Rucker, Craig CFACT

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NO MERRI

PREZ OF CFACT

INCUB?

RENTA?

see cfact

KOCH DONORS CEI

EXXON CHEVRON

see morano HORNER

SEE HEARTLAND DENIAL ZELDIN 4 26

see offshore wind whale BS

DDT

RON ARNOLD

PARTIC

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ZELDIN UP FOR AG? OMG AT HEARTLAND CONF 4 26 2024?

MOJO GUK

Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), gave the keynote speech at a conference on Wednesday morning, one which was hosted by a prominent climate-denying think tank that previously compared those concerned about the climate crisis to the Unabomber on billboard posters in 2012.

“No longer are we going to rely on bad, flawed assumptions instead of accurate, present-day facts, without apology or regret,” Zeldin said at the Heartland Institute’s conference on climate change in Washington, DC, referring to well-established climate science.

Zeldin has been widely criticized by climate experts. Last month, more than 160 environmental and public health organizations called for him to resign or be fired, saying no EPA administrator in history “has so brazenly betrayed the agency’s core mission.”

In his speech, Zeldin poked fun at the media for calling him “controversial” for not “following blind obedience to whatever the dire, doom and gloom position of the day is from John Kerry or Al Gore or AOC”—referring to the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “It’s controversial that we won’t sign up for the script that the world is imminently about to end,” he said.

He derided previous administrations’ heeding of climate scientists’ warnings about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, and for ignoring “what’s good and necessary about carbon dioxide for the life of the planet.”

“What happened for years and decades in this country is that the elite, the ruling class, the people who would run the agencies, the people who have decided that they are in charge of the science, the politicians, the biggest grifters: there would be a cabal that would decide exactly which model is the chosen model, which methodology is the higher methodology,” he said. “And if all of you in this room, if any of you in this room dare to challenge any of that, well shame on you.”

“Carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth…is not a pollutant and never was.”

Ahead of Zeldin’s Wednesday-morning speech at the Heartland conference, Environmental Defense Fund Action put up posters around Hotel Washington critiquing the EPA administrator’s participation and saying climate denial does not improve Americans’ lives. “Lee Zeldin is executing on the playbook of denial written by the Heartland Institute,” Joanna Slaney, a vice-president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said.

The Heartland Institute has accepted money from big oil companies including Shell and ExxonMobil, and from the Mercers, a family of Republican mega-donors. The thinktank was a contributor to Project 2025, the far-right policy blueprint for Trump’s second administration.

The Heartland Institute rejects the scientific consensus that the climate crisis is real, human-caused and urgent. Since the early 2000s, it has been a leading promoter of climate doubt, even branding climate science as “fake news.”

Experts agree that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are warming the planet, resulting in dangerous increases in temperatures and in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. Scientists have long warned that the world must quickly phase out fossil fuels in order to preserve a livable climate.

Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed the climate crisis as a “hoax” and dismissed environmental policies as a “scam.” And under Zeldin, the EPA has exempted polluting facilities from regulations, shuttered climate and environmental research offices, and shrunk its workforce. It has also rolled back dozens of environmental and climate protections.

“What we are doing in the last 14 months is no surprise,” Zeldin said in his speech. “It is what I pledged during my confirmation hearing, and it is what the American public voted for when they put Donald J Trump back in office. And thank God they did.”

:{:{The EPA administrator also spoke about his most controversial environmental rollback: the shredding of the legal finding underpinning virtually all US climate regulations, known as the “endangerment finding.” Scientists and other experts widely condemned the repeal, but the Heartland Institute has celebrated it.}:

“Carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth and happens to result from every single bit of human and animal activity on the planet, is not a pollutant and never was,” Anthony Watts, a senior fellow at the thinktank, said in a February statement praising the repeal.

References to the rollback were met with cheers at the conference in Washington on Wednesday morning, and Zeldin expressed “admiration” for the Heartland Institute’s advocacy against the endangerment finding in his speech.

Craig Rucker, the president of CFACT—a right-wing group which complains about“climate exaggeration,” introduced Zeldin at the conference as a “friend of sound science [and] climate realism, a real rock star.”

Another panel at Wednesday’s conference convened the authors of a contentious Department of Energy report that was written to back up the repeal of the endangerment finding. The publication was derided by climate scientists as making a “mockery of science,” and was not used in the justification for the final repeal of the finding. “While the world warned, a lot of things improved and got better, and continues to do so,” said Ross McKitrick, an author of the report, at the conference.

Another report author, Judith Curry—a climatologist who rails against climate “alarmism”—criticized the “monolithic consensus” on climate science that is “presented to the world.” Though the US government disbanded the group which produced the controversial report on the endangerment finding, Curry said the authors were currently reviewing comments on the report and preparing a new version to release this year.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, the Heartland Institute’s president, James Taylor, kicked off the conference with a rousing speech in which he invoked the debunked climate myth that increased carbon emissions are good for plants: “Restoring CO2 and restoring warmth to our world is…a restoration to more ideal conditions,” he said.

“The truth is clear: there is no climate crisis,” said Taylor. “The science is very clear.”

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CFACT co-sponsors 'Land and Liberty' gathering in Texas - National Today

National Today

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' held on February 13-14 in Fort Worth, Texas brought together around 150 property rights activists from across ...

CFACT co-sponsors 'Land and Liberty' gathering in Texas

Around 150 property rights leaders convened in Fort Worth to discuss strategies and listen to speakers like former Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Published on Feb. 16, 2026

Got story updates?Submit your updates here. ›

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' held on February 13-14 in Fort Worth, Texas brought together around 150 property rights activists from across the country. The event, co-sponsored by CFACT, featured panels, workshops, and Texas hospitality including barbecue and a rodeo. Speakers included former Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Congressman Harriett Hageman, and Texas Agriculture Secretary Sid Miller.

Why it matters

The conference highlighted the growing movement of property rights advocates who are pushing back against what they see as an overreach of environmental regulations and a 'far-Left political agenda that is decidedly anti-human and anti-freedom.' The gathering aimed to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' of natural resources.

The details

The two-day conference covered topics such as energy security, financial exploitation of natural resources, reopening federal lands, and defending landowner rights. CFACT, a prominent co-sponsor, hosted a panel featuring its president Craig Rucker and communications director Marc Morano, as well as representatives from the Heartland Institute.

