Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Climate Change
Denialist GOP House "Science Committee" Retweets Fake News Breitbart

Denialist GOP House “Science Committee” Retweets Fake News Breitbart

contributors 12/04/2016

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Deirdre Fulton, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org
) | – –

Committee’s tweet comes during hottest year on record.

Displaying a troubling disregard for science, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on Thursday tweeted a misleading article from right-wing, white nationalist website Breitbart News—one written by a climate denier and debunked by actual scientists.

.@BreitbartNews: Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists https://t.co/uLUPW4o93V

— Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte (@HouseScience) December 1, 2016

NBC News notes that the author of the article, James Delingpole, “does not have a science degree and is not a scientist.”

“Delingpole did not produce any original reporting,” NBC points out, “but rather merged opinion with a Daily Mail article he read. He also cited a science editor of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, one of the U.K.’s most high-profile climate-change denying organizations that the Guardian reported has clear links to the coal industry.”

Scientists struck back with reality-based assessments of Delingpole’s claim:

I wrote a brief, public rant on Facebook about that @HouseScience tweet. h/t @hormiga @PeterGleick https://t.co/seUTKycogb pic.twitter.com/Y0PaU7TRhZ

— Karen James (@kejames) December 1, 2016

A classic example of false news. https://t.co/ECOkzeBW9j

The truth? pic.twitter.com/zEZGzOF7vi

— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) December 1, 2016

In 2016, the hottest year on record, the misnamed @HouseScience tweets false #climate science about cooling from misnamed @BreitbartNews. pic.twitter.com/5ZJaVKiXeE

— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) December 2, 2016

And Thursday’s tweet drew mockery and outrage from elected officials, including several Democrats on the committee.

This isn’t factual, it’s embarrassing, and Breitbart is not a credible news source. We need to bring *science* back to the Science Committee https://t.co/oZ6GfFAlUI

— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) December 1, 2016

False news & false facts put us all in danger… https://t.co/8hy6haEPaL

— US Rep E.B.Johnson (@RepEBJ) December 1, 2016

Where’d you get your PhD? Trump University? https://t.co/P5Ez5fVEwD

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 1, 2016

As Common Dreams has reported, the committee has long waged a war on one of the very areas it is supposed to oversee—science. Indeed, committee chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) “has used his position on the committee to spread climate skepticism and and harass [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration],” writes ThinkProgress. “He once issued a statement alleging that scientists at the government agency of manipulating the data at the behest of the Obama Administration to provide evidence for climate change.”

And that was “before Trump was voted into office,” astronomer and columnist Phil Plait wrote at Slate.

“These tweets, and the information they cite, are a scary reminder that climate deniers will feel emboldened by Trump’s election,” he continued. “Trump’s team is already planning to cut global warming research at NASA. As winter approaches, we’ll likely see more reality-challenged senators bring in snowballs to the floors of Congress and say, ‘What global warming?’ every time a cold snap arrives, even though a lot of the brutal ‘polar vortex’ conditions are actually tied to the effects [of] global warming.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Via Commondreams.org

Annual Informed Comment Fundraiser

Subscribe to Informed Comment by email and never miss a posting!

——

Related video added by Juan Cole:

Ring of Fire: “House Science Committee Cites Breitbart To Deny Climate Change”

Filed Under: Climate Change, Denialism, Republican Party

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Top Things You Still Think You Know About Iran that are Not True
  • Why Trump Bombed Iran: Preserving US and Israeli Nuclear Supremacy in the Middle East
  • Colonial Logic, not Jewish Wisdom Guides Israel's Wars
  • Trump's contravention of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal Led to Israel-Iran Escalation
  • Israel's Attacks have Exposed Iran's Weaknesses, but it is in Little Danger of Collapsing

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved