Kentucky Officials Treated to a Global Warming Snow Job [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
"You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times," said Kentucky Representative Jim Gooch, explaining why he only invited global warming skeptics [3] with no scientific background to address state legislators on climate issues. Gooch, the Kentucky Democrats' chief environmental strategist, is "a longtime ally of the coal industry." His invitees were James Taylor, a fellow with the Heartland Institute [4], a think tank [5] partially funded by ExxonMobil [6]; and Lord Christopher Monckton, an adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher [7] who once suggested that HIV / AIDS patients "be locked up for life." During the Kentucky hearing, "Monckton quoted the Bible and quickly recited math formulas as he accused [Nobel laureates Al] Gore and IPCC [8] scientists of lying to make warming seem worse than it is." Taylor claimed that "most scientists don't believe in global warming," and that hotter weather would allow "our children" to "enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life." After protests by legislators, Gooch allowed "two environmentalists in the audience talk about global warming [9] ... for about five minutes each."