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http://redgreenandblue.org/2023/03/15/climate-disinformation-daily-caller/

Climate disinformation is what the Daily Caller DOES | Red, Green, and Blue

Red, Green, and Blue

Related · Daily Caller has a fact checker! (But is now run by Koch-trained career disinformer Michael Bastasch) · No, Marc Morano, nobody wants a ' ...

as internal text messages _{prove}_ what most have _{long known}_ about _{Fox News}_ (that it’s a conservative propaganda machine posing as a news outlet), it’s important to remember that these days, Fox is hardly alone. While Murdoch’s Fox and Wall Street Journal are the unquestioned Big Leagues of right-wing disinformation, there’s a whole set of bush league outlets serving as training grounds.

By Climate Denier Roundup

The Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller is one of the primary examples of how Fox and the Koch-funded climate change counter-movement are intertwined.

Back when they were mostly Koch-funded, _{Koch-trained Michael Bastasch}_ was regularly running climate disinformation featuring Koch-funded climate deniers. These days, their funding has diversified a bit thanks to _{Carlson’s feud with Kochs}_, though giving the Daily Caller money still appears to increase the odds of the outlet _{writing favorable content about you}_.

But _{**Bastasch** returned}_ last year as Managing Editor of the Daily Caller’s _{non-profit tax dodge foundation}_, after a stint at Fox News writing for _{election-lie-spreader Laura Ingraham}_.

Since his return, we’ve been watching closely to note any changes, and at this point can say it definitely appears that Bastasch is using his position to spread climate disinformation through multiple channels at the Caller, not just the “Big Tent” opinion vertical _{we noted last week}_.

_{In the past}_, most of the Caller’s climate disinfo would come from just one or two employees who appeared to be tasked with turning press releases from Koch cronies into “news” as their job on the “energy” beat (like Thomas Catenacci, who now works for, _{you guessed it, Fox News}_).

But these days, attacks on climate change science, policy, and experts have become a feature of coverage across the website and its various staffers.

It really stood out between 5 and 7 p.m. last Wednesday, when the Daily Caller published a triple-play of climate disinfo: defending a fossil-fuel loving white supremacist, cherry-picking climate change from a US National security assessment, and attacked environmentalists organizing on TikTok to #StopWillow.

The first was from “news and commentary writer” Brianna Lyman, who provided _{a short write-up framed as criticism}_ of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who “accused one of the witnesses of being racist.” Who, you might ask? Well, despite the fact that ‘who/what/where/why/when’ is a basic tenet of journalism, Lyman didn’t identify the person at the center of the House committee meeting, and in fact, described Bush as “criticizing the oil industry before turning her attention toward an unidentified witness.”

Which is an absolutely astonishing thing for a supposed journalist to write, because Congressional _{hearings are very easy to look up}_. Alex Epstein, one of the “so-called ‘energy experts’” called by Republicans, is who Rep. Bush called “a philosopher who has previously espoused white supremacist views,” before Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) interjected to try and censor her by calling for the comment to be removed from the Congressional record.

But naming Epstein would require doing actual reporting, and apparently all Lyman did was watch a _{video clip of the hearing}_ (that she embedded in the story). If you’d like to see what real reporting of the hearing looks like, as opposed to someone running cover for a fellow traveler, _{Timothy Cama covered it for PoliticoPRO}_ and named _{Alex Epstein}_ right up front.

Roughly thirty-six minutes after Lyman’s article defending a racist was posted, the Daily ‘_{whoopsie we keep hiring racists}_‘ Caller published a piece on the US intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment. The headline of “reporter” Micaela Burrow’s coverage? “_{Intel Community Warns Fight Over Green Energy Tech Will Worsen Global Tensions.}_”

The 10-paragraph write-up quotes the assessment just twice to justify the story’s thrust that fighting climate change will somehow make the world more dangerous. That’s probably because the _{40-page assessment}_ only devotes 2 pages to climate, and then otherwise focuses on a bunch of things that the Daily Caller doesn’t spread disinfo about.

