ remarks describing the link between climate change and terrorism were “insane,” and even imagining terrorists “sawing Bernie Sanders’ head off” while Sanders worries about “an emissions trading scheme.” According to Science Blogs’ Greg Laden, Steyn also “recently self published a book made up, apparently, of cherry picked quotes and related material in an effort to discredit top climate scientists.”
Also included on the panel Ned Flanders look-alike and famous-for-being-serially-wrong John Christy, and William Happer, who, in his spare time supports the tobacco industry in selling addictive poison to children.
Check Happer’s epic pre-hearing freak out below.
To be fair, Dr. Happer had kind of a rough day. This morning records of his email conversations were made public, records that show him negotiating financial arrangements with Greenpeace activists, posing as Oil Industry reps, who asked him how much he would charge for one of his “scientific” studies denying climate change.
Posing as representatives of oil and coal companies, reporters from Greenpeace UK asked academics from Princeton and Penn State to write papers promoting the benefits of CO2 and the use of coal in developing countries.
The professors agreed to write the reports and said they did not need to disclose the source of the funding.
Citing industry-funded documents – including testimony to state hearings and newspaper articles – Professor Frank Clemente of Penn State said: “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.”
Leading climate-sceptic academic, Professor William Happer, agreed to write a report for a Middle Eastern oil company on the benefits of CO2 and to allow the firm to keep the source of the funding secret.
Happer is due to appear this afternoon as a star witness in Senate hearings called by Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
In emails to reporters he also revealed Peabody Energy paid thousands of dollars for him to testify at a separate state hearing, with the money being paid to a climate-sceptic think tank.
Groups including the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Donors Trust are also alleged to have been complicit in providing “peer review” services for fossil fuel clients and, in the case of Donors Trust, in providing an untraceable route for the fossil fuel payments.
The story comes as Happer is preparing to give evidence to a congressional hearing of the Senate Subcomittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, chaired by Republican and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. That hearing is scheduled for Tuesday December 8 and also calls fellow “sceptics” Dr John Christy, of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Dr Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology and conservative commentator Mark Steyn.
A DeSmogBlog investigation into Donors Trust and its partner group Donors Capital Fund found that between 2005 and 2012, some $479 million of income to the two groups was untraceable. Of the amounts that were traceable, DeSmog found that $7.65 million had come from the Knowledge and Progress Fund (KPF).
On the KPF board are oil billionaire and major Republican benefactor Charles Koch, his wife Liz and son Charles Chase Koch. Richard Fink, a Koch company director and long-standing aide to Charles Koch, is also a KPF director.
The Greenpeace investigation raises questions about the use of the Donors funds in financing climate science denial groups. Donors Trust, together with oil giant Exxon, have also funded the work of Harvard-Smithsonian affiliated researcher Dr Willie Soon, who claims carbon dioxide cannot change the climate.
Greenpeace also claims that CO2 Coalition board member William O’Keefe, a former Exxon lobbyist, had suggested in an email to Happer that Donors Trust be used as a route to conceal cash from a fictional Middle eastern oil and gas company.
In both cases, the professors discussed ways to obscure the funding for the reports, at the request of the fake companies. In Happer’s case, the CO2 Coalition which was to receive the fee suggested he reach out to a secretive funding channel called Donors Trust, in response to a request from the fake Greenpeace entity to keep the source of funds secret. Not disclosing funding in this way is not unlawful under US law.
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Clemente, who was approached by the sham Indonesian firm to produce a report countering findings linking coal to high rates of premature death, said such a project fell within his skill set. He estimated a fee of about $15,000 for an eight-to-10-page paper, according to email correspondence released by Greenpeace. The professor said he charged $6,000 for writing newspaper opinion pieces.
Read the dumbfounding email chain here.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
December 9, 2015 at 9:55 am
This is how to make money quick and easy. Be a climate denier.
