more ppl die cold

this is main

mebbe belated

note lomborg 2024 ARC jordan peterson bs

aha favorite jedi min trick jiu jitsu, you soft headed hippies have it backwards, it’s REALLY 180 of what you think; plus guess what no action/sacrifice gubmint regs needed!

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SEEMS EMBLEMATIC, IMMUNE TO FACT/ REALITY

gmail

media Climate Hoax Collapses As 2025 Has Fewest Extreme Weather Deaths Ever

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KTRH-AM covering local news from Houston and across Texas.

WHY? CBS Evening News Pushes Young Adults Pondering Climate Doom Before Having Kids

Newsbusters

Climate Depot founder and executive director Marc Morano unloaded on CBS leadership following the climate-doom segment in comments to MRC Business.

Right-wing media deny climate change in face of deadly and record-breaking extreme ...

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-deny-climate-change-face-deadly-and-record-breaking-extreme}:

Media Matters for America

Fox Business host Stuart Varney indulged climate change denier Marc Morano and said climate change is “a good debate.” When discussing extreme ...

as the climate crisis becomes more evident and destructive,even exceeding climate scientists’ earlier predictions, Fox News and other influential right-wing outlets and figures are downplaying the severity of climate-fueled events and pushing dangerous climate denial.

:{This summer has been marked by a series of record-breaking extreme weather events, illustrative of the rapidly intensifying effects of global warming. Unprecedented heat waves, wildfires, and floods have wreaked havoc across North America. Meanwhile, global sea surface temperatures have reached alarming levels, and the world just experienced its hottest day on record — four days in a row. These events align with scientists' warnings, but the acceleration of warming and the intensity of this summer’s extreme heat suggest that the climate crisis is unfolding faster than expected.}:

Last month, when smoke from hundreds of wildfires raging across Canada polluted the air over major population centers in the U.S., Fox News dismissed the link between the fires and climate change; meanwhile conspiracy theories seeking alternative explanations for Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season flourished online. In response to news that Earth had reached its hottest temperatures ever recorded, bad actors attempted to distract from the unsettling milestone by focusing on CNN’s use of the phrase “hottest day ever.”  As deadly heat continues to scorch parts of the U.S., Asia, and Europe with no end in sight, and with a 1,000-year flood event having left parts of Vermont and New York state underwater, right-wing media cling to talking points that deny climate science.

By flooding the zone with climate denial right when the climate crisis is most evident, right-wing media run cover for Republican decision-makers who are actively obstructing climate action, ward off accountability for the fossil fuel industry, and pollute information systems for those attempting to understand the link between extreme weather and our dependence on fossil fuels. This tactic, like the extreme heat, has no end in sight.

Right-wing media responded to deadly climate change-fueled heat and flooding with denial and delay

• Fox Business host Stuart Varney indulged climate change denier Marc Morano and said climate change is “a good debate.” When discussing extreme heat in Phoenix, Arizona, Morano said, “This is not outside the normal bounds of hot summer weather,” and claimed that CNN, The New York Times, and others are “weaponizing hot summer heat waves to turn it into some kind of climate action.” Varney asked Morano whether “that is not the result of CO2 emissions'' and said, “It's a good debate. This is a very good debate.” Fox Business, *Varney & Co*., [7/19/23]

• Far-right radio host Steven Crowder hosted climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg, who downplayed the climate crisis by arguing that more people die from cold than heat: “We are not talking about a world where most people die from heat.No, most people die from cold. Cold is fantastically more dangerous for a lot of different reasons.”:{ Rumble, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:*Louder with Crowder*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/19/23:{]}:

• :{The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh suggests that the extreme heat is normal for summer: “:{Well it’s summertime and that means it's hot outside … This is when the media, as it does every year, claims that the hot weather is a sign of our impending planetary doom.” The Daily Wire, :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:*The Matt Walsh Show*, [7/18/23]}:

• Far-right pundit James Lindsay: “Climate struggle sessions ramping up. They're going to try and fail to make that transition again. The propaganda isn't going to work this time either, though.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

• Fox News host Laura Ingraham, in response to an Axios article about extreme weather: “I'm not taking@Axios seriously until they start crusading against coal burning in China — anyone who claims to worry about carbon emissions should start there or button it. Even the ‘best states for climate change’ get hit with extreme weather” Twitter, [7/18/23]

• COVID-19 conspiracy theorist Dr. Naomi Wolf: “Oh! Conclusions: this will happen more and more often because climate change so: stay indoors, do remote work, ‘mask’. Back where we were again.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

• Right-wing Irish political activist and conspiracy theorist Ben Gilroy: “Today media continue to propagandise weather showing high temperatures in Death Valley USA — yet the park rangers wear jackets and gloves? The elites UN climate scam is really about securing a world government plutocracy, depopulation, and severely cutting your quality of life.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