Finally, rounding out a very busy day for the Caller, “Associate Editor” Ailan Evans’ _{hit piece ran at 6:49}_, attacking the #StopWillow campaign on TikTok because one of the participating groups is funded by “a Swiss billionaire with a documented history of philanthropy and political donations, primarily to left-wing causes and candidates.” Though it’s dressed up as some sort of scandalous revelation, at no point does Evans attempt to explain how or why this is somehow bad.

But that’s the kind of training you get from the Daily Caller. Both Evans and current _{Fox Production Assistant}_ Kendall Tietz were _{2021 fellows}_ of the Daily Caller’s American Journalism Institute, where they train the next generation of political hacks to pretend to be journalists.

So next time you hear about some bizarre disinformation, rank political propaganda, or shameless defense of racism on Fox News, remember that it’s not an accident, they’retrainedto be that awful. There’s a whole farm league of conservative propaganda shops like the Daily Caller — the _{frack-backed}_ Daily Wire and _{Heritage}_‘s _{Daily Signal}_ come to mind — and while they’d all oppose a Universal Basic Income as socialism, they’re proof that as long as would-be-journalists are willing to play ball for the highest bidder, they’ll never want for work.

for all the things that are difficult to deal with about disinformation, the fact that disinfo only works if people see it can make researching it pretty easy. For example, if you want to know what pro-fossil-fuel talking points may be_{ going around}_, you could check out Alex Epstein’s “_{EnergyTalkingPoints}_” substack, for messaging as honest as the name is subtle.

By Climate Denier Roundup

Similarly, _{for the past few years}_, RealClearEnergy’s “recommended” tab _{has been}_ a _{convenient place}_ to find all sorts of _{fossil fuel industry-backed op-ads}_, and indeed, it still is. In the past week, RealClearEnergy has run a piece by a mining executive _{begging for more of the public’s money}_, let the guy whose byline claim-to-fame is responsibility for _{US Army intelligence during the 2003 invasion of Iraq}_ publish his _{fossil-fueled astroturf}_ _{talking points}_, gave _{one of the GOP’s green-washers}_ space to offer an _{end-run around the democratic process}_ to gut environmental permitting laws, and let CFACT’s Duggan Flanakin publish a piece about coal that _{used a racial slur}_ in its title.

But these days, the billion-dollar disinfo machine is pumping out more content than even RealClear can handle, and since basically zero mainstream news outlets will run their content, disinformation-spreaders are having to find other options for placement.

It seems that The Daily Caller (whose conservative and fossil-fueled donors _{receive favorable coverage in the outlet}_) and its “_{Big Tent Ideas}_” section is the new overflow receptacle for disinformation that no one else deems fit to publish. Judging by the output, one might guess that the DC News Foundation’s _{Managing Editor}_, Michael Bastasch, has tapped the _{disinfo network that trained him}_, and is regularly running Koch content.

For example, one “Big Tent Idea,” from Mandy Gunasekara, Trump EPA Chief of Staff and Director at the IWF Center for Energy and Conservation, is that _{conservatives}_ should lead on the environment (with methane gas, of course).

Then there’s Suzanne Downing, who literally cries wolf about ESG measures with the _{headline}_ that “Biden is throwing Americans’ retirement savings to the wolves. It’s not too late to stop him.” Downing’s byline notes only that she’s “publisher of Must Read Alaska,” which looks like news but actually _{gets GOP campaign payments}_. However, _{per LinkedIn}_, Downing was also Communications Director for the Alaska Republican Party and prior to that spent four years as a speechwriter to Republican Governor Sean Parnell.

It’s odd that theDaily Caller didn’t disclose that, because the outlet is not adverse to telling readers when the GOP is telling them what to think, as evidenced by Frank Lasee’s _{bio}_ that provides five lines of historical context about his time as a state senator but does not mention _{his ill-fated presidency of the Heartland Institute}_, which he basically ran (further) into the ground.

Lassee’s _{op-ed}_ finds a way to attack the one kind of hydrogen that isn’t greenwashing (when it’s generated from renewables) and adds some anti-Chinese racism for good measure.

And that’s not all from “Big Tent Ideas”! Coinciding with the RealClear _{op-ed}_ advocating for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reform, David Vasquez of the _{Trump-y dark money America First Policy Institute}_, _{argued}_ that in light of the Ohio petrochemical train derailment and ensuing toxic mess, we should just gut NEPA.