• The 'Land and Liberty Conference' took place on February 13-14, 2026 in Fort Worth, Texas.
• This was the third time in recent years the event has been held.

The players

CFACT

The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a nonprofit organization that promotes free market environmentalism and opposes what it sees as excessive environmental regulation.

Craig Rucker

The president of CFACT.

Marc Morano

The director of communications for CFACT.

Brooke Rollins

The former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President Trump.

Harriett Hageman

A U.S. Congressman.

Sid Miller

The Texas Secretary of Agriculture.

Got photos?Submit your photos here. ›

What they’re saying

“The Green movement has undergone a transition, one that moved from wise conservation and stewardship of the land, a position held by everyone a 100 years ago, to one that now promotes a far-Left political agenda that is decidedly anti-human and anti-freedom. We need to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' and save the environmental movement from itself.”

— Craig Rucker, President, CFACT (CFACT.org)

“I can feel the momentum building since our first gathering in Lincoln, Nebraska. President Trump's influence is clearly energizing the movement. I can't wait for next year!”

— Marc Morano, Director of Communications, CFACT (CFACT.org)

What’s next

The organizers plan to host the 'Land and Liberty Conference' again next year, building on the momentum from this year's event.

The takeaway

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' highlights the growing influence of property rights advocates who are pushing back against what they view as excessive environmental regulations and a political agenda that is 'anti-human and anti-freedom.' The conference aimed to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' of natural resources.

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In a coordinated effort to undermine climate science and slow environmental progress, prominent American climate change denial organizations recently teamed up with a conservative Austrian trade union known as the Union for Sovereignty and the German climate denialist European Institute for Climate and Energy to strategize on defeating climate solutions that threaten the fossil fuel industry or are otherwise deemed too radical.

The Heartland Institute, one of the leading climate denial organizations in the U.S., and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a longstanding libertarian group, hosted the 16th International Climate Change Conference (ICCC), which took place from June 13–15 in Vienna — a new stronghold of the far right. It was the first time the conference had been held in Europe in almost a decade. According to CFACT, their intention was “to make the case for ‘climate realism,’” a phrase used by right-wing organizations to delegitimize climate change and downplay the urgency of the crisis.

Over the past few years, Europe has become a prime target for climate denialists, with fossil fuel lobbyists effectively peddling climate disinformation to far-right parties that oppose climate mitigation policies.

James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute, that the new political climate in Europe — where the far right has been gaining traction in recent years — presents an opportunity to strengthen a global conservative “coalition” to push back against climate-friendly policies.

Spreading Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories

At the conference, speakers shared strategies for combating both “climate alarmism” and the growth of renewable energy. Craig Rucker, president of CFACT, participating in shareholder meetings to propose anti-green initiatives, drafting model bills against renewables, and drawing more attention to whale deaths to ramp up public opposition to offshore wind farms — using what experts have called a misinformation campaign.

Many presenters, including Taylor and Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, framed climate change as an anti-democratic, left-wing plot to consolidate global power, echoing conspiracy theories associated with recent Covid-19 measures.

Morano further claimed that sustainable farming policies would force American farmers to sell their land to tech-world billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos due to rising compliance costs. He also painted net-zero policies like restrictions on gas-powered cars as “corporate government collusion” aimed at benefiting the Chinese EV industry — a claim that echoes the rise in anti-China rhetoric used by Republican politicians and other conservatives. Morano further criticized Natural Asset Companies (NACs) — a boogeyman to conservatives for valuing ecosystems and natural resources — as a Wall Street plot to “take away available land from private citizens.”

The Supporting “Science”

The scientists who presented at the conference, including a Nobel laureate in physics and a former Trump administration scientific advisor, promoted denialist rhetoric by casting doubt on scientific evidence of global warming and the impact of greenhouse gasses. Some reiterated the fringe argument that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather “plant food,” while others questioned mainstream climate models such as those used by the United Nations.

Many of the scientists who presented at the conference have ties to oil industry money and have been criticized for accepting but not disclosing industry funding for their research.

Willie Soon, an astrophysicist formerly associated with the ​​Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, failed to disclose that he had accepted more than $1.2 million in research-related donations from corporate fossil fuel funders, including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and DonorsTrust, according to reporting by the New York Times.

William Happer and John F. Clauser, both of whom kowtowed to the fossil fuel industry by downplaying the role of carbon emissions on climate change, are members of the Koch-funded CO2 Coalition, which also receives funding from the Bradley Foundation, the Mercer Family Foundation, The 85 Fund (run by right-wing legal firebrand Leonard Leo), the Scaife Foundation, and other far-right donors. Additionally, Happer received $8,000 from Peabody Energy in exchange for testimony at a 2015 Minnesota state hearing claiming that carbon dioxide makes a positive impact on society, a Greenpeace investigation revealed.

Host Groups’ Industry Ties

Heartland and CFACT also receive significant funding from the fossil fuel industry. In 2019, a coalition of 19 U.S. Senators accused these groups of creating a “web of denial” to mislead the public about climate change and stymie legislative action. Heartland has received funding from fossil fuel companies such as Murray Energy and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. Since 2014, it has also received over $15 million from Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, identity-scrubbing operations that give Big Oil a way to fund climate misinformation while avoiding bad press. These donor-advised funds have increasingly supported climate denial organizations as the traceability of funding from Big Oil has decreased, a correlation documented by Greenpeace.

Donors to CFACT have included ExxonMobil as well as the Scaife and Koch family foundations, which are largely funded by fossil fuel fortunes. Despite claims by its senior policy advisor that the group stopped accepting fossil fuel money as of 2010, data collected by DeSmogshows small grants from Charles Koch’s foundation and Murray Energy between 2014 and 2018. CFACT has also received more than $8 million from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund over the past 20 years.

While these organizations claim to be “climate realists,” they play a major role in elevating and promoting arguments against net-zero initiatives and climate mitigation strategies critical to addressing the climate crisis. By reconnecting with their counterparts in Europe, they are expanding their global reach in ways that threaten serious efforts to radically reduce carbon emissions before it’s too late.