• Fox host Jesse Watters downplayed the extreme heat as simply “summer”: “It's been a hot July. Some call it ‘global warming,’ some call it ‘summer.’ But what's the best way to beat the heat? Ice cream.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/17/23]

• Lindsay mocked conditions in the southern U.S. that were so humid they had the potential to interfere with humans’ ability to sweat, pushing the limits of survivability. Twitter, [7/17/23]

• Longtime fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy: “@AP: 'Around the world, millions feel the heat of an unrelenting summer.' Two points: 1. It is summer. It gets hot. 2. There 8 billion in the world. If only 'millions' are experiencing extreme heat, that doesn't sound much like 'climate change.'” Twitter, [7/17/23]

• Misogynist influencer and alleged sex trafficker Tristan Tate: “They’re naming heatwaves like they used to name new ‘Covid variants’. Can somebody in the government give me the job of whoever makes the names up? I’ll do it for free. Watch out! The ‘lovely warm summer’ heatwave has just hit Europe.” Twitter, [7/15/23]

• COVID-19 conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine influencer Dr. Eli David: “When the weather is a bit warmer than usual: Experts™: IT'S PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!!! When the weather is colder than usual: Experts™: WEATHER AND CLIMATE ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS YOU MORONS!!!!!” Twitter, [7/17/23]

• Newsmax host Chris Salcedo mocked concern over the record heat:“Newsflash folks, it gets hot in the summer.”  He continued, “After a few particularly hot days on the Fourth of July weekend, the left — they went into full fearmongering mode.” Salcedo then interviewed Milloy, who warned that climate activists would call for climate lockdowns. Newsmax, *The Chris Salcedo Show*, [7/17/23]

• On The Five, Jesse Watters attacked “the left” for connecting climate change to heat waves across the globe and mocked climate activists:“The left rushing to blame global warming for that dangerous heat wave gripping the nation and the world right now. But I think the heat's getting to their heads. Climate change-obsessed liberals are actually acting crazier than usual, with eco-extremists in Germany literally gluing their hands to airport runways as a way to sound thealarm on how the planet's cooked.”  Fox News, *The Five*, [7/17/23]

• Fox host Greg Gutfeld also attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states, how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, ‘How many countries are there?’” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/17/23]

• On America’s Newsroom, Lomborg suggested that more air conditioning is the way to address extreme heat: “The way to fix this, of course, is to make sure that people get lots of air conditioningand that they can actually afford the energy that they will run their air conditioning on. That’s one. The second one is to remember that, yes, there are many people dying from heat, but many,many more people dying from cold.”:{ Fox News, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:*America’s Newsroom*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/17/23:{]}:

• Climate change denier and former University of Alabama professor Matthew Wielicki: “We used to call this summer. Now we call this a climate crisis.” Twitter, [7/15/23]

• Milloy: “India's monsoon season is not affected by emissions. Indians have died in monsoon flooding since there have been Indians and monsoons. It is really dishonest and disgusting to surf tragic deaths for climate.” Twitter, [7/14/23]

• Right-wing British pundit Brendan O’Neill, who has been praised by anti-renewable energy activist Michael Shellenberger, wrote that “global warming could be good for humankind.” Citing Lomborg, O’Neill wrote that “the truth is that global warming could be good for humankind” because more people die from the cold:{ than heat. “It’s pissing down in Britain,” he continued, “Where’s our global warming? Even the name of the heatwave is designed to conjure up visions of hellfire and torment.” Spiked, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/14/23:{]}:

• On Fox News at Night, Carl Demaio, a political operative and conservative radio host, called a California campaign to warn residents about climate-driven extreme heat “wasteful spending” and “fear porn.” Fox News, *Fox News at Night*, [7/12/23]

• Newsmax host Eric Bolling, in response to calls for climate action after flooding in the Northeast, denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “It's raining, so we all must change our behavior. Unprecedented weather events — look flooding’s terrible, loss of property is a disaster, and our hearts go out to those affected. But just imagine, for one moment, the ridiculousness and the pompousness to think that: one, our behavior has any real impact on weather and the Earth, and two, even if that were true — which it’s not — that we could do anything about it without making things worse.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling The Balance*, [7/11/23]

• Fox host Laura Ingraham also mocked the extreme heat and calls to action, suggesting that climate change is a made-up crisis: “It's hot, hot, hot all right. After all, we're in the middle of a season called ‘summer.’” Ingraham later played a clip from a previous show, arguing that “COVID lockdowns set the predicate for more to come.”  She said, “Their so-called public health expertswere wrong on everything from lockdowns to masks to social distancing. And yet now we see the usual suspects lining up to exploit  another hyped crisis: of course, I’m talking about climate change.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [7/11/23]

