Thom Hartmann: Copenhagen is ongoing, global warming is ongoing, global climate deterioration. Senator James Inhofe coming out today with a pretty bad distortion of this. This is pretty amazing. This morning on CNN's American Morning, to discuss the Copenhagen climate change conference, James Inhofe says, “And just this morning the meteorologists, one of the groups, has said that they’re changing their position.” Right.
This group is the World Meteorological Organization, WMO. And no, they didn’t change their position. This is an exact quote from what they said, "The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850... The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 ... is currently estimated at 0.44°C ± 0.11°C ... above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C... The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade of the 2000s (2000–2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990–1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980–1989)". Inhofe apparently hadn't bothered to read the damn report. Marc Morano is with us, ClimateDepot.com, his website. And Marc, you’ve got in a bit of a battle, I saw this YouTube thing of a British politician calling you a word I can’t say on the radio the other day.
Marc Morano: Yeah, Thom, it was a heated debate on BBC. It was actually with a professor Watson, one of the so-called Climategate professors. And I think a lot of it too was a clash of styles. He was the slow-talking British professor against the faster talking American and I think he got a little frustrated with me and called me the a-word.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Well here’s, speaking of Climategate as it were, today the Financial Times, a newspaper that I know you would agree is not a bastion of liberalism, we’re not talking about The Guardian here, says, “The panel,” They’re talking about the IPCC and as a consequence of your friends hacking into these emails and releasing them. “The panel…”
Marc Morano: Hey, my friends? What are you accusing me of, here? Be careful there, Thom
Thom Hartmann: Haha, your comrades in arms, let’s say. “The panel has a…” They’re talking about the IPCC and what they’re now saying, they’re basically closing ranks. They’re saying, "The panel has a record of transparent and objective assessment stretching over 21 years performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe... The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community." And Jonathan Pershing, deputy special envoy for climate change to Barack