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desmog

Actions

September 27, 2022

CFACT and the Heartland Institute announceda joint legal effort with an anti-wind front group created by the Cesar Rodney Institute, the American Coalition for Ocean Protection, to oppose the Coastal Virginia Offshore Energy Project. The group alleged the wind project threatens the endangered North Atlantic right whale.35

October 31–November 12, 2021

CFACT attended the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.36 According to Peter Murphy, one of CFACT’s representatives shown in the official provisional list of registered participants (PLOP), CFACT activists handed out copies of Marc Morano‘s Climate Hustle 2 film during the event.37

Murphy wrote:38

“CFACT got to ask the only question permitted by NGOs. I stepped forward and asked them to comment about scientific findings which show that increased carbon emissions actually boost crop yields, which have led to record harvests for feeding the world. This would mean that CO2 isn’t just a ‘problem,’ but a benefit to helping feed the world. The panelists were having none of it — with one of them saying that any impact from CO2 has only a’negative’ effects, particularly on Africa, the region he represented.

Call that real climate denial.”

Listed CFACT representatives included:

• **Craig Rucker**
• Harry Wilkinson
• Marc Morano
• Peter Murphy
• Travis Burk

April 6, 2021

Ronald Stein wrote an article at CFACT arguing “products from fossil fuels are lifesaving, and one of the best ways out of poverty.”39

“In the poor world, replacing fossil fuels with new intermittent electricity sources like wind and solar power is hard because most people desperately want much more power at lower cost, not fickle power at high cost,” Stein claimed.40

He also argued against electric vehicles (EVs), saying “exotic minerals and metals for EV batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, and fossil fuels are functionally irreplaceable, but there is a worldwide abundance of fossil fuels in virtually every country, but the minerals and metals for a ‘green’ society are limited to a few countries.”41

As DeSmog has noted in itspast debunking of similar statements by anti-EV campaigns, “gas-powered vehicles require some of the same ‘toxic’ rare earth metals” as EVs, while EVs are overall much cleaner than the alternative even when the production stage is considered.42

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we usually try not to cover the same issue in back-to-back posts, but while yesterday we connected some dots between industry-backed disinformation organizations and front groups opposing offshore wind, today they're connecting them for us.

On Monday evening, the New York Post ran a story headlined "Fishermen, activists protest offshore wind farms near Montauk, cite recent whale deaths." According to the Post's Josh Christenson, "the coalition, organized by the:{ :(style="margin-top:0px"):}:Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, sent out three boats to South Fork Wind Farm, roughly 20 miles from both Martha’s Vineyard and Montauk, NY, holding signs that read 'STOP WINDMILLS SAVE WHALES' while shouting through a bullhorn at machinery operators to halt construction."

but "coalition" is certainly being generous, as the accompanying video and photos show a total of nine people, at least two of whom are Marc Morano and Craig Rucker of dark money-backed CFACT (and two more who may also be CFACT staff, although it's hard to tell).

Eight of them appeared to be on a pretty luxurious powerboat, and on another small boat, one lone guy who was just barely able to unfurl his banners as the video-recording drone whizzed by. Unlike the other boat, this one at least had fishing poles.

It’s unclear who or where the "professional New Jersey fishermen" were that the NYPost described as participating in the protest against the South Fork Wind Farm between the shores of Martha's Vineyard and Montauk, NY (100 miles north of NJ and 20 miles off the coast of Rhode Island.)

There does not appear to be footage of a professional fishing vessel participating in this embarrassing display.

Maybe we're just cynical, but it sure looks like a bunch of fossil fools booked a pleasure cruise in the ritzy-est part of Long Island, brought along a couple friends and banners calling wind turbines "windmills," and convinced the super-legitimate journalists over at Rupert Murdoch's NY Post to cover it

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post reuters?!

neW ORLEANS — Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply “dumb.”

These are among the messages that flowed from the America First Energy Conference in New Orleans this week, hosted by some of the country’s most vocal climate change doubters — and attended by a handful of Trump administration officials.

The second annual conference, organized by the conservative think tank the Heartland Institute, pulled together speakers from JunkScience, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the Center For Industrial Progress, along with officials from the US Department of the Interior and the White House for panels that included “Carbon Taxes, Cap & Trade, and Other Bad Ideas,” “Fiduciary Malpractice: The Sustainable Investment Movement,” and “Why CO2 Emissions Are Not Creating A Climate Crisis.”

The day-long conference reflected the political rise of global warming skeptics in Donald Trump’s America that is occurring despite mounting scientific evidence — including from US government agencies — that burning oil, coal and natural gas is heating the planet and leading to drought, floods, wildfires and more frequent powerful storms.

A similar conference blasting the link between fossil fuels and climate change last year drew then-Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who was appointed by Trump to reverse Obama-era climate initiatives and roll back regulations hindering drillers and miners, but who has since resigned amid a flurry of ethical controversies.

The US officials who joined included White House special assistant Brooke Rollins, Interior Department Assistant Secretary Joe Balash, and Jason Funes,an assistant in the office of external affairs at Interior. They praised the administration’s moves to clear the way for oil industry activity, and steered clear of commenting on climate change.

But their presence gave climate change doubters at the conference a boost: “It’s a step in the right direction,” said self-described climate change doubter Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, referring to the US officials in attendance.

In an email, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said department officials “speak at thousands of conferences every year and share ideas with a diverse group of individuals.” A White House spokesperson did not immediately comment.

Tim Huelskamp, president and CEO of the Heartland Institute, said the views presented at the conference — once on the fringes of US politics — would be proven right.

“The leftist claims about sea level rise are overblown, overstated or frankly just wrong,” he said in an interview. Regarding the United Nations’ findings on climate change, he said it was “fake science” motivated by a desire for “power and control.”

“Coming Soon!”

Evidence of sea level rise, however, is strewn across the state that hosted the conference.

New Orleans has been ravaged repeatedly by hurricanes that scientists say will become stronger and more frequent due to climate change. And the rest of Louisiana is losing coastline at one of the fastest rates on the planet due to sea level rise and encroaching industry, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s a nice world they live in,” said Steve Cochran, campaign director of Restore the Mississippi River Delta, an environmental consortium involved in coastal restoration programs, referring to the attendees at the America First Energy Conference. “It’s not the world we live in.”

The Governor’s Office of Louisiana, a state that has earmarked tens of billions of dollars to fend off coastal erosion and relocate a Native American tribe from a sinking offshore island, did not respond to requests for comment about the conference.