December 9, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Ah, no. The big money to be made is on the side where deniers of changing climate want the climate to remain static at a an arbitrary point chosen from around 150 years ago: “Billionaires, liberal foundations fueling green groups who seek to use climate as a wedge issue” http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-people-and-groups-behind-the-climate-justice-push/
December 9, 2015 at 1:09 pm
Somebody has an incredible imagination. For starters, the climate deniers involve a lot fewer people and the folks backing them have a lot more money. It’s simple grade school arithmetic. More money, fewer people, makes more sense to be a denier!
And please document that crap about choosing a static point 150 years ago. Even the Daily Mail hasn’t come up with that one.
December 9, 2015 at 1:29 pm
See, with actual science, there are the costs of measuring equipment, expeditions, etc.
With denial misinformation, all you need is a guy that can try to make things up, like a Dr. Happer or Dr. Soon, and public relations support via a political think tank or political group.
December 9, 2015 at 10:29 am
RUSSELL COOK? Where are you? Here’s the PROOF that you and the other deniers are PAID WHORES for the fossil fuel industry. What have you got to say about all this?
Will you mutter 20-year-old crap about “Gelbspan-Gore-Glub-Glub” and try to deflect? Will the new “Happer Files” website get more hits than yours? Do you approve of Happer calling people “SOB’s” for speaking truth? So many questions—why won’t you ever answer them?
December 9, 2015 at 11:55 am
You fellows see how I live rent-free in “d.o.g.”‘s mind. As I said yesterday, which WUWT featured as part of its quote of the week, “After 20+ years of failing to come up with evidence that skeptic climate scientists are paid to lie by industry people, nothing telegraphs that failure better than fabricating the evidence out of thin air right now.”
You fellows will readily notice that Greenpeace couldn’t bring itself to set up that “Hamilton Ellis” outfit as something that said, ‘here are lies, we know they are lies, but here’s a pile of money to manufacture doubt, just never say you know it isn’t true’. You’ll notice also that neither Greenpeace nor Desmog, or Oreskes or anybody else ever bothered to come up with such evidence over the last 20 years, or even solid proof of money paid directly to scientists individually, thus the need to concoct this ruse right now as a rather comically desperate means of keeping the accusation alive.
No “HapperFiles site is planned, I don’t approve of Happer’s name-calling when he could have instead called out more forcefully that this was witness intimidation (Federal offence, anyone?), and if “d.o.g.” calls the above ‘muttering’, so be it. Meanwhile, another false premise from “d.o.g.”, questions asked and answered. But feel free to ask him why neither he nor any other ClimateCrocks reader or anyone at “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” ever rises to the challenge of providing actual physical evidence (full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc.) proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers, reports, assessments or viewpoints.
Is it because there never was any such evidence, thus the need to fabricate it right now, in a way that would be laughed out of a courtroom evidentiary hearing? I repeat: this is your wakeup call. If this Happer bit is the best your dear leaders can come up with, your cause is lost. Work on an exit strategy before you go down with the rest of the ship.
December 9, 2015 at 12:41 pm
“proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers” The point of this article is deniers in Congress aren’t even bothering to call ‘skeptic scientists’ anymore, but are content to let talk-radio shock-jocks stand-in for them. But thanks for the strawman.
December 9, 2015 at 1:14 pm
Did you miss something?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0
December 9, 2015 at 1:33 pm
NO, NO, NO! JEV, You are NOT allowed to bring up “inconvenient truths” in response to anything Russell Cook says. It upsets him, and goes against the “truth” he has constructed for himself in his deluded denier whore’s mind.
He will most likely simply ignore your comment, but he may launch into more obfuscatory BS in an attempt to deflect.
How about it Russell? How about addressing the FACTS as laid out in this link from JEV? Are you going to say they do not prove that Soon is a climate denier whore for the fossil fuel interests (just like you)?
