ukip independ party
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disambig see farage</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">desmog map of attackers, incl rebel media, heartland gwpf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/09/15/attacks-greta-thunberg-right-wing-free-market-network"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmog.co.uk/<b>2019/09/15</b>/attacks-greta-thunberg-right-wing-free-market-network</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">many lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Freak yachting accidents do happen…”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was how British businessman, Trump ally, and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks responded to the news that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who inspired the school climate strikes movement, was sailing to America to attend the UN Climate Action Summit. His scorn was not unique. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many people have already spilled thousands of words of commentary explaining how personal attacks on Greta — often lobbed by old white men, sometimes mocking her Aspergers — are unacceptable. But understanding where those attackers come from, ideologically and professionally, casts an important light on some of their dark statements.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s because a large subsection of the commentariat driving the abuse of Greta is part of an established network of radical free-marketeer lobby groups — a network that has firm ties to the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate science denial.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">European Attacks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greta first shot to prominence in Europe, and that’s where the earliest mudslinging emerged.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Banks’ tweet was one of the most high-profile. He is among the most prominent funders of Brexit, with long-standing ties to the UK Independence Party and its former leader Nigel Farage</span>. UKIP’s politician, Neil Hamilton, was one of the first to be called out for posting what was perceived by many as a bullying tweet directed at Greta, who is 16 years old. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arron Banks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Arron_banks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freak yachting accidents do happen in August ... https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/status/1161656057023934464 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caroline Lucas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@CarolineLucas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bon voyage to @GretaThunberg for her 2-week zero-carbon trip by sail across the North Atlantic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She’s carrying the vital message to the UN that time is running out to address the #ClimateEmergency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Farage has now set up a new outfit, the Brexit Party, also bankrolled by Banks.The party has 29 members in the European Parliament, many of them climate science deniers, thanks to winning 30 percent of the vote in May’s elections.</b> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While resisting calls to form an official alliance, the Brexit Party MEPs join other far-right populist parties in Brussels, including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly the Front National) and Alternative for Germany (AfD). All are united in their hatred for Greta. Two National Rally MPs recently boycotted her visit to France, and AfD representatives have made coordinated attacks on social media.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those aggressions were orchestrated by the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) — an organisation known for co-sponsoring events with U.S. free-market think tank, the Heartland Institute.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trans-Atlantic Potshots</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s perhaps unsurprising to find that many of the U.S. commentators verbally assaulting Greta also have ties to the Heartland Institute, given the organisation’s Big Oil funding and long-history of promoting climate science denial.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The institute’s website published a long blog post by one of its ‘<b>policy experts’, Gregory Wrightstone,</b> who attempted to refute many of Thunberg’s arguments for climate action. “It is time for her to go back to school to learn what she doesn’t know and to unlearn so much of what she has been taught,” he concluded.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more of DeSmog's coverage of the global school strikes for climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many other critics of Greta in the U.S. are tied to another of Heartland’s funders, the Koch family, owners of the U.S.’s largest private energy company.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marc Morano, communications director of campaign group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and a regular speaker at Heartland Institute events, has a long history of spreading misinformation about climate change. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was also one of the loudest critics of Greta’s visit to the U.S., appearing on Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media to describe the young activist as “bait” to entrap critics of climate policy. Levant was an intern at the Charles Koch Foundation and later worked for the Koch-funded Fraser Institute. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morano’s arguments were echoed on CFACT’s website by Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist who worked for AccuWeather, a private forecasting company that in the 1990s was involved with the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) — a now-defunct fossil fuel industry front group that strongly opposed global greenhouse gas reduction policies. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CFACT has received significant donations from oil companies including Exxon and Chevron, as well as oil billionaire Richard Scaife.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Greta’s most prominent critics has been Steve Milloy, a self-styled “pioneer” fighting against “faulty scientific data used to advance special, and often hidden, agendas.” Milloy is, among other things, an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Milloy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@JunkScience</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When you've resorted to a teenage puppet for your public policy argument... you've lost.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate bedwetters... the world laughs at this Greta charade. https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1160121105467760641 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Independent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Independent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greta Thunberg urges people to to 'unite behind the science' in powerful climate change speech</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CEI’s director of energy and environment, Myron Ebell, was part of of President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team, and is infamous for making regular media appearances spreading oft-debunked misinformation on climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEI has raised millions of dollars in donations from the fossil fuel industry, including ExxonMobil, and the Koch family foundations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back to Brexit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Koch network’s influence isn’t confined to the U.S. media. One of the most vicious attacks on the teenage climate activist has come from Brendan O’Neill, editor of the Koch-funded website Spiked.</b> He wrote of Greta:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This poor young woman increasingly looks and sounds like a cult member. The monotone voice. The look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes. The explicit talk of the coming great ‘fire’ that will punish us for our eco-sins. There is something chilling and positively pre-modern about Ms Thunberg.