Posted on 5 May 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

"It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues has shown that character assassination has been one of the most common ways in which fossil fuel interests have attempted to deny accountability for the climate crisis."

— Geoffrey Supan

Why go low? Because when one can't fly, one creeps and crawls. Widely remarked: to fall back on ad hominem remarks is to declare intellectual surrender, at best a Hail Mary attempt to change topics— and easily spotted even by children arguing on a playground. "Going ad hom" is a common failure mode when talk turns to human-caused climate change. US Senator (from hydrocarbon-rich Louisiana) John Kennedy's  waving the white flag and ceding a vast territory of evidence and facts to Geoffrey Supan by diving into the gutter is the subject of our story of the week. Kennedy humiliated himself in the most public of places: in a televised US Senate Budget Committee hearing.

In a nutshell, Senator Kennedy attempted to discredit Prof. Supan and divert attention from the content of Supan's testimony by highlighting a single social media item Supan had reposted, an innocuous description of tactical choices made by a youth-led climate action organization.This was thin fabric, comically so, and made worse by Kennedy's needing to read various expletives from other posts— unrelated to Supan's repost— into the congressional record. 

Senator Kennedy's weird diversion encourages us to speculate— and legitimates scrutiny of Kennedy himself. With Kennedy's having created his own first mover disadvantage by changing the topic of the hearing from science to personalities, we are free in turn to wonder over his puzzling public messaging. Are we are seeing genuine inability to track a topic, or instead something more resembling a retail transaction? Emily Atkin's coverage in Heated tells the whole story and offers hints of where a parsimonious interpretation may lie.

Given Prof. Supan's testimony about the connection between fossil fuel industry contributions and politician support for industry agendas, a reasonable person reading this story must form their own conclusions over the root cause of Kennedy's rhetorical flop. One would think Senator Kennedy would understand how he was walking into a self-made trap of creating suspicions and doubts, issuing an unfavorable invitation to comparisons. After all, Kennedy was among the top four congressional recipients of fossil fuel industry campaign contributions for the 2022 election cycle. With money generally not being handed out in large quantities for zero consideration, one might see this as explanation for an otherwise curious choice to look foolish in front of the world. 

As we can't read Senator Kennedy's mind, we are stuck with speculation. Is he only feigning incompetence? We can't truly know. It is of course for Senator Kennedy to choose how he leads our imaginations and is perceived— we can only respect his wishes, for bad or worse. If Kennedy wants to be remembered by history as "fond of loudly losing, but why?" who are we to question that?

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before April 28

• In 1971, The Nixon Administration Punted On A Revolutionary Climate Study, CleanTechnica, Steve Hanley.
• How global innovators design a sustainable future, Environment, The Christian Science Monitor, Stephanie Hanes & Sara Miller Llana. Lede: "Projects are sprouting up around the globe to build environmentally focused communities. These efforts aim to be practical and inviting, not idealistic."

April 28

• 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. List of 31 shared articles and opinion pieces
• Climate Change Has Infiltrated Game Night-and That`s a Good Thing, Experts Say, Inside Climate News, Kiley Price. A growing number of developers and designers are introducing climate change elements into games to teach users about climate solutions.
• Taxing big fossil fuel firms `could raise $900bn in climate finance by 2030`, The Guardian, Matthew Taylor. Levy on oil and gas majors in richest countries would help worst-affected nations tackle climate crisis, says report

April 29

• Have the world`s coral reefs already crossed a tipping point?, Grist, Kate Yoder. A quarter of marine life depends on coral reefs. So do 1 billion people.
• An El Niño-less summer is coming. Here’s what that could mean for the US, Weather, CNN, Mary Gilbert.
• WHERE SEAS ARE RISING AT ALARMING SPEED, Climate, Washington Post, Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis, Kevin Crowe & John Muyskens. "THE DROWNING SOUTH"

April 30

• At a glance - Clearing up misconceptions regarding 'hide the decline', Skeptical Science, John Mason.
• New Evidence of Big Oil`s Climate Deception Demands Justice Dept. Inquiry, Common Dreams, Newswire Editor. House and Senate Committees Issue Joint Findings from a Years-long Investigation into the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Long-Running Campaigns to Lie to the American People About Climate Change
• Separation of Powers and KlimaSeniorinnen, Climate Law Blog, Charlotte E. Blattner.
• Big oil privately acknowledged efforts to downplay climate crisis, joint committee investigation finds, The Guardian, Dharna Noor. Internal documents revealed by committee show companies lobbied against climate laws they publicly claimed to support
• How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany, The Guardian, Ajit Niranjan. Politicians fear perceived costs of green transition are driving poor and rural voters to parties such as AfD
• Top Human Rights Court Urged to Tackle Corporate Climate Crimes, DeSmog, Isabella Kaminski. Historic hearing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights asked judges to clarify the role of business in preventing human rights harms from climate change.
• How to visualise Climate Change (ft. Katharine Hayhoe), ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy.
• G7 to sign exit from coal by 2035, but may offer leeway, sources say, Reuters, Francesca Landini.

May 1

• Warmest April on record - but a possible return to predictability?, The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather. While temperatures in 2023 were "gobsmacking", 2024 is shaping up to be a more normal El Nino year
• Charge Big Oil with conspiracy, former tobacco prosecutor says, HEATED, Arielle Samuelson. Following the release of new internal documents, Sharon Eubanks told the Senate Budget Committee that there is evidence for a DOJ climate case against Big Oil.

May 2

• Vacancy: Three-week summer journalism internship at Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff. Carbon Brief is offering an exciting opportunity for students, or recent graduates, to work with the team for three weeks this summer. This journalism internship will be paid the London Living Wage, with an additional travel bursary.
• Exxon Criticized ICN Stories Publicly, But Privately, Didn`t Dispute The Findings, Inside Climate News, Marianne Lavelle, Nicholas Kusnetz. Congressional Democrats say newly released documents trace oil industry's pivot from denial to deception.
• GOP Senator accidentally creates amazing ad for climate activists, HEATED, Emily Atkin. Senator John Kennedy’s profanity-laden rant at Wednesday’s Senate hearing is now being used against him.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #18 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack. Skeptical Science's weekly distillation of research on anthropogenic climate change.
• Raskin Warns 'Industry Deceit' Delayed Climate Progress, Latest articles from Crooks and Liars, Susie Madrak. Congressional representative Jamie Raskin offers a pithy description of fossil fuel industry behavior.

May 3

• The UK government acted unlawfully in approving a climate plan, a High Court judge has ruled, The Seattle Times The Seattle Times, SYLVIA HUI. Courts of law become climate skeptics— the right way.
• BP Was Warned Gas-Driven Climate Change Could Cause `Unprecedented Famine`, DeSmog, Geoff Dembicki. Yet the oil and gas major led a campaign to present gas as a climate solution, new ‘confidential’ documents released by a U.S. Congressional investigation reveal.

May 4

• Loss and Damage Meeting Shows Signs of Giving Developing Countries a Bigger Voice and Easier Access to Aid, Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn. The first meeting of the board of the new climate finance fund sought to finalize operations and its partnership with the World Bank. But who will pay?

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!