December 10, 2015 at 2:25 pm
J.E.V. and likely “d.o.g.” are probably unaware that I already addessed that NYT and related articles regarding who they cite for their so-called evidence. Helps if y’all read my material: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/26/the-origin-of-climate-smear/
I’ve also spoken with Dr Soon at some length over the years and have watched more than one of his presentations. He does not deny climate in any sense of the generalized word (regurgitate talking points, we much?) nor does he whore for industry people. I can’t say his climate assessments refute IPCC assessments because I don’t have climate science expertise. And a sure bet to make is neither does J.E.V. and “d.o.g.” How about that for an inconvenient truth?
December 10, 2015 at 3:18 pm
Sorry, Russell, but I did read your gish gallop of bullshit on WUWT and marvelled at what you think is “addressing” a topic. The level of your self-delusion is why you have a near lock on the title of “#1 Demented Denial Rooster”.
And isn’t it nice that you are here testifying as to what a sterling fellow is Dr. Soon? There’s a reason defense attorneys do not have convicted paid liars testify on behalf of their clients, and it’s too bad that you are too deluded to understand why that is. Testimony from one Heartland stooge supporting another Heartland stooge would be laughed out of any courtroom in this country, just as it carries no weight here on Crock.
It’s nice to see you further disqualify yourself from this discussion by admitting (again) that you “…don’t have climate science expertise”. And not to cover old ground (and I can’t speak for JEV) but I’ve got two science degrees and 40+ years of study of environmental issues including AGW.
The real inconvenient truth is that you don’t even have enough “expertise” in your fields of study—-graphic arts and business—-to make a living there. You certainly are not a success as a denier whore for fossil fuels, as evidenced by analysis of your gelbspanfile archive publication history. What ARE you good at Russell? (besides self-delusion?)
December 10, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Obviously you did. Indulge not only me, but the rest of the ClimateCrocks audience: where specifically in that article do you see actual physical evidence (full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc.) proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers, reports, assessments or viewpoints? Point directly to the verbatim text, not the entire article link.
December 10, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Yeah! We don’t care that anyone with a functioning brain knows that Soon is in the pocket of the fossil fuel interests. We don’t care that Soon’s reputation and integrity are in tatters because of all that non-disclosure of truckloads of fossil fuel cash he took advantage of.
You have to PROVE IT (repeat 27 times) in a way that will satisfy Russell. (Maybe it would help if you went back 20 years and muttered something about Gelbspan-Gore).
December 9, 2015 at 2:14 pm
Been out raking leaves, and just came in to see that Russell is in “crisis management” mode, spewing all kinds of horseshit in an attempt to minimize the damage done to the denier world by the revelations about Happer and other “denier whores for hire”. He is always screaming for PROOF, but now that some has been given to him, he does what? DENIES it!
He was quoted on WUWT? LMAO. Yes, Watts and the ignorant lemmings over there DO love to hear Russell twist logic and truth
Evidence was “…fabricated out of thin air?”, and “…nobody ever bothered to come up with such evidence over the last 20 years”, and it’s a “comically desperate attempt at keeping the accusation alive”. Lord love a duck, Russell! How stupid do you think Crockers are? This is NOT WUWT where you can lay crap like that on the ignorant and get nods of agreement, and you are totally demented in your dumbass comments attacking on Greenpeace’s “dishonesty” and “lies”. Unless the email string IS actually made up, Happer and friends were simply caught in a trap by people smarter than they are. Perhaps the fact that Happer was so complacent and open about lying for pay is proof that the practice IS widespread among “skeptic” scientists, and we can just add it to the Soon and Exxon and Koch revelations.
Who says No HapperFiles site is planned? If one is put up, it won’t be by you and the denier world, but by someone like me. I think it would be a wonderful replacement for that virtually unvisited, no comments allowed crap site of yours that lives 20 years in the past. I just may do it, and it will feature all the evidence that is piling up that PROVES there are fossil fuel paid deniers loose in the world.
It is a sign of desperation among the deniers that anyone is bringing up RICO, the FBI, and witness intimidation (Federal offence, anyone?, says Russell) with regard to what Greenpeace did. I have to laugh VERY loudly at the “witness intimidation”—a “witness” at a congressional “hearing” that was nothing but a propaganda spectacle does not have any “standing” to be “intimidated”—this was not a trial with possible penalties. Russell is as ignorant of the law as he is of science, and I won’t call the above ‘muttering’, but rather the self-deluded grasping at straws of a desperate denier.