• Right-wing journalist and author Alex Berenson: As climate change hysteria reaches a new level of screeching (1-in-1000 this, world's hottest that), remember that weather-related deaths have PLUNGED since 1970. The wealthier the world becomes, the easier managing climate change will be. And wealth requires energy. Period. Twitter, [7/10/23]

• On Jesse Watters Primetime, guest host Pete Hegseth mocked reports of record-breaking heat and blamed media for “hyping climate insanity”: If there is one thing the mindless left loves to magically discover every year, it’s that summer is hot. Hegseth continued, “It was hotter in New York in April.And it’s not even the hottest June we’ve ever had. The data shows that the 80s and 90s … were a lot hotter.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [7/7/23]

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12 23 mma

Right-wing media coverage of this year’s COP28 global climate summit included mocking, downplaying, and denying the reality that the climate crisis is increasingly claiming lives through extreme weather and climate-fueled disease — tactics right-wing media figures have deployed for at least the past three years.

On December 4, Hillary Clinton focused on the key role women play in building a climate-resilient world. During her remarks, Clinton referenced a recent report on deaths related to extreme heat:

“We're seeing and beginning to pay attention and to count and record the deaths that are related to climate, and by far the biggest killer is extreme heat. I mean, even in Europe last summer, which has the ability to count and figure out what happened, they recorded 61,000 deaths because of the heat in Europe. We don't have that kind of number yet from Africa, Asia, Latin America, but we know and estimate that we probably could measure about 500,000 deaths, and the majority of those are women and girls, and particularly pregnant women.”

Right-wing media reacted to her remarks by trying to minimize the impact of our overheated planet, pushing their go-to red herring argument that cold kills more than heat, and suggesting that a warmer planet actually saves lives.

Right-wing media deny, downplay, and mock extreme heat-related deaths

• Fox host Jesse Watters mocked the idea that there’s a high death toll associated with extreme heat and invoked the argument that cold kills more than heat.“But if a 90-year-old Sicilian woman without air conditioning dies one afternoon in August, when it's hot, Hillary's calling that a climate death,” Watters claimed. “This is like when someone with COVID ODs on fentanyl and the hospital calls it a COVID death. Now, if Hillary wants to save hot Italians from dying in August, we could encourage air conditioning instead of spending trillions.” The Fox host went on to say: “And did you know for every one person who dies from the heat, nine die from the cold? … Sounds like warm winters keep more people alive in Europe. Hillary should be pro-climate change if she really cared about saving lives”. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [12/5/23]

• On The Charlie Kirk Show, fossil fuel advocate Alex Epstein claimed that more people will likely die from cold than heat and that fossil fuels are “pro-human.” “Even in the extreme warming scenarios we’ll be totally fine, and probably still more people will die from cold than heat,” he claimed. ”When you look at the science and the economics from a pro-human perspective, it's very positive for fossil fuels.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [12/5/23]

• On The Daily Wire’s The Matt Walsh Show, Walsh claimed that none of Clinton’s remarks were true before claiming that extreme cold kills far more than extreme heat. “Just as a factual matter, just so you know, none of that is true. It's not even close. Extreme cold kills far more people than extreme heat,” he said. “But the point of what Hillary Clinton was saying wasn’t really about extreme heat or extreme cold.[AND THEREREFORE WHAt? power grab elite bs?]… Talking about deaths related to climate is like talking about deaths related to physical existence.” The Daily Wire, *The Matt Walsh Show*, [12/5/23]

• Rita Panahi, a columnist for Murdoch-owned News Corp.’s Australian paper the Herald Sun, responded on X (formerly Twitter) to a video of Clinton speaking by dismissing heat-related deaths and calling Clinton a liar. She posted: “Where is the @CommunityNotes on this? Cold kills considerably more people than heat...even in warm climates like Australia. Clinton is a pathological liar or ignorant of basic data.” Twitter/X, [12/4/23]

• The Gateway Pundit claimed that Clinton attended COP28 “to lie about the number of deaths attributed to climate change.”It also argued that climate-related deaths are declining. The Gateway Pundit, [12/4/23]

Right-wing media’s history of dismissing climate-related deaths

Since at least the summer of 2021, right-wing media figures have been relying on the red herring argument that cold kills more than heat and that somehow global warming saves lives. The claim is most notably associated with climate skeptic and right-wing media darling Bjor[Dennis Pragern Lomborg](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/window-meaningful-climate-action-closes-climate-change-skeptic-bjorn-lomborg-tells-right), who has published several op-eds making this argument including in USA Today, a piece that was applauded by podcaster and PragerU founder .