In the conference exhibit hall, the words “Coming Soon!” in big orange letters framed a Heartland Institute advertisement for the fifth volume in its “Climate Change Reconsidered” book series. Attendees also passed around a book titled “Dumb Energy: A Rant Against Wind and Solar Energy.”

The more than 40 speakers praised Trump for withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, a global agreement to fight climate change mainly by cutting carbon emissions; and for rolling back regulations to allow oil companies to lead the biggest energy surge in the nation’s history.

But they warned that proponents of the US oil and gas boom are still locked in an epic struggle with climate activists in academia and within federal agencies.

“The deep state is real,” said Congressman Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, addressing the conference. “They’re certainly anti-fossil fuel.”

Higgins joked about renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, saying there is probably a conference somewhere in the United States where people are talking about “how the future of the world’s engine will be provided by rainbow dust and unicorn milk.”

David Legates,professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, argued that increased carbon dioxide emissions will not only leave the planet unharmed, but benefit plant life by allowing it to consume water more efficiently.

“So, you would expect, therefore, that this will be a greener planet,” Legates said.

Funes of the Interior Department spoke on a panel called “The Future of Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas,” alongside Joe Leimkuhler, vice president of drilling at LLOG Exploration Co., and Fred Palmer, who joined Heartland in 2016 after retiring from coal company Peabody Energy.

“Oil production under President Trump has increased 2 million barrels per day since the beginning of his administration,” Funes said. “The US is exporting four times as much oil as it exported a decade ago.”

On the sidelines of the conference, Funes said he only attended the conference to speak about the nation’s surging oil production, and he refused to comment about the views of other speakers.

Efforts to reach Balash and Rollins were unsuccessful.

But in the dinner keynote address, Balash embraced the most obvious mutual terrain between the conference organizers and the Trump administration — the US deregulation push.

“Last year, this administration rolled back 22 regulations for every one that it proposed,” Balash said. “Unfortunately, I think we need about a decade of that to get back to a reasonable place.”

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in April, we noticed fisherman Jerry Leeman was impressively adept at anti-offshore wind media relations work, and wondered if he was receiving assistance from professional disinformation operatives. Then last month, we spotted a tell suggesting Leeman was working with none other than Steve Milloy, the template for tobacco shills turned climate deniers, to launch his new fishing lobby group. Now, we’ve spotted another clue that Leeman's career change from the high seas to lobbying for the fishing industry has some big fish on the line.

Yesterday, The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation's disinformation website posing as media, announced that "A conservative nonprofit launched by former Vice President Mike Pence is representing 11 conservative groups in supporting fishermen challenging the extensive power of the federal bureaucracy."

the 11 groups filing an amicus curiae brief to tell SCOTUS to deconstruct the administrative state are basically a handy list of the current crop of Koch-world front groups, including "Project 21 Black Leadership Network," the "Young America Foundation" that trains right-wing propagandists, and "Students for Life of America", whoseboard includes the billion-dollar donationrecipient Leonard Leo. (And of course Pence's political career was revived by Koch cash:{ and :(style="margin-top:0px"):}:the Heritage Foundation has been funded by Koch et al.)

So what do the Koch fronts say to one another? Well, they’re scheming to try to convince the Supreme Court (which Leonard Leo packed) to overturn the Chevron Deference, a long standing judicial precedent giving federal agencies like the EPA and FDA the necessary latitude to enforce the statutes Congress writes. Last year, before the Supreme Court turned "major questions" from right-wing industry dreams into a reality, we and many others explained that SCOTUS may narrow or eliminate the Chevron deference, and severely constrain the federal government's ability to regulate.

SCOTUS didn't go that far with "major questions" last year, but this term, they've taken a case calling for the Chevron ruling to be overturned: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. At issue? The federal government's regulation of the fishing industry.

And who should turn up in not one but two stories last May (in Fox and the National Review, a Koch-backed disinfo outlet) as the working-class fisherman who's also able to give quotes about Loper Bright and the regulations being challenged? And who was the podcast guest in :{another:(style="margin-top:0px"):}: Daily Signal piece in June about regulations harming the fishing industry?

That's right — none other than Jerry Leeman! Seems even as he was writing op-eds about how he's "a trawler" who "cannot run a net off the back of my boat with wind turbines obstructing the water column," he was also trawling the murky waters of disinfo media.

Yet a month later, he reportedly "stepped away" from fishing, and it would seem that's because he landed the most lucrative of all catches: a position in the Koch disinfo machine.

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shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough clean energy to power 10 million homes. For the administration, the offshore wind target was a part of a larger strategy of reducing carbon pollution and putting the country on track for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But, like many clean energy plans, this one was met with immediate resistance. 

In August 2021, CBS News reported that Nantucket Residents Against Turbines — or ACK Rats — launched a lawsuit against the administration's offshore wind plans. The Massachusetts-based resident group argued that offshore wind development “poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.”

A few months later, a resident group inNew Jersey launched another lawsuit against the Biden administration. Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that he and his fellow residents worried that the wind turbines would destroy their local tourism economy.

Within a year of announcing the goal, the Biden administration faced lawsuits from resident groups in every coastal state from Maine to North Carolina. Some groups sued over endangered whales. Others argued that the turbines would hurt their property values or the local fishing industry.

If you only read the news stories about these lawsuits, you might think this was yet another example of wealthy residents blocking clean energy development. Or you might see a familiar story of environmentalists getting in the way of environmental progress. But you’d be missing the most important part of the story. Nearly every story neglects to mention these groups are being funded by a far-right think tank that receives funding from fossil fuel companies and billionaires.

Who’s behind the offshore wind lawsuits?

According to their website, Protect Our Coast NJ — one of the groups opposing Biden’s offshore wind plans — is a group of “residents, homeowners, business owners, fishermen and visitors of the New Jersey coastal communities.” Media reports accept this description at face value.

In May 2022, Ashbury Park Press — the third largest newspaper in New Jersey — ran a story about Protect Our Coast NJ with the headline, “Could offshore wind turbines blow away Long Beach Island tourism?” The story positions Protect Our Coast NJ as a group of residents and features many of the talking points and studies on the nonprofit’s website:

Ric Bertsch, an Ocean City resident and member of the group Protect Our Coast NJ, which opposes the wind projects as they are currently designed, said he worries about the impacts to communities like his own.