Speaking of “false premises”, Russell can’t seem to understand that his whole existence is built on one—-the idea that someone has to provide “actual physical evidence proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstrat(ively) (SIC) (-ably) false science papers, reports, assessments or viewpoints”. The Happer emails come darn close, and as time goes by, the Exxon investigation will surely unearth more. Russell clings to the idea of evidence “adequate for a courtroom evidentiary hearing” when the “trial” is really being conducted in the court of public opinion and the jury is swinging against the deniers.
And, as expected, Russell closes with a speech from the demented rooster strutting in the barnyard crowing about his imagine victories. To wit:
“I repeat: this is your wakeup call. If this Happer bit is the best your dear leaders can come up with, your cause is lost. Work on an exit strategy before you go down with the rest of the ship”.
December 10, 2015 at 2:39 pm
“… Lord love a duck, Russell! How stupid do you think Crockers are? …”
If our friend “d.o.g.” could point straight to actual physical evidence (full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc.) proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers, reports, assessments or viewpoints ……………….. wouldn’t he have done so by now rather than constantly sidestep that challenge ever since I first arrived here?
Imagine how useful such evidence would be at one handy link for Crockers to readily see, understand, and use on their own ………………. if only “d.o.g.” could rise to the challenge to provide it. If y’all had that at your disposal all this time, there would have been literally no need to come up with material within the last couple of weeks that – in “d.o.g.”‘s own words, “come darn close”.
Think about that, friends. Your leaders are letting you down here, and this latest stunt, as I said above, only telegraphs this failure for all the world to see.
Compare all the negativity against me to the positive introspective opportunity I suggest for you guys. Think about the necessity to trash me rather than destroy my core assertion about the smear of skeptics. If a person tells you today it is November, you bring out a calendar to disprove it, but if your only response is to call the person a ‘demented rooster’, people are going to say, “dude, go show everybody what month it really is!”
December 10, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Yep, the demented rooster is STILL crowing “prove it” when he knows that we here at Crock have no way of obtaining the “actual physical evidence” that he demands. We do not “sidestep”, we are merely waiting for those with the resources to expose all the whores at Exxon, and Heartland, and in the ranks of the denier “scientists” a la Happer. Russell will still be riding that old dead “prove it” horse and babbling about how we “can’t destroy his core assertion” when the cell door slams behind him.
Russell is STILL denying that he and the other denier whores are losing the “evidentiary battle” in the minds of the public. He needs to look at the real “calendar” himself and realize that he and the denier world are approaching the 59th. second of the 60th. minute of the 24th. hour of the 365th day of the year.
December 9, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Article: “Happer is due to appear this afternoon as a star witness in Senate hearings called by Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.”
Russell Cook: “[Happer]… could have instead called out more forcefully that this was witness intimidation”
Happer is a particle-physicist whose expertise is atomic spin states. Calling him as a ‘star witness’ is like calling a plumber to testify about your carburetor. He has no formal training in climatology; as an expert atomic physicist he might be so busy in his area of expertise as to know less about the climate than an actual plumber. This is an example of ‘mission-drift’: deniers call a non-expert to ‘testify’ so often that everybody, including the media, start thinking the rest of us are supposed to care what he has to say. How is Cruz serving the public interest by such a charade?
December 9, 2015 at 5:27 pm
Cruz is obviously NOT serving the public interest with “such a charade”. It is merely a publicity stunt for him and a chance for denier propaganda to be spread under the name of the U.S. Senate. Since witnesses are not sworn, they can spout streams of misinformation and distort scientific facts without fear of repercussions.
Happer is a “star witness” only in that he serves Cruz’s purposes, and not, as you point out so well, because he knows anything about climate change. (And let’s not forget that Cruz is ultimately trying to get the Kochs and the fossil fuel interests to back him for president—that’s what it really was all about—distract attention from the Paris talks, sow FUD, stir up the ignorant base in support of fossil fuels, etc.)