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O’Neill’s comments were “proof” that O’Neill and many others who write on Spiked’s platform had “run out of ideas”, according to Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One such regular contributor is James Delingpole, who now predominantly writes for the alt-right website Breitbart. One of his latest articles describes Greta as the “Patron Saint of the Age of Stupid”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Delingpole’s </b>articles frequently cite the UK’s premier climate misinformation outlet, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Like Breitbart, the Conservative Woman website, edited by GWPF-director Kathy Gyngell, also hosts multiple articles assailing Greta. Breitbart was formerly run by Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Check out DeSmog's special series: The New Climate Activism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Which brings us back to Arron Banks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bannon played a key role in the early days of the Brexit campaign spearheaded by Banks and Farage. Bannon was also a director of Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy embroiled in a scandal over the use of big data during the Brexit referendum and which was involved with Banks and Farage’s Leave.EU group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Brexit Party is at the forefront of efforts to lobby for the UK to leave the European Union with no deal on October 31. That eventuality would possibly open the door for mass deregulation of the UK’s markets, a shredding of the UK’s environmental protections, and a fire sale of national assets for favoured U.S. companies — causes close to the hearts of all the groups behind the individuals attacking Greta.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">desmog 1219</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div class="views-field views-field-body" style="font-size: 14px; overflow: inherit; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif"><div class="field-content"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">The european Parliament has declared a climate emergency. And it did so without the help of many of the <span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">UK</span>’s pro-Brexit <span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">MEP</span>s.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">A <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/votes.html?tab=votes" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">resolution</a> declaring the emergency and calling on all global actors to “urgently take the concrete action needed in order to fight and contain this threat before it is too late” <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2019-11-28-RCV_FR.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">passed</a> with 429 votes for, 225 votes against, and 19 abstentions on November 28.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Six of the 225 votes against were from the <span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">UK</span>’s Brexit Party <span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">MEP</span>s. 21 of the party’s <span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">MEP</span>s, including party leader Nigel Farage, didn’t show for the vote, however.</p></div></div><div class="views-field views-field-disqus-comment-count" style="float: left; margin-right: 15px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><span class="field-content" /></div><div class="views-field views-field-view-node" style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><span class="field-content"><a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/12/05/these-pro-brexit-meps-didn-t-want-european-parliament-declare-climate-emergency" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">READ MORE</a></span></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div class="views-field views-field-body" style="overflow: inherit;"><div class="field-content"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">British political parties and individual politicians have received more than £9 million worth of donations from the aviation industry, with the vast majority going to the Brexit Party and the Conservatives, DeSmog can reveal.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The top four incumbent politicians to have taken donations are all Conservative <span class="caps" style="">MP</span>s, with former International Trade Secretary <a href="https://desmog.co.uk/liam-fox" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Liam Fox</a> receiving the most. Two other Tory <span class="caps" style="">MP</span>s, three Labour <span class="caps" style="">MP</span>s and the leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, are joint fourth, and another Tory <span class="caps" style="">MP</span> is also in the top 10.</font></p></div></div><div class="views-field views-field-disqus-comment-count" style="float: left; margin-right: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="field-content" /></font></div><div class="views-field views-field-view-node" style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase;"><span class="field-content"><a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/12/06/revealed-brexit-party-and-conservatives-have-received-8m-aviation-industry" style="outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MO</font></a></span></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Even for someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter, some of the criticism levelled at Thunberg is astonishing. It is, simultaneously, the most vicious and the most fatuous kind of playground bullying. The Australian conservative climate change denier </span><a class="search" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Andrew+Bolt" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" outline="outline" none="none" important="important">Andrew Bolt</a><span style="" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> called her “deeply disturbed” and “freakishly influential” (the use of “freakish”, we can assume, was not incidental.) The former UKIP funder, </span><a class="search" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Arron+Banks" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" outline="outline" none="none" important="important">Arron Banks</a><span style="" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">, tweeted “Freaking yacht accidents do happen in August” (as above.) Brendan O’Neill of Spiked called her a “millenarian weirdo” (nope, still not incidental) in a piece that referred nastily to her “monotone voice” and “the look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes”.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">These pro-climate positions are far from the norm, however, among Europe’s populists.</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The majority of the parties either outright deny the science on climate change, or else ignore the issue. The<b> Alternative for Germany party </b>and the <span class="caps">UK</span>Independence Party are both openly sceptical about the proven connection between carbon dioxide emissions and rising temperatures.</span> =</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Do not adjust your wireless, the BBC really did just ask 'is climate change real?'.</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week we reported how a local radio station decided the middle of a heatwave was a good time to discuss the reality of anthropogenic global warming. While it had a few segments from scientists making clear that yes, really, climate change really really is real and really really is happening and yes this really is kind of what it looks like, the producers also invited on a climate science denier. Cos, y'know, balance.</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Up stepped Philip Foster, a retired reverend, writer and a supporter of the UK Independence Party (Ukip).</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He is a vice chairman of the cross-party Eurosceptic group Campaign for an Independent Britain.</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foster completed an undergraduate degree in Natural Science at the University of Cambridge before teaching secondary and sixth-form schoolchildren in Nigeria. He trained as a Christian minister and served for 30 years before retiring.</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was an increasingly rare appearance for Foster, who was last spootted at the Paris climate conference, where he teamed up with climate science denier and former adviser to Margaret Thatcher Christopher Monckton to organise a few climate science denier events.</font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more about Foster's (mis)deeds in his <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://desmogblog.cmail19.com/t/t-l-ukijdly-jdldtjdit-yd/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">full profile</a> in our <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://desmogblog.cmail19.com/t/t-l-ukijdly-jdldtjdit-yh/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Disinformation Database</a>.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div></div>