We could go on like this, but the last example we’ll point to of the Daily Caller’s disinfo that was published just in the last week, is a piece by Daniel Turner (yet another _{Koch-alum}_ whose career is deflecting blame off of fossil fuels), which hypocritically claims that it’s environmentalists who “_{are hard at work deflecting blame}_” for whale deaths away from offshore wind.

So if you’re looking for some “Big Tent Ideas” that range from fossil-fueled, front group-authored propaganda to Republican Party operative-penned propaganda to former Republican official turned fossil field front group astroturfer propaganda, or if every single other outlet, including RealClear, passed on your climate disinfo op-ed, then The Daily Caller’s got you covered!

https://redgreenandblue.org/2022/11/17/rightwing-disinformation-machine-goes-war-esg/

no grf lnx

over the weekend, a special edition of COP, Look, Listen featured network analysis from Graphika, which showed that the anti-environmental, social, and governance (ESG) campaign has become a meeting ground for general rightwing twitter posters, and the climate disinfo-specific actors.

Graphika’s map of 13,000 accounts who tweeted about ESG in October.

By Climate Denier Roundup

While their advanced network mapping of followers and content consumption used to showed that the climate disinformation group was a distinct sub-set of conservative accounts, now “computationally speaking, climate denialists in our analysis are no longer defined as distinct from right-wing culture wars influencers.”

Graphika found that “influencers in this group do the work of framing and amplifying climate topics as a culture wars issue, making it more palatable for a broader right-wing audience, beyond the usual climate denial community.”

The top-performing ESG post, out of 13,000 tweets in October mentioning the acronym, was from Consumers Research, a group funded by conservative activist Leonard A. Leo as part of his billion-dollar “anti-woke” campaign.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the financial resources at their disposal, right-leaning actors got more engagement, by far, than the International Environmental Community network.

Despite the fact that environmentalists tweeted way more content about ESG investing, Graphika found that “engagement from ideologically driven accounts far outweighs more consistent, reliable messaging on sustainable investing. It’s not the topic, but rather the divisive framing that wins attention and engagement.”

Which means “the climate community needs to double down on support for campaigns to keep greenwashing out of ESG, as companies look for opportunities to backslide on commitments to appease critics. Because social media algorithms amplify salacious content over quality, those spreading outlandish disinformation are rewarded while those posting the (sometimes dry or technical) truth are shouted over.”

With their billion-dollar backing and an assist from Big Tech, the Infowars Investors are dominating the digital discussion of ESG issues, and in the course of doing so, have managed to fully merge climate disinfo-specific and general rightwing audiences.

It’s the epic crossover event absolutely no one wanted.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

Dan Bacher

cory d

@Doctorow: Fight inflation with a windfall profits tax - "Corporate profiteering has costs the average American household $276/month, with the majority of it coming from the energy sector."@RepRoKhanna

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https://redgreenandblue.org/…/cory-doctorow-fight-inflatio…/

Climate deniers are going all in with disinfo for COP26 (Sorry, Teslas really do produce fewer emissions)

TAGGED:COP26, DENIAL, TESLA October 27th, 2021

As the world gears up for the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow next week, deniers are already laying the groundwork for the disinformation they’ll peddle in a hopefully-vain attempt to recreate their success in using Climategate disinformation to disrupt the Copenhagen COP.

While every year brings a new and exciting display of denial, a few recent stories stand out as top candidates for the fossil fueled opposition to latch onto when confronted with the possibility that letting polluters profit our planet to death is a bad idea.By Climate Denier Roundup

Though we can expect some totally-unhinged and _{unsubstantiated claims about banning beef,}_ one of the biggest recurring arguments is also one of the most misleading, that the Texas blackouts offer a warning of what climate policies will make common.

For example, Sean Spicer, who hasn’t quite danced his Trump-stained reputation clean yet, has a new book out, and the Koch-funded RealClear _{ran an excerpt}_. It opens with a heart-tugging story about a 12 year old who died of hypothermia, and then quickly exploits the child’s death to score cheap, and completely false, political points. The 80+ deaths “were caused by political decisions,” Spicer writes, and “the tragedy of the Texas blackout was partially the result of the growth of the green energy industry.”