He said the county will suffer the consequences of New Jersey's new experiment with offshore wind turbines, which will harm the tourist experience and block large swaths of ocean from commercial fishing

"The only brand (in Ocean City) that we have to offer the world is our old-fashioned values, our quiet, our peaceful place to be," said Suzanne Hornick, also of Ocean City and leading member of Protect Our Coast NJ. "This (wind turbine project) really screws with our brand."

As of this writing, the “Donate” button on the Protect Our Coast NJ website redirects to a PayPal link that reads “Donate to Caesar Rodney Institute.”

Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI)is one of more than 50 think tanks in the State Policy Network (SPN). As The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported, CRI receives funding from fossil fuel trade groups like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Association. The think tank also receives funding from Donors Trust, the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement.”

In September 2021, CRI’s David Stevenson — a former member of President Trump’s EPA transition team —  held a press conference in front of the Massachusetts State House where he announced a legal fund for groups fighting Biden’s offshore wind plans. By that point, Stevenson had raised $75,000 from his network of donors, and said he hoped to raise $500,000 for the effort.

When asked by E&E’s Ben Storrow who was funding the campaign, Stevenson said, “So far there is no Koch money, not that we wouldn’t take it.”

CRI’s efforts quickly attracted the attention of much larger conservative groups like theHeartland Institute and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). In September 2022, one year after the press conference, both organizations announced a partnership with CRI to sue an offshore wind project in Virginia.

According to the Union for Concerned Scientists, the Heartland Institute and CFACT have both received about $500,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The Heartland Institute has been called “a leading force in climate change denial.” Media Matters for America named CFACT Founder Marc Morano its climate denier of the year in 2012. Marano, who began his career working for Rush Limbaugh, has said climate scientists “deserve to be publicly flogged.”

In a press release, CFACT President Craig Rucker said, “We are not only very concerned about the future of the right whale, which extensively uses the ocean waters affected by the wind-power project, but also concerned as to how [the federal government] will address the fact that this project, despite its alleged benefits regarding carbon dioxide and climate change, will actually cause the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it will consume.” This, like most of CFACT’s statements about climate change, is false.

Reporters consistently tell a misleading story

None of these connections to the country’s infamous climate denial network are mentioned in the Ashbury Park Press news story about Protect Our Coast NJ. And the local New Jersey newspaper isn’t alone. According to a Popular Information analysis, 11 media outlets have covered Protect Our Coast NJ. None of them mention CRI, its donors, or the legal fund.

Popular Information found that reporters routinely failed to mention connections to CRI when writing about Save Our Beach View, Save Long Beach Island, and Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, three of the other resident groups in the coalition. Instead, these articles spread many of the resident groups’ misleading claims about clean energy.

In January, Reuters wrote a story about Save Long Beach Island’s lawsuit against the federal government. The article did not mention the group's ties to CRI.

Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that they are concerned by the aesthetic impacts of the turbines, and potential lost tourism due to their interference with Long Beach Island's current unobstructed seascape. The group says tourism is the community's "economic lifeblood."

In 2019, researchers at the University of Rhode Island published a paper analyzing the impacts of offshore wind farms on tourism. They used empirical data based on the United States’ only offshore wind farm off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. The researchers concluded that the wind farm resulted in more tourism, not less. This study isn’t mentioned in the Reuters story.

Another frequent concern mentioned by resident groups is the risk to endangered species. CBS covered this last year when they wrote:

The "ACK Residents Against Turbines" who filed the lawsuit said the proposed Vineyard Wind project poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

Jessica Redfern, a senior scientist at Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, told Cape Cod Times that the greatest threat to the North Atlantic Right Whale’s continued existence “comes from collision with vessels and entanglement in fishing gear, particularly lobster pot buoy lines.” She added, “Another big factor is climate change and one of the ways we can minimize that is adopting clean energy (policies) and offshore wind is a great source of that.” She said she had never heard of Save Long Beach Island.

In addition to misleading readers, this poor coverage creates more opposition to offshore wind projects and funnels local residents to the nonprofits’ websites and Facebook pages, which routinely share misinformation about clean energy.

Decarbonizing America’s electric grid and economy will require support from people in every community in the country. But, letting fossil fuel companies and climate deniers control the narrative is a sure way to turn communities of supporters into groups of passionate opponents.

bs bios

Craig Rucker, Executive Director, Co-Founder

A native of Buffalo, New York, who received his Masters of Public Administration from the State University of New York at Albany, Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its executive director. For over 20 years, Craig has provided expertise to a wide range of government, academic, media, and industry forums. He serves as co-host of CFACT’s daily national radio commentary called “Just the Facts” that has been airing on some 125 radio stations from coast to coast since 1993. Rucker has written extensively on numerous environmental policy issues, and his work has been featured in such media outlets as CNN, the BBC, USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Rucker has had primary responsibility for helping build CFACT’sCollegians program on more than 40 campuses across the country, and has attended or brought student delegations to major United Nations conferences in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Kyoto, Bonn, Marrakesh, Cancun, and Montreal. Rucker has a wife and four sons, and currently resides in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

 Credentials

• M.P.A., SUNY Albany

Source: [1]

 Background

Craig Rucker is the co-founder and executive director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which was founded in 1985 to “promote a positive voice on environment and development issues.” [1] , [2] 

Rucker's strong belief in the “power of the market combined with the applications of safe technologies,” to “offer humanity practical solutions to many of the world's pressing concerns,” resulted in “a number of leading scientists, academics, and policy leaders” joining Rucker in his CFACT efforts, according to CFACT's “About” page. [2] Those who joined Rucker's CFACT include co-founder David Rothbard, as well as Director of Communications, Marc Morano, and Senior Policy Advisor, Paul Driessen. [1] 

The Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow has received funding from ExxonMobil, Chevron, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from foundations associated with Richard Mellon Scaife. In 2011, Craig Rucker received $103,895 fromCFACT for his role as executive director, according to 2011 IRS Forms (PDF). [9]

Rucker has decades of experience providing “expertise to a wide range of government, academic, media, and industry forums,” with his written work appearing in media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, CNN, USA Today, and the BBC. While at CFACT, Rucker has held the “primary responsibility for helping build CFACT's Collegians program on more than 40 campuses across the country,” and has both attended and brought teams of student delegates to UN conferences in Kyoto, Copenhagen, Cancun, Montreal, and more. [1]

