rolling-stone2As promised from yesterday, here are the top dozen Climate Killers from Rolling Stones list.

According to the magazine, “the polluters and deniers are aiding Big Oil and Big Coal’s campaign to block progress on global warming”.

I am sure you won’t agree with everyone on the list (as I don’t) so here goes:

1.    The Profiteer – Warren Buffett

Many would be surprised that America’s best known advisor takes the number one spot, but Buffet has “been blasting the president’s push to curb global warming — using the same lying points promoted by far-right Republicans”.

But that is not why he is nominated. “In recent months,” Rolling Stone points out Buffet has “invested billions in carbon-polluting industries, seeking to cash in as the world burns.”

Buffet is heavily investing in Exxon and  recently invested in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad for $26 billion, the US’s top hauler of coal. AS the magazine points out: “As a savvy investor, Buffett would only buy a coal-shipping railroad if he felt certain that Congress will fail to crack down on climate pollution.

2. The Disinformer:  Rupert Murdoch

Many might wander what the media mogul is doing at number two, but since 2007 when Murdoch said climate change “poses clear, catastrophic threats,” Murdoch and his media operations “have become the nation’s leading source of disinformation about climate change.”

3.    The Fake Protestor: Jack Gerard

Its reassuring to see the good old oil boys not too far down the list and surprise, surprise it is good old Jack Gerard from the American Petroleum Institute. Gerard is nominated for the Energy Citizens scam that made news last year, and also saw the American Petroleum Institute nominated for the Angry Mermaid Award.

4.    Burning Man: Rex Tillerson

No surprises here as “T-Rex” Tillerson the CEO  of Exxon Mobil is also next, nominated for its campaign to defeat climate legislation, which Tillerson claims will “cap economic growth,” and continuing to fund the climate sceptics.

5.    The Dirty Democrat: Senator Mary Landrieu

Those not up to speed with domestic US politics may not know Landrieu, but she boasts of being “the most fervent pro-drilling Democrat in the Senate” — has assured oil interests that she’ll be “putting the brakes” on current efforts to cap carbon pollution. Enough said.

6.    The Drudge of Denial: Marc Morano

Morano is a rapidly rising sceptic, who used to work for Sen. James “Global Warming is a Hoax” Inhofe. He left Congress last year to set up shop as what Rolling Stone calls “the Matt Drudge of climate denial” by running a website called Climate Depot. “He’s a central cell of the climate-denial machine,” says Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace US, a person who knows more about the sceptics than most. “He’s been very effective in delaying action on this crisis.”

7.    God’s Denier : Sen. James Inhofe

Absolutely no surprises here either, as Inhofe is the GOP’s loudest and most influential sceptic on climate change. The senator from Oklahoma calls global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” insists that carbon dioxide is not “a real pollutant,” and doesn’t worry about rising sea levels, because, if all else fails, “God’s still up there.”

8.    The Power Player: David Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe may not be a household name like Inhofe but he heads America’s second-dirtiest electric utility, which has assembled an army of 63 lobbyists — almost twice as many as any other company — to defeat climate legislation.

9.     The Arm Twister: Dick Gephardt

Its about time the dirty lobbying efforts by the coal lobby got a mention, and where better to start than the former House majority leader who now uses his considerable political clout as a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company. Gephardt is probably the most influential clean coal lobbyist on the Hill.

10.     The Pundit: George Will

Another media man makes the grade, this time a pundit. Will has “become a one-man front for corporate-funded “science” that denies the existence of global warming” argues Rolling Stone.

11.    The Know Nothing: Tom Donohue

As President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Donohue is the de facto chief of American business and industry. The USCC is a lobbying powerhouse, spending $65 million — three times more than ExxonMobil — mounting a campaign to block Congress from placing limits on carbon pollution in the first nine months of last year.

Many leading companies have resigned for the Chamber in disgust at its anti-climate stance.

12.    The Coal Baron: Don Blankenship

Another coal baron makes the list and another unabashed denier who insists that climate change is “nothing but ‘a hoax and a Ponzi scheme.’ His fortune, argues Rolling Stone, “depends on such lies: Massey Energy, the nation’s fourth-largest coal-mining operation, unearths more than 40 million tons of the fossil fuel each year — often by blowing the tops off of Appalachian mountains.”

The rest of the list is good old long-term climate sceptic, Fred Singer, Republican John Mccain who has flipped his views on global warming recently, another Republic denier Rep. Joe Barton and the right-wing Koch brothers who have funded much of climate denial through funding think tanks.

An impressive bunch – there are many of these I totally agree with and some who maybe would not have made my top dozen.

The list is also very US-centric. So any other candidates anyone?

18 Comments

  • A message to warmers :
    In the size of the LIE there is always contained a certain factor of credibility,since the great masses of people will fall more easily victim to A GREAT LIE THAN A SMALL ONE.