In another 2021 op-ed in the New York Post, Lomborg claimed that global warming saves 166,000 lives each year. The op-ed was intended to downplay the latest warning on the climate crisis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Using a study published by the Lancet which found that about half a million people die from heat per year, but 4.5 million people die from cold, Lomborg claimed:

As temperatures have increased over the past two decades, that has caused an extra 116,000 heat deaths each year. This, of course, fits the narrative and is what we have heard over and over again. But it turns out that because global warming has also reduced cold waves, we now see 283,000 fewer cold deaths.

You don’t hear this, but so far climate change saves 166,000 lives each year.

Lomborg later appeared on Fox News’ The Journal Editorial Report to discuss the IPCC findings and push the argument that cold kills more than heat.

The Wall Street Journal published a similar op-ed by Lomborg on September 16, 2021, titled “Climate Change Saves More Lives Than You’d Think,” in which he again misleadingly claimed that “global warming now prevents more than 166,000 temperature-related fatalities annually.”

Climate Feedback, a collection of climate scientists who review dubious climate claims in various media outlets, debunked his New York Post piece, writing that “Lomborg’s claims are based on a misinterpretation of a scientific study and wrong interpretation of data.” The piece cited Aaron Bernstein of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, who wrote:

The issue with Lomborg’s argument is that he is using cherry-picked data that may be compelling in isolation, but belies a firm grasp of the science, which makes clear that unmitigated climate change is a disaster for human health and welfare, even if we may, in the near term, see reductions in cold deaths.

A recent article in Forbes also pushed back on the the argument that a warming world is better for human life:

However, we shouldn’t read into this that global warming is a good thing. Climate change has long-term impacts on sea levels, animal and plant life, and agriculture, each of which can have lasting deleterious effects on human health and wellbeing. Also, heat exposure deaths disproportionately impact impoverished regions of the world, including poor areas of the U.S. which implies that over time they’re much more affected by temperature-related deaths.

These claims have persisted in right-wing media, however, reemerging in the summer of 2022, when destructive wildfires and deadly heat were concurrently affecting part of the United States, and again this past summer as record heat waves impacted the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia.

• Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro suggested the media downplay cold-related deaths because “the cold narrative doesn’t tend to play into the climate change narrative.” “You always know that it’s the slow season news-wise when you start getting weather reports from Europe,” he said. “The thing that they will never tell you, the media, is that more people die of cold every year than die of heat every year, but the cold narrative doesn’t tend to play into the climate change narrative that they wish to promulgate.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [7/19/22]

• On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Lomborg suggested that climate change is less dire because “many more people die from cold” than heat. “Actually, over the last 20 years at least, we’ve seen more people being saved than extra people dying,” he added. “We need to hear both sides of that story if we’re going to be well-informed.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]

• Tucker Carlson used this argument the following month during a segment where he claimed the existence of winter disproves the science of climate change. He said: “The real threat to people is global cooling, otherwise known as winter. Far more people freeze to death every year than die of heat. In 2019, for example, four times as many people died of cold as of heat.” Media Matters, [8/29/22]

• Lomborg appeared on Fox News’ America Reports to push the cold deaths claim. “There is a lot, as you point out, a lot of worry about heat waves, but remember, cold is actually much, much more dangerous,” he said. “So, the Global Burden of Disease estimate that every year about 2,500 Americans die from too hot temperatures, but they estimate that 123,000 people die from too low temperatures. Why are we only hearing about the heat waves and not hearing about a lot of the danger from cold?” Fox News, *America Reports*, [7/27/23]

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• Scott Shellady (aka the Cow Guy) on Varney & Co. invoked the claim to suggest a warmer world is “actually saving lives.” “Just so everybody knows, cold temperatures kill more people than hot temperatures,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of this hyperbolic, dramatic headline stuff, but at the end of the day — even places like India, Stuart, seven people will die of cold versus one person dying of heat. So as the world gets a little warmer, we are actually saving lives.” Fox Business, *Varney & Co.*, [7/25/23]

• According to The Independent, right-wing U.K. politician David Frost used the narrative to argue against climate action, telling Parliament that “rising temperatures are likely to be beneficial” and “a decline in deaths from cold temperature periods has more than offset any increase in the number of deaths associated with warmer temperature over the same period.” The Independent, [7/24/23]

• Patrick Moore, a climate denier who falsely claims he co-founded Greenpeace, posted on X that the media “are lying about the ‘heat waves’ killing more people than cold.”“Not to belabor the point, but many media, and weather reporters who are supposed to be professional, are not just exaggerating,” he wrote. “They are lying about the ‘heat waves’ killing more people than cold.” Twitter/X, [7/24/23; Media Matters, 2/27/14]

• Lomborg went on Fox Business’ Kudlow to claim that “in the U.S. about 2,500 people die from heat, but 133,000 people die from cold.” He added: “We've seen about 116,000 extra heat deaths but 283,000 fewer cold deaths because of increasing temperatures.” Fox Business, *Kudlow*, [7/21/23]