But the majority of the _{responsibility for the blackouts}_ can be laid at the fossil fuel industry’s failure to do the one thing it claims it does best: Be reliable.

That reliability claim is also at the core of another strain of disinformation we’re seeing around COP26, which is the suggestion that the Teslas parked at the Gleneagles Hotel that the VIPs will use in Glasgow are going to be charged by diesel generators. “Couldn’t make it up,” _{one viral tweet claimed}_.

It was used as _{the basis for a ZeroHedge story}_, and the same narrative has been picked up by _{the UK’s Spectator}_ magazine, and the climate _{denial blog Watts Up With That}_.

The problem? Well, it turns out you could make it up, and they did, as it turns out it’s Jaguar-brand electric vehicles they’re using, not Teslas, and while the COP26 crew may use supplemental generators to charge the vehicles somewhere, Gleneagles Hotel has denied setting up any chargers, while conference organizers _{told Alastair Dalton for the Scotsman}_ that any spare generators are going to be filled with cooking waste oil, AKA biodiesel, not petroleum-based diesel.

Although unreasonable for faux-populist conservatives to attack the rich elite pushing for climate action, it does seem odd that they’re apparently incapable of doing so in an honest way, despite that being so very, very easy to do.

For example, _{**a recent New York Post op-ed**}_ does a fine job of criticizing the billionaire boy’s club of Bezos, Musk, Gates, and Jobs(‘s widow), but also throws in some fakery for good measure.

While Paula Froelich is correct that “the electric cars made by Musk’s Tesla are not emissions free,”she then goes on to claim that the Wall Street Journal showed that “building one of his cars actually generates more emissions because of the metals needed for its lithium-ion batteries.”

But when _{you click through to the WSJ story}_, the subheadline notes that while “there are caveats”, “EVs produce fewer emissions overall than their gas-powered counterparts.” That’s because while the manufacturing of an electric vehicle requires more materials than a gas-powered car, the pollution from refueling far outweighs that initial difference.

Drive a Tesla for more than (at most) 20,000 miles, and you’ve broken even on emissions.

Drive it for a car’s average lifespan of 150,000 miles, and not only has the EV cost you less in ownership (because electricity is cheaper than gas) but you’ve also generated less than half as much pollution.

So if they had ordered and produced new electric cars for the COP26, and then immediately scrapped them afterwards, then yes, that would be hypocritical and wasteful. But the UK government has already said that the cars “have all been sourced from existing fleets in the UK,” so there’s not even that initial manufacturing pollution to count, dramatically improving the emissions footprint.

But, as one local environmental campaigner, Colin Howden, told the Scotsman, what they could’ve done to reduce emissions even further (and avoid this issue all together) is have the dignitaries take advantage of the “fleet of new electric buses” in Glasgow.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos.)

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Ukraine War: Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have done business in Russia for decades – here’s why they’re leaving now

Published on March 4th, 2022 | by Guest Contributor

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, British energy giant BP announced on Feb. 27, 2022, that it will sell its nearly 20% ownership in Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft. BP’s rival Shell is also pulling out of all of its operations in Russia, as are U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil and Norway’s state-controlled company, Equinor. […]

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EcoRight climate news for the week of March 4, 2022

Published on March 4th, 2022 | by Chelsea Henderson

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Watt’s wrong with this picture? Climate deniers still garbling science to prove… what?

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‘Historic First’ as Hawaii Court OKs climate lawsuit against Big Oil

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NUCLEAR

Ukraine: Largest nuclear plant in Europe is on fire after deliberate Russian shelling

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CONGRESS

EcoRight Speaks podcast: Rep Andrew Garbarino of the House Climate Solutions Caucus

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What the latest IPCC report says about carbon fee and dividend

Published on March 3rd, 2022 | by Citizens' Climate Lobby

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From the IPCC to the SOTU, people are picking up on climate disinformation

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175 Nations to Agree on ‘Historic’ Plastic Pollution Treaty

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