    HITLER 1933

  • Why doesn’t Rolling Stone stick to the intellectual wasteland of the entertainment industry. THAT’S WHAT THEY DO. How very telling that this list doesn’t contain ONE scientist! This is (should be) simply a scientific debate, and the state of the science from non-conflicted researchers is that C02 benefits the planet, that C02 concentrations in the atmosphere are way overstated, that summer Arctic ice extent is up 409,000 sq kms since 2007 and that the Antarctic icepack is growing beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The planet is saved! We’re cooling and the polar bears are breeding like flies! Well done everyone!

  • Yet another article devoid of any data or reference to the complete lack of ‘scientific integrity’ on the part of the CRU. Blazing headline in bold red caps…..c’mon people, wise up!

  • I have to agree with Rolling Stone, if you still read this rag you are an idioit. Thanks, but I’ll stick to science journals for my climate science news. Party on Wayne!

  • To say that CO2 is a pollutant, let alone a dangerous pollutant is just plain wrong. In 1800 the atmospheric CO2 concentration was about 275ppm, by some estimates. Today it is about 390ppm, a 42% increase. In spite of this, I challenge Gore or anyone else to name me just one photosynthesizing plant that has been directly harmed in any way by exposure to the increased concentration of this gas. CO2 is not an air pollutant. Anyone that thinks it is is the real idiot

  • I think AGW realists are now officially the symbols of reasoned authority teeny-boppy rags love to rail against. The only way to demonstrate the existence of AGW is with the use of computer models, yet the models’ inaccuracies only demonstrate how ignorant we are as to what causes variations in our global climate (though CERN’s $14million CLOUD experiment may shed some light on the impact of cosmic rays and global temps) . To be adamant that AGW exists – and claim that the science is in any way settled – is therefore unreasonable, anti-intellectual, and stubbornly ignorant.

  • Nice job Rolling Stone. Keep up the propaganda. I see you didn’t put Steven McIntyre on your list, but why would you? He debunked the hockey stick. You also didn’t mention how the emails exposed the CRU scientists hijacking the peer-review process and telling each other to delete emails to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests. You also didn’t mention that these same scientists cherry picked data to present a nice tidy presentation to the IPCC and this isn’t take out of context because the entire emails are posted online. I see you failed to reveal Shell, BP, and ConocoPhilips are urging congress to pass cap and trade and they all have a seat at the table with congress. They will be getting free carbon allocations if this piece of junk legislation ever passes.

    The title of your article is correct, but the idiots are those telling us the world has a fever and give us end-of-world scenarios but then live a lifestyle that spews more carbon in a day than I could in a year. Where is their fear that the world is ending?

  • Thanks Rolling Stone for proving just how shrill and desperate the “true believers” are becoming!
    I’m going to put this magazine in a time capsule…Should be good for a laugh in twenty years or so. That is if it doesn’t get wet in the twenty bazillion, million metre rise in sea level LOL.
    You are as out of touch with science as you are with music.

  • I would include Steve Milloy (Junkscience.com and Greenhellblog.com), and Lord Monckton (sp?) on this list. But instead of idiots, I would call them freedom fighters. Thank God we have people willing to stand up against the radical environmentalists who will say and do anything to sabotage capitalism. Anybody at this point who still believes in AGW, is worthy of the “Idiot” title.

  • Does anyone really take the Rolling Stone serious? What a joke. They have obviously bought in the new state sponsored religion of AGW.

  • Yet another liberal publication that chooses to severely criticize those who simply want access to raw data and an HONEST debate regarding global warming. Simply saying the debate is over doesn’t cut it. Liberal magazines like RS simply have not learned the lesson that taking sides regarding political issues (this is obviously no longer about science…) simply causes you to lose half of your customers. And guess what, when you lose half of your customers, you typically go out of business. I for one will NEVER buy rolling stone again.

  • As the web site will show, we are apolitical skeptics. Pure science, that’s our purpose. Our blog is read in 189 countries, we get thousands of visitors every day and actually had a feed from, “Rolling Stone,” not to long ago. So, thank you. Our book, The Resilient Earth, is a history of our blue water planet, from explosive birth to present day. We do not attack anyone, we explain in very simple scientific terms how our planet evolved to present, and what we theorize to be its future. The reviews we receive are all positive and come from a full spectrum of people interested in Earth’s past, present and future.

  • I make it a rule never to take seriously a magazine that has featured Madonna on its cover so many times. Stick to the vacuous world of entertainment. What next, a hit piece from the folks at Extra?

  • I find it interesting that the warmists predictions of an ever hotter planet are rarely born out by reality. On the other hand, the ‘deniers’ predictions (icecap.us) predictions of a brutally cold winter due to the maunder minimum are spot on. For my money, I will always go with the group that is demonstrably correct rather than the group that is consistently wrong. That, Mr. Gore, is good ol common sense.

  • Sen. Jim Inhofe protests that he should be #1. -Haha, Maybe. He certainly showed more courage on this issue over the last decade than any other National American politician I can think of.

  • Real music has no lyrics,brainwashing is very popular..People couldn’t bear to see the same cover story next month,but they love listening to a chorus repeat 7times.The blind and deaf would leave us dumb.

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