• Shapiro suggested that climate change saves lives.“Many, many, many more people die of cold than heat,” he said. “If indeed the world is getting warmer on average, … that may mean relief from death.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [7/20/23]

• Far-right radio host Steven Crowder hosted Lomborg, who downplayed the climate crisis by arguing that more people die from cold than heat. “We are not talking about a world where most people die from heat,” he said. “No, most people die from cold. Cold is fantastically more dangerous for a lot of different reasons.” Rumble, *Louder with Crowder*, [7/19/23]

• On Fox News' America’s Newsroom, Lomborg suggested that more air conditioning is the way to address extreme heat deaths. “The way to fix this, of course, is to make sure that people get lots of air conditioning and that they can actually afford the energy that they will run their air conditioning on,” he said. “That’s one. The second one is to remember that, yes, there are many people dying from heat, but many, many more people dying from cold.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [7/17/23]

• Right-wing British pundit Brendan O’Neill wrote that “global warming could be good for humankind.” Citing Lomborg, O’Neill claimed “it’s possible that the rising heat of recent years is good for us. For here’s the thing: extreme cold kills far greater numbers than extreme heat.” Spiked, [7/14/23]

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https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/how-tucker-carlson-was-terrible-and-effective-megaphone-climate-misinformation}:

mma 5 23 see heated/drilled

Prior to his departure from Fox News on April 24, Tucker Carlson was one of the network’s most prolific purveyors of climate change misinformation. Carlson elevated fringe ideas and conspiracy theories from relative obscurity on the internet to become drum beats for right-wing media. He also dishonestly spun major news events and weaponized his viewers’ most deep-seated prejudices about race and power to push climate denial.

His absence will be a blow to the forces aiming to mock environmental justice, derail climate action, and protect polluting industries and their allies in Washington. But the end of Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show is far from the end of climate change denial on Fox News — his project is sure to be carried on by other Fox personalities who will continue the network’s awful history of climate coverage.

Carlson propelled internet misinformation and obscure conspiracy theories into right-wing media narratives against climate action

One thing that set Carlson apart at Fox was his ability to seemingly jump-start a tidal wave of misinformation. His producers seemingly scoured the internet so he could amplify right-wing grievances, as well as any obscure video or article that could be easily decontextualized to sound absurd or inflammatory. He knew his audience, and he knew exactly how to push their buttons.

Carlson’s response to the deadly Texas winter storm that killed hundreds of people in February 2021 triggered a deluge of misinformation from Fox News. He was the first Fox News host to blame the widespread power outages on wind energy. The reality was that Texas still largely relies on natural gas for power, and this infrastructure wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.

Over the last few years, Carlson helped create a misinformation crisis around climate action and even told his audience that climate activists were going to try to shrink children and force everyone to eat bugs, when there is no evidencethat those things are actually happening.

Fittingly, one of the very last things Carlson did in his final Fox segment was to promote Let Them Eat Bugs.Notably, he said that the chocolate-covered cricket was “delicious.”

• During Carlson’s new Fox Nation original Let Them Eat Bugs, right-wing comedian Jay Dyer said, “Is there a group of unelected bureaucratic elites that are involved in a global campaign to minimize meat consumption and convince people not to eat meat and to eat bugs to save the world from climate change? I think we can answer in the affirmative, absolutely.” Fox Nation, *Let Them Eat Bugs*,[4/14/23]
• In the same program, Carlson said, “The people we spoke to in the edible insect industry didn’t seem like extremists. In fact, to a person, they came off as decent and well-meaning. … But they are not the ones setting the bigger agenda.” Fox Nation, *Let Them Eat Bugs*, [4/14/23 [vid]
• in an unhinged February 2023 monologueclaiming climate change is a fake religion being used to “make people suffer” and “atone for their climate sins,” Carlson said: “What else are you allowed to have in the name of the climate crisis? Well, how about no more heat or air conditioning or electricity or cars or wearing leather or eating meat or having children? All are sins against the climate. So, for you, it is insects, tap water, and celibacy. That's a tough religion. Even John the Baptist got to eat honey and locusts. No honey for you. We’re beyond self-denial.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [2/10/23]

• In June 2021, the Fox host also created panic around an obscure video of a New York University bioethicist at a conference talking speculatively about using genetic engineering to lower our carbon footprint. Carlson made it sound as though this was already being carried out as “potentially world-altering experiments” being “funded by the secretive daisy-chain of government health agencies, and powerful NGOs.” He then compared the idea to the Holocaust, saying that “bioethicists have short memories apparently. And in any case, climate change is a pressing emergency.” He later mockingly added, “All we need to do is experiment on human children. And we can solve climate change.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*,[6/22/21]
• Promoting a false claim two relatively unknown Twitter accounts had popularized in the days after the Texas storm, Carlson said that the state’s inability to keep the lights on was due to its “reckless reliance on windmills.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [2/15/21]