Stance on Climate Change

“CFACT is committed to educating the public and exposing global warming for what it truly is — a massive redistribution scheme. This scheme is not designed to strengthen the U.S. economy, but to throttle it down.” [4]

Key Quotes

“CFACT students ventured outside the air conditioned comfort of the conference center yesterday and took to the Cancun streets spelling out, “stop energy poverty now!” and voicing their opposition to a climate treaty loud and clear. It is easy for us to envision the harm a global warming treaty would do to the United States and its allies, but do give thought to the devastating trap it will create for the those who have never had electricity.” [10]

“Renewable energy schemes can no longer be justified by claims that we are rapidly running out of fossil fuels that are causing dangerous man-made global warming. Hydraulic fracturing has obliterated the depletion myth, while climate change fears are belied by a 16-year hiatus from planetary warming, historic lows in hurricane and tornado activity, and the abject failure of CO2-focused climate computer models.” [14]

“President Obama’s alternative strategy of using the EPA and other agencies to wage a backdoor war on carbon energy through misdirection and pretext, robs the people and their elected representatives, who would not support these restrictions voluntarily, of their constitutional prerogatives. Green movement radicals have always been at their core, fundamentally anti-democratic.

“Observational science just isn’t there for global warming extremism. The UK’s Met Office data shows no warming for the past 16 years. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus

http://www.skepticalscience.com/resolving-met-office-confusion.html

[debunk: met is meterology i think]

http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/tag/global-warming/

NOAA’s data shows any warming there may have been, has been confined to only three quarters of a degree. How much (if any) of that little bit of warming is due to your over the top car driving, air traveling, warm single family home lifestyle is more than debatable.

“What should Washington due about warming? Harken to Hippocrates and 'first, do no harm.' From CFACT’s considered perspective, Washington should find the courage to do nothing.” [15]

Key Deeds

July 7 - 9, 2014

Craig Rucker was a moderator at the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rucker was part of Panel Nine's discussion, “Communicating Climate Change: The Blogosphere,” with Marc Morano, Tony Heller, and Russell Cook. :{[:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:5] , [6]

View DeSmogBlog’s in-depth research on the other speakers and sponsors from Heartland's ICCC9.

November 19, 2013

Craig Rucker attended COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland with the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow's Marc Morano and Walt Cunningham. Rucker stated that “one of the things [CFACT is] concerned about is that these climate policies do harm people,” and that decarbonization was having a “devastasting effect on poor people around the globe,” noting that CFACT“sleeps well at night” because their policies “help, not hurt people.” [11]

February 8, 2013

Craig Rucker is a guest on Alex Epstein's “Power Hour,” a podcast presented by his for-profit think tank, the Center for Industrial Progress. Rucker is interviewed by Epstein about his “eye-opening adventures at UN global warming events.” [13]

November 16, 2011

Craig Rucker attends COP17 in Durban, South Africa with the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow's Marc Morano, as well as Lord Christopher Monckton, to “debunk climate propaganda and provide balanced perspective at [the] UN'sCOP17.” [8] In a CFACT press release, journalists who were seeking “to improve upon the annual one-sided climate conference propaganda fest,” were encouraged to speak with CFACT representatives, noting they would be “available for all media.” [8]

March 16, 1989

Craig Rucker and David Rothbard approached the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) requesting “corporate involvement and support” towards the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow's efforts, according to CMA document's minutes. It was documented that Rucker and Rothbard established CFACT to “fight the Public Interest Research Groups.” [12]

 Affiliations

• —Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, co-founder and executive director
• —Heartland Institute, International Conference on Climate Change attendee
• —**Mackinac Center for Public Policy**, Adjunct Scholar

Source: [1] , [3] , [5] , [6]

 Publications

According to a search for Craig Rucker on Google Scholar, he has not published any research on climate science in a peer-reviewed journal. [7]

 Resources

1. “CFACT Staff,“ Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow. Archived November 20, 2014.
2. “About,” Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow. Archived November 20, 2014.
3. “Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow,” SourceWatch.
4. Craig Rucker. “CFACT’s new billboard exposes global warming — in their own words,“ Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow. Archived November 20, 2014.
5. “Return of Climate Denial-a-Palooza: Heartland Institute Hitches Anti-Science Wagon to Vegas FreedomFest,” DeSmogBlog, July 7, 2014. Archived July 14, 2014.
6. “9th International Conference on Climate Change Speakers,” Heartland Institute. Archived July 14, 2014.
7. “Craig Rucker,” Google Scholar.
8. “CFACT to debunk climate propaganda and provide balanced perspective at UN’s COP17 in Durban, South Africa,” Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, November 16, 2011. Archived November 21, 2014.
9. “2011 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990 - PDF): Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow,” retrieved from CFACT.org. Archived November 21, 2014.
10. Craig Rucker. “A Cancun Christmas Carol,” Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, December 3, 2010. Archived December 1, 2014.
11. ,” YouTube.com, November 19, 2013.
12. “Chemical Manufacturers Association Minutes,” Chemical Industry Archives, March 16, 1989.
13. “Power Hour: the UN Global Warming Saga with Craig Rucker,” Center for Industrial Progress, February 8, 2013. Archived December 1, 2014.
14. Craig Rucker. “Not so bright lights,” Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, August 14, 2013. Archived December 1, 2014.
15. Craig Rucker. “Global warming? Washington should find the courage to do nothing,” Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, February 2, 2013.

ORGANIZATIONS:

CFACT

TAGS:

CFACT

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow

global warming misinformation

craig rucker

global warming disinformation database

http://www.cfact.org/author/crucker/

NY “People’s Climate March” is RED, not green

September 21, 2014by Craig Rucker, 20 Comments

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The climate campaign has dropped all pretense and proudly proclaimed their true aim — world Socialism.

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Craig Rucker

Day Job: Director for Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT, a fossil fuel-funded group.

Industry Ties: According to Greenpeace's report, Dealing In Doubt, CFACT has received over $4.1 million in funds from Donor's Trust and Donor's Capital Fund between 2002-2011, and additional $582,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998-2012.

Fox News guest: Yes

Climate Expertise: None

He said it: "The Obama administration's war on coal is a disaster in the making for the U.S. economy."

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LI bs

:{A native of Buffalo, New York, who received his Masters of Public Administration from the State University of New York at Albany, :{Craig}: :{Rucker}: is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its executive director. 