December 9, 2015 at 11:14 am
As a resident of the state of Georgia…..I’m looking forward to the day we find out about more payments to a denier at one of the universities of this state. It’s coming….it is just a matter of time. When it looks like a rat….walks like a rat…and smells like a rat…..it’s usually a rat.
There will be many others exposed as well. Unless someone gets paid in actual “cash”…..there is always a trail. And all it takes is an honest Accounts Payable clerk……an honest secretary…..an honest account…..who are tired of seeing people paid off to lie.
This story is definitely not over….by a long ways.
December 9, 2015 at 2:00 pm
It sounds like it is as easy as just asking for the information. For the type of misleading information game the paid deniers are playing, they don’t seem to cover their tracks very well. It seems they may be oblivious to the direct conflict of interest in which they are participating. Some seem to really buy their own rationalizations.
December 10, 2015 at 1:51 am
We have one of those here in Norway too, Ole Humlum, who I haven’t heard so much about lately – but I am quite sure he was funded by some think tank that was about spreading doubt.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/humlum-at-it-again.html
I know that he has been spewing his curve-fitting nonsense about natural cycles (as usual with no physical backing) to students here too. Personally I think people like that should be put on trial, especially if they are in a position to spread this anti-science so profoundly.
December 10, 2015 at 1:19 pm
Ole HUMLUM? I thought you were kidding until I looked it up and found that Humlum is a region in Denmark, your boy’s home country. Does he have any collaborators named Sven? If so, we could start to attach “Sven and Ole” jokes to their work. (I assume Sven and Ole jokes are as popular over there as they are here in the American Midwest). Here’s one that already fits Humlum’s warped ideas about global warming.
“Last summer, Ole was hitchhiking back to the farm and got a ride on a motorcycle. The biker put the Harley up to about 75 MPH and Ole hollered ” Vhy are ve going so fast?” The biker replied ” the faster you go,the cooler it gets.”
“They came to a crossroads where Ole hooked up with a big rig for the remainder of the trip. The truck driver ran that big Freightliner up to 90 MPH. “Vhy are ve going so fast?” asked Ole. “The faster you go,the cooler it gets.” replied the driver.
“Well, Ole made it back to the farm and later that summer it was a scorcher. 104 degrees in the shade. Ole saddled up his horse and took off riding across the prairie just as fast as he could, got two miles from the farm when the horse dropped over dead.
“Well, he didn’t want to leave the saddle so he started carrying it back to the farm. On his way he met Sven, who asked what he was doing carryin’ the saddle. ” Horse died.” replied Ole. ” What did he die from ?” asked Sven. Ole told him “Near as I can figure out, he froze to death!”
December 9, 2015 at 10:38 pm
Seeing the way that congress operates with people running important committees and using them for personal agendas and monetary gain just confirms my opinion that the USA is finished as a world power. It still has money and quite a bit of power but has no direction or leadership and does not look after or care for its people.
December 9, 2015 at 11:15 pm
Yes, Bob, and many in the USA agree with you. That’s why many of us are going to migrate to NZ very soon to escape the Repugnant Tyranny we are living under. You can expect the first planeloads and boatloads to arrive just after the holidays.
We don’t want to leave now and thereby diminish the profits of the retailers during this joyous holiday SHOPPING season by not buying all those Made in China goodies—that would be Un-American. Tell your neighbors that they will all be expected to take in an American refugee family.
PS We DO want to bring along reminders of home, so YOUR backyard is being declared the official NZ USA Wildlife Refuge, and the first animals to be shipped will be a small herd of American Bison (not more than 20). (You may want to strengthen your fences a bit—-our bison are a bit bigger and way more unruly than your sheep).
December 10, 2015 at 1:54 am
It looks to me that the US government has been subject to a good old “coup d’etat”. I am not sure these were the people that were actually voted in by the people – in which case you have a serious democratic problem in USA.
December 10, 2015 at 7:37 am
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