Misinformation about frozen windmills was just the tip of the iceberg for Carlson’s attacks on clean energy and climate action

Often portraying climate policies as a means to control the population or create a “permanent caste system,” Carlson regularly injected fearmongering about the clean energy transition into his segments. At the core of his argument was the fossil fuel industry talking point claiming the renewable energy technology was insufficient and that transitioning away from fossil fuels would weaken the U.S. and put Americans “under the complete and total control of people who wish us ill.” In October 2021, Carlson even used his newest venture, Tucker Carlson Originals on Fox Nation, to promote wind energy misinformation in the documentary Blown Away: The People vs. Wind Power. 

• Carlson was among those on Fox News pushing the false claim that offshore wind development was responsible for whale deaths.In January he pushed this claim multiple times punctuating his misinformation with chyrons (“Green New Deal wind farms are killing off whales”) and graphics (“The Biden whale extinction”). Media Matters, [2/3/23 [vid]
• carlson suggested that China is working through a climate organization to push a supposed ban on gas stoves: “Why would China push fake science like that? Maybe because the United States has some of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world. And if we can be convinced not to use those gas reserves, we will be weak and they will be strong.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [1/20/23]

• Carlson suggested “mass disobedience in the face of tyranny” in response to the potential regulation of gas stoves. Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [1/10/23]

• In response to the United Nations’ COP27 climate negotiation in November 2022, Carlson fearmongered about the implementation of green energy policies, stating, “Fossil fuels are the reason we have civilization. Take them away and countries collapse.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [11/21/22]

• In an over 13-minute May 2022 monologue, Carlson suggested that renewable energy was making energy more costly while enriching Democrats: “Invest trillions of dollars of other people's money in batteries and wind farms and electric school buses. That way Democratic politicians get fingertip control over the entire U.S. economy and all of their friends get rich.” He also blamed Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-MA) for high gas prices, claiming that “she has worked hard to prevent the United States from producing more gasoline, and that is the main reason it is so expensive.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [5/27/22]

Carlson continued to push climate denial even during extreme weather events, when the reality of the climate crisis was most evident

As the science connecting extreme weather to our warming planet has become more conclusive— and with other TV news outlets more frequently reporting on these connections in the aftermath of major disasters — Carlson relentlessly misinformed his audience about these connections and claimed that the media making the link between climate change and extreme weather were captured by the radical left or using the occasion to politicize tragedy.

• In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which pummeled Florida and South Carolina in late September 2022, Carlson dedicated a 15-minute monologue to denying the relationship between hurricanes and climate change and implied that humans cannot influence weather events because “they’re called natural disasters. We didn’t cause them, they’re products of nature. God’s in charge.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/29/22]

• During an extreme heat wave in July 2022, Carlson devoted a monologue to undermining the existence of climate change, mockingly suggesting, “For the first time in history, it’s going to be hot and then it’s going to rain hard.” “No one really believes in global warming, and that’s why all of the liberals in the United States live on the coasts – because they don’t believe it,” he added. “The entire theory is absurd and they know it.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]

• In the wake of Hurricane Ida in September 2021, Carlson mocked Democrats for connecting the extreme storm to climate change and pointing to the need to pass climate policy over a chyron reading, “Dems Blame Wild Rain on Man-Made Climate Change.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/2/21]

• Carlson claimed Democrats were politicizing wildfires by linking them to climate change: “It took no time at all for the usual vultures and parasites to swoop in and try to make political advantage out of this. Barack Obama and governor of California Gavin Newsom are now telling you that these fires are a direct result of climate change, and according to Barack Obama, Donald Trump is directly responsible for them.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/10/20]

• Ignoring the clear scientific links between the climate crisis and natural disasters or extreme weather, Carlson said “there's no evidence” climate change contributed to apocalyptic wildfires ravaging the West Coast in 2020. Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, [9/10/20[
• vid]
• in January 2020, Carlson hosted former Fox personality Anna Kooiman to suggest that arson, not climate change, was responsible for the severity of the bushfires that torched millions of acres of forest and residential areas in Australia. Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [1/8/20]

Even beyond these extreme weather events, Carlson regularly promoted climate denial on his Fox show in order to feed doubt and discredit climate science.

Carlson platformed climate change deniers who influenced his coverage

Carlson used any excuse, such as new climate policies, initiatives, or convenings, to platform some of the most notorious climate deniers and controversial climate contrarians. For example, according to Media Matters’ internal database, from 2019 through the end of Carlson’s show in 2023, he hosted failed politician Michael Shellenberger 21 times, climate change denier Marc Morano 14 times, meteorologist Joe Bastardi 8 times, and fossil fuel shill Bjorn Lomborg 4 times. These guests pushed the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory, cherry-picked statistics to downplay the impacts of extreme weather, or suggested climate activism is a “cult” or a “new religion.”