For over 20 years, Craig has provided expertise to a wide range of government, academic, media, and industry forums. He serves as co-host of CFACT’s daily national radio commentary called “Just the Facts” that has been airing on some 125 radio stations from coast to coast since 1993. Rucker has written extensively on numerous environmental policy issues, and his work has been featured in such media outlets as CNN, the BBC, USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. 

Rucker has had primary responsibility for helping build CFACT’s Collegians program on more than 40 campuses across the country, has spearheaded the creation of model demonstration eco-projects in impoverished villages in Latin America and Africa, and has}:attended or brought delegations to major United Nations conferences in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Kyoto, Bonn, Marrakesh, Cancun, and Montreal, among many others. Rucker has a wife and four sons, and currently resides in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Experience

Executive Director

Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

1985 – Present (30 years)

CFACT is a highly respected organization whose voice can be heard relentlessly infusing the environmental debate with a balanced perspective on environmental stewardship. With an influential and impressive scientific advisory board, aggressive collegiate program, CFACT Europe, United Nations representation, Adopt-A-Village project, Global Social Responsibility program, and “Just the Facts” national radio commentary, CFACT has and continues to offer genuine positive solutions to today’s global challenges.

The organization has been termed "invaluable" by the Arizona Republic, it has been lauded for its "effort to bring sound science to the environmental debate" by a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been praised by a respected Boston Globe columnist for "a record of supplying absolutely solid information."

Doug Domenech B2 d o I

Former Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources

While serving as Virginia's top environmental official I came to rely on CFACT and especially Craig Rucker's advice in promoting sound environmental and energy science.

June 27, 2014, Doug was Craig's client

Ron Arnold

Ron Arnold

Executive Vice President, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise

Craig Rucker is a verb, as writers might say, a man of action and ideas - the Executive Director of CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow - who I've been privileged to know and wonder at for more than a decade. You might find him at a United Nations conference in Qatar or helping villagers in Uganda or rousing the students of a prominent US university or ...more

June 23, 2014, Ron was with another company when working with Craig at Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Paul Driessen

senior policy analyst at Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Public Policy Consultant

Always a pleasure to work with, Craig is a hgihly organized and detail-oriented event planner, who seeks unique opportunities to present scence-based and market-oriented perspectives on energy, health and environmental issues. His concern for poor families is exemplified by the wo

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junksci

Craig Rucker Defends Coal

Posted on February 6, 2014 by john1282 | 2 Comments

It is hard for me to quantify the gratitude I have for Craign Rucker and the work of CFACT.

EPA’s proposed regulations on new power plants will make it nearly impossible to construct a new coal plant in the United States.

If promulgated, these regulations will raise the price of electricity and potentially cause brownouts, while having no meaningful impact on world temperatures.

At the same time the U.S. is strangling electricity from coal, China, India and even Germany are increasing their coal use. To truly understand the futility of these destructive regulations, consider this: China added the equivalent of all U.S. coal plants in just five years, 2005-2009. From 2010-2013 it added half that much again.

How’s that for a carbon offset?

CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen presented testimony today at an EPA hearing on its proposed new power plant regulations in Washington, D.C. You can read his full testimony at CFACT.org.

The Obama administration’s war on coal is a disaster in the making for the U.S. economy.

People need to learn the straight facts. CFACT is on the job.

For nature and people too,

Craig Rucker

Executive Director

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11/13

By Alan Caruba

In 2007 Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner was interviewed on the subject of sea levels. He is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden. He is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, and leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project. Dr. Mörner has been studying the sea level and its effects on coastal areas for some 35 years.

“You have Vanuatu, and also in the Pacific, north of New Zealand and Fiji— there is the island Tegua. They said they had to evacuate it, because the sea level was rising. But again, you look at the tide-gauge record: There is absolutely no signal that the sea level is rising. If anything, you could say that maybe the tide is lowering a little bit, but absolutely no rising.”

[](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gkdTK7dWkAE/UpNir9sUc9I/AAAAAAAAMoQ/j9_N4sf8Uzg/s1600/AA+-+Business+Week+Cover1.jpg)

The most recent edition of Bloomberg Businessweek features a cover that says “This entire country is about to be wiped out by climate change. It won’t be the last.”  It is devoted to Kribati, a Pacific island chain, and it is a total lie.

The media has been a co-conspirator to the global warming hoax and I take this latest example as one that reveals its utter desperation to maintain the greatest hoax of the modern era. The facts mean nothing to them. Real science means nothing to them. But reality is intruding on theirs and the United Nations environmental program just wrapped upConference of Parties-19 in Warsaw, where more nations are now in open revolt.

Writing from the conference was Craig Rucker, the Executive Director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a think tank that has helped organize the Poles to protest this travesty. “Poland has been bullied for decades and they are not about to cede their energy independence to Russia, the UN or anyone. Nor should they.”

On November 21, Rucker reported that “COP-19 was shocked when China led a block of 132 nations in a walkout over ‘loss and damage.’ Loss and damage is a completely bogus concept that developed nations should be legally liable when natural disasters strike developing nations. There is of course no meaningful scientific or historical link that Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda was abnormal and with no global warming link.”

We owe a debt of gratitude as well to The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based free market think tank, that has sponsored eight international conferences on global warming since 2008 and recently released a report,“Global Warming Reconsidered II.” Like CFACT it has been on the forefront of those seeking to educate the public regarding the phony science claims put forth.

COP-19 was one more UN conference leading up to a new version of the Kyoto Protocol that required nations that signed onto it to reduce their so-called greenhouse gas emissions. The final push will come in 2015 in Paris.

Nations that did sign on—the U.S. Senate unanimously refused to ratify the treaty when the Protocol was initially introduced in 1997—are realizing the economic harm that it imposed on them. The same afternoon of the China-led walkout, Poland announced that it had fired its environmental minister who is also the president of the UN conference, two days before the conference was supposed to end!

The Protocol, as is the entire global warming aka climate change hoax, is based on the lie that carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere is causing it to warm. In recent years CO2 has increased in the atmosphere and the Earth, some fifteen or more years ago, entered a cooling cycle. It is getting colder.

“Never underestimate what a gathering of bureaucrats and carbon profiteers might accomplish when after your money”, warned Rucker.

