Jerry Taylor told E&E News that the coronavirus crisis would deal a "fatal blow" to climate denialism, because it laid bare the cost of ignoring the advice of scientists.
"COVID-denialism is climate-denialist wine in a new bottle," he tweeted recently. "No wonder most climate-denialists are COVID-denialists. It resonates because it presses the same reptilian buttons we have in all of us. Their buttons, however, are bigger."
For its part, Heartland has published pieces suggesting that coronavirus models — which are now shifting death counts as people transform their behavior — are unreliable and are proof that climate models are wrong and that climate change fears are overblown.
Heartland also has rolled out a series of climate briefs that are "designed to provide a library of solid yet simple rebuttals so that legislators, teachers, students, and laymen can easily refute the exaggerations of the so-called ‘climate crisis.’"
It says that Greenland ice loss is nothing to be concerned about, that there isn’t a consensus among scientists on human-caused climate change and that there is a minimal acceleration in sea-level rise.

Brothers duke it out from opposite sides of climate fight - E&E News
https://www.eenews.net/articles/brothers-duke-it-out-from-opposite-sides-of-climate-fight/

Tady je kapitolka o Kochovi .)

Billionaires in World Politics shows how the privatization of politics assumes a new dimension when billionaires wield power in world politics, which requires a re-thinking of individual agency in International Relations. Structural changes (globalization, neoliberalism, competition states, and global governance) have generated new opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics across borders. The political agency of billionaires is being conceptualized in terms of capacities, goals, and power, which is contingent upon the specific political field a billionaire is trying to enter.

Six case studies explore the power of billionaires in their pursuit of security, wealth, and esteem. The chapter on security analyzes Raj Rajaratnam's relationship to the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka, and Sheldon Adelson's transnational electioneering in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Regarding the economy, the book studies how the Koch brothers' political protection of fossil fuels is affecting climate change mitigation, and how Rupert Murdoch's opinion-shaping is valorizing conservatism across borders. The chapter on social entrepreneurship and esteem examines the role of Bill Gates in the governance of global health and George Soros's attempts to build open societies as a 'stateless statesman'. An analytical conclusion evaluates the prior findings in order to address three major questions: Is it more appropriate to see billionaires as 'super-actors', or as a global 'super-class'? What is the relative power of billionaires within the international system? What does the power of
billionaires mean for the liberal norms of legitimate political order?

Billionaires in World Politics: Hägel, Peter: 9780198852711: Amazon.com: Books
https://www.amazon.com/Billionaires-World-Politics-Peter-H%C3%A4gel/dp/0198852711

MINGHAO: Haha, tak tady mas tematicky neco na studium :D "Satanic gases" od znameho klimapopirace Patricka J. Michaelse .))

https://www.cato.org/books/satanic-gases-clearing-air-about-global-warming

TUHO: SL: How do you feel about the work you did in those years?

JT: I regret a lot of it. I wish I had taken more care and done more due diligence on the arguments I had been forwarding. I also introduced one of my brothers, James Taylor, to the folks at the Heartland Institute. Heartland’s rise to dominate market share in climate denialism largely occurred under my brother. Boy do I regret that.

SL: And he still is still a climate denier. So what is that like? Do you talk about climate change at Thanksgiving?

JT: We agree to disagree and don’t discuss it. And we don’t spend a lot of Thanksgivings together.

Zajimavej pripad, konvertovany skeptik, Jerry Taylor, byvaly viceprezident Cato institute... Jak zjistil, ze mu vesi buliky na nos

How a Professional Climate Change Denier Discovered the Lies and Decided to Fight for Science
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/28/how-a-professional-climate-change-denier-discovered-the-lies-and-decided-to-fight-for-science/

Mapping the climate sceptical blogosphere

While mainstream scientific knowledge production has been extensively examined in the academic literature, comparatively little is known about alternative networks of scientific knowledge production. Online sources such as blogs are an especially under-investigated site of knowledge contestation. Using degree centrality and node betweenness tests from social network analysis, and thematic content analysis of individual posts, this research identifies and critically examines the climate sceptical blogosphere and investigates whether a focus on particular themes contributes to the positioning of the most central blogs. A network of 171 individual blogs is identified, with three blogs in particular found to be the most central: Climate Audit, JoNova and Watts Up With That. These blogs predominantly focus on the scientific element of the climate debate, providing either a direct scientifically-based challenge to mainstream climate science, or a critique of the conduct of the climate science system. This overt scientific framing, as opposed to explicitly highlighting differences in values, politics, or ideological worldview, appears to be an important contributory factor in the positioning of the most central blogs. It is suggested that these central blogs are key protagonists in a process of attempted expert knowledge de-legitimisation and contestation, acting not only as translators between scientific research and lay audiences, but, in their reinterpretation of existing climate science knowledge claims, are acting themselves as alternative public sites of expertise for a climate sceptical audience.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378014000405