Michael Shellenberger

• In September 2022, Shellenberger said that power outages during a heat wave in California were “a warning to the rest of the United States to not go down this path of over-relying on weather-dependent renewable energies.” Responding to Carlson’s claim that climate change activists are “a cult” devoted to “the one true faith of renewable energy,” Shellenberger then said “people that move away from traditional religion, they basically turned nature into a new god, a new victim god.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*,[9/7/22]
• Carlson would later use Shellenberger’s talking points on the subject in 2022 after Hurricane Ian devastated Florida, when he unsuccessfully attempted to discredit then-CNN anchor Don Lemon: “There has been, as a factual matter, no increase in hurricane frequency in the continental United States from 1900 to 2020.” (Only Lemon never made that claim — he had instead made the point that hurricanes are becoming more intense, which is true.) Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/29/22]
• Talking about the damage from Hurricane Ida in 2021, Shellenberger said “you can’t blame floods on climate change when we know the central factor is flood management. It’s the same thing with forest fires that we’ve talked about. It’s all about forest management to prevent those high-intensity fires, it’s not about modestly higher temperatures.” He also argued thatrenewable energy sources “make grids more vulnerable” and “don’t provide any additional resilience” because they are weather-dependent. Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/2/21]

Carlson has run with the idea that climate change is like a new religion, which Shellenberger has written about at length.

• “As church attendance and self-identified religious faith have fallen off a cliff in this country, the cult of climate has grown even stronger,” Carlson said in February. “Zealots want to punish people in the name of their faith. That's always been true. It happens around the world still …  So, what does that mean? It means you're about to be severely punished in the name of someone else's crackpot climate religion.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [2/10/23]
• In a nearly 14-minute monologue from December 2022, Carlson suggested that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had been deemed the new climate god: “In place of the concept of an omnipotent, loving God who brings justice to the world, Buttigieg simply substituted the word ‘climate.’ Thanks be to climate. Our climate, who art in heaven, that kind of thing.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [12/12/22]

Marc Morano

• Discussing his new book hyping the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory during a 2022 segment about multiple food-driven global conflicts that occurred over the summer, such as Sri Lanka’s economic collapse and protests lead by Dutch farmers, Morano claimed that the “war on agriculture” by global institutions has been going on for years with “their goal to literally get us to eat insects and this lab-grown fake meat” by shutting down traditional farming in order to adhere to countries’ climate goals. Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/12/22]

• In 2021, Carlson promoted and praised Morano’s Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think, calling it “a book with a title that sells itself.” Discussing the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Morano claimed Democrats and climate activists would end private car ownership and abolish private home ownership because “in a climate emergency, it’s just too damaging to the Earth.” He added, “They love the lockdowns for this reason. They call it degrowth, they call it planned recessions.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [4/1/21]

Joe Bastardi

• In his final appearance on Carlson’s show,  Bastardi pushed the absurd idea that climate advocates are trying to pollute the air as much as possible so that they can have an excuse to prevent others from using transportation. Bastardi offered that another option is that “it's a phony climate war, it's fraudulent,” and “has nothing to do with CO2.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [12/12/22]

• In August, 2022, Carlson called Bastardi “the most famous, most accomplished, most trusted meteorologist and weather forecaster in the United States.” In the segment, Bastardi claimed there is no significant warming in the Arctic because it’s “still very, very cold” and only a few degrees warmer in the winter, so “instead of freezing to death in three minutes, you’ll freeze to death in three and a half minutes.” Fox Nation, *Tucker Carlson Today*, [8/4/22]

• In September 2021, Bastardi downplayed the intensity of Hurricane Ida by stating that other bad storms happened in the 1950s and 1930s. Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/8/21]

• In March 2019, Bastardi said young people are concerned about climate change because they “don’t look at everything. I have said hundreds of times that if all I looked at and all that I was told was the global warming issue, I'd say ‘Well, I believe it too. CO2 is causing this.’ But when you start looking at the entire picture … you realize that there is a very, very different story here.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [3/20/19]

Bjorn Lomborg 

• In July 2022, Bjorn Lomborg suggested that climate change is actually good because “many more people die from cold” than heat. “Actually, over the last 20 years at least, we’ve seen more people being saved than extra people dying,” he added. “We need to hear both sides of that story if we’re going to be well-informed.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]

• Parroting Lomborg during a monologue the following month, Carlson implied the existence of winter disproves the science of climate change while claiming that “the real threat to people is global cooling” because “far more people freeze to death every year than die of heat.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [8/29/22]

In the last several years, Carlson had started to merge his climate denial and defense of fossil fuels with overt racism and white grievance

In response to climate justice and environmental justice becoming more mainstream and being incorporated into policy, Carlson seized on the opportunity to apply his increasingly overt racism to climate and environmental issues. Notably, Carlson has insisted that climate policies, not climate change, hurt marginalized communities. He has often claimed that environmental justice has “nothing to do” with the environment — with the exception of the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which the former Fox host used to stoke more conservative grievances.