A November 20 article in The Daily Caller reported that “It’s worth noting that U.S. diplomats were specifically instructed by the Obama administration to oppose any attempts to create an independent fund for climate reparations from rich countries to poor countries.” Three days later the administration announced that it now supports all nations declaring their targets for reducing CO2 emissions before 2015. Rucker warns that this now clears “the path for the UN to adopt a full climate treaty and successor to the Kyoto Protocol in 2015.” If the Senate is not controlled by Republicans at that point, it would permit the administration to sign onto a treaty. The harm to the economy would be incalculable.

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, elected recently to undo the damage of a carbon tax, told the Washington Post “Despite a carbon tax of $37 a ton by 2020, Australia’s domestic emissions were going up, not down. The carbon tax was basically socialism masquerading as environmentalism and that’s why it’s going to get abolished.” Australia did not send a representative to COP-19. Canada dropped out of the Protocol in recent years. Japan is abandoning the UN’s greenhouse gas emission reduction levels by allowing them to grow by three percent.

Nation by nation the UN global warming hoax is being abandoned for the obvious reason that it is a lie perpetrated to transfer wealth from the developed nations to those less developed. It was never about saving the Earth from a global warming; that was a lie from start to finish.

Some journalists are trying to tell the truth, but magazines like BusinessWeek and newspapers like The New York Times continue to keep the hoax alive. An informed population, not just in the United States, but increasingly worldwide, will ensure that it dies a long overdue death.

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CFACT Hits Greenpeace for the Second Time in a Day

PR Newswire

COPENHAGEN, Dec. 15

'Propaganda Warrior' banner flies beside Greenpeace's 'Rainbow Warrior' Tuesday, Greenpeace's 'Arctic Rainbow' hit with 'Ship of Lies' banner earlier in the day

'About time they tasted their own medicine,' says CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker. 'Greenpeace policies perpetuate poverty and disease'

COPENHAGEN, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

"Propaganda Warrior," the huge banner proclaimed. CFACT activists sailed up long-side of the infamous Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior, and unfurled a banner which underscored how the radical green group's policies and agenda are based on myths, lies, and exaggerations, and perpetuate poverty, disease and premature death in Third World countries. Earlier in the day, CFACT activists boarded "Arctic Sunrise" and unfurled a banner that read "Ship of Lies" off the starboard side.

"Greenpeace's callous disregard for the truth and people's well-being has become intolerable," says Craig Rucker. "So we decided to take action."

CFACT unfurled the banners for two reasons, CFACT president David Rothbard explained. "Greenpeace ships, like the Rainbow Warrior and Arctic Sunrise, have become global symbols for radical environmentalism, and we wanted to call attention to the harm these groups are causing. And second, it seemed appropriate to use one of Greenpeace's own favorite tactics to make this point."

Greenpeace protesters frequently hang banners from factories and office buildings, paint slogans on smokestacks, and employ other publicity stunts. Some are relatively harmless, but others reflect a willingness to lie or even destroy property to make a point.

In 1995, Greenpeace launched a $2-million public relations campaign against Shell Oil, claiming the company was planning to dump tons of oil and toxic waste in the ocean by sinking its Brent Spar platform as an artificial reef. It was a full year before the group issued a written apology, admitting it knew all along that there had been no oil or chemical wastes on the platform.

Greenpeace has frequently destroyed bio-engineered crops, wiping out millions of dollars in research efforts designed to develop food plants that are more nutritious, withstand floods and droughts better, and resist insect infestations without the need for chemical pesticides. It has also waged an unrelenting campaign against insecticides and insect repellants that could prevent malaria, a vicious disease that infects 500 million people a year, kills over 1 million and leaves millions more with permanent brain damage.

"Greenpeace employs the same deceitful tactics in opposition to nuclear, hydroelectric and hydrocarbon energy, even though 1.5 billion people still do not have electricity – and thus don't have lights for homes, hospitals and schools, or power to purify water and run offices, shops and factories," Rucker says.

David Rothbard, President of CFACT says Greenpeace was launched for the best of reasons.

"But it radicalized its mission. The more power it acquired, the more it abused that power," he says. "Some of Greenpeace's original cadre has left, feeling they can no longer associate themselves with its current agenda."

Greenpeace claims that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing "dangerous global climate change." Hundreds of climate scientists and thousands of other scientists disagree with that assertion, as frequently noted by Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and a CFACT advisor.

"The continuing scandal over falsified and destroyed temperature data, manipulated climate models, and a perverted scientific and peer review process further demonstrates that there is no valid basis for this anti-energy, wealth-redistribution, global governance Copenhagen treaty," says Rucker.

Anti-energy policies represent a "clear and present danger to the health and welfare of billions," Rucker says. Mandates for wind and solar would send energy prices skyrocketing, sharply constrict economic opportunities and destroy jobs.

"People in developing countries simply want to improve their living standards, and give their children a chance to live past age five," Rothbard says. "Greenpeace is diametrically opposed to giving them access to the modern technologies that would help them do that."

Greenpeace is one of the "most unethical and irresponsible corporations on Earth," says Christina Wilson, a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota, Duluth. "It's time to expose it for what it is, and help promote real environmental justice. So I was really excited to participate in this human rights effort."

"The 'Ship of Lies' and 'Propaganda Warrior' banners are part of CFACT's long-term effort to bring sense and balance back to the environmental debate," says Rothbard.

CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow), is a UN-accredited NGO. CFACT offers positive solutions to today's global challenges with the aid of its scientific advisory board, Collegians program, CFACT Europe, Adopt-A-Village project, Global Social Responsibility program, and "Just the Facts" national radio commentary.  CFACT is currently sponsoring the AllPainNoGain.org campaign to oppose radical climate change policies.  View biographies for our Copenhagen delegation, video, event calendars, and more media resources at www.CFACT.TV.

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CFACT – Special Report from Conference in Bali

CRAIG RUCKER / DECEMBER 27, 2007

When the U.N. convened its 13th annual Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change in steamy Bali in December, it held high expectations that the international community would be united over what course of action should be taken to curb the buildup of greenhouse gases. The event was carefully orchestrated from beginning to end, […]

READ MORE »

Image courtesy of Dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fruitful Dominion: Time for a New Environmental Ethic?

DAVID ROTHBARD AND CRAIG RUCKER / OCTOBER 31, 2005

Responsible stewardship can bring prosperity to all of the earth’s inhabitants Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis […]

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