• In March 2023, Carlson went into a tirade over a Los Angeles Times piece about minority communities facing disproportionately high levels of car pollution, insisting the story argued “that just by breathing, white people are hurting others.” Carlson later claimed that white people are victims of “Rwanda-style race hatred” pushed by the media. Media Matters, [3/15/23]

• After a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Carlson asserted that there would have been a more robust federal response if the derailment had occurred in “the favored cities of Philadelphia and Detroit. … But it happened to the poor, benighted town of East Palestine, Ohio, whose people are forgotten and, in the view of the people who lead this country, forgettable.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [2/14/23]

• Just a few months prior, Carlson had a very different tone when talking about the Inflation Reduction Act spending directed at disadvantaged communities: “So really, this is about spreading race hate, as virtually everything they do is. They call it equity. It's not about protecting the environment. And if you're wondering how the environment's doing, take a very close look. Is anyone monitoring the chemicals in our water? No. We're busy conducting workshops for billions of dollars for disadvantaged communities.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [8/17/22]

• In 2021, Carlson similarly attacked the bipartisan infrastructure bill with a slew of white supremacist dog-whistles. “The entirety of this infrastructure plan looks more like a mashup of intersectional theory from Wesleyan and some kind of South African-style spoils system,” he said. “First and most obviously, is this really about infrastructure — bridges, roads, airports, things we can actually use — or is it yet another weird climate scheme-slash-power grab-slash-race-based redistribution plan?” Media Matters, [4/2/21]

• During a segment that aired a few weeks later, Carlson and Fox contributor Mark Steyn mocked comments made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) linking the harmful effects of climate change and racism. Media Matters, [4/23/21]

• In a 2019 segment reacting to then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ immigration plan, Carlson used language reflective of eco-facism, saying, “Why would a climate migrant have a right to come to my country?” Carlson later asked, “Why would you want a crowded country? Isn't crowding your country the fastest way to despoil it, to pollute it, to make it a place you wouldn't want to live?” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [11/11/19]

• Complaining about climate change “propaganda” targeted toward children, Carlson asked: “Why, since more people were killed last year in the United States by illegal aliens than were killed by climate change — why do you think they are so focused on scaring us, and telling us that we are all going to die? Why did they need to tell us that, when they don't know that?” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*,[3/20/19]

Other Fox figures will carry the climate denial torch in Carlson’s absence

Carlson was far from the only Fox News personality to regularly peddle climate change misinformation, and others will continue to carry the torch:

• In April, Fox host Greg Gutfeldwent full climate denial mode saying, “None of their predictions have come true. None of them. They are fighting. They are forcing America to do this crap over one — less than a percent Celsius, less than a percent Celsius. It has no effect. And in fact, as this climate gets warmer, people's lives improve. That's a fact. That’s a fact. People die from cold weather more frequently than warm weather, so don’t give me your cancer BS.” Fox News, *The Five*, [4/12/23]
• In January, Fox host Jesse Watters platformed a fossil fuel industry-funded envoy as an “ocean advocate” to argue that offshore wind farms are killing whales. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/12/23]
• When discussing a “loss and damage” fund for developing countries to address climate impacts, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth described it as an example of “self-loathing. It’s the belief that the West's success was premised on pollution, so now it's our turn to pay developing countries basically a sin tax of the past so they can catch up to us because we built the world based on their backs.” Co-host Will Cain then described the proposal as “climate reparations.”Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [11/20/22]
• Prime-time host Laura Ingraham in October 2022 spoke with a climate change denier who claimed that “there is no climate crisis” and so we need to “use solid, dependable sources of energy like coal.” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, [10/12/22]
• Last September, Gutfeld called youth climate activists including Greta Thunberg “shrieking psycho brats” and blamed them for power outages during a heat wave in California, saying they had  “poisoned the dialogue with hysteria.” He added that you “can’t take it seriously when you have a woman or a girl” speaking out passionately about the issue. Fox News, The Five, [9/7/22]
• On America’s Newsroom, co-anchor Bill Hemmer interviewed the CEO of Big Oil’s lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, to cast blame on Biden and present the fossil fuel industry as the answer to high gas prices. Fox News, America’s Newsroom, [7/25/22]

It’s uncertain who will be placed in Carlson’s 8 p.m. slot. But whatever the outcome, one sure thing is that Fox will continue to supplement its climate coverage with racism, bigotry, misogyny, and brain-frying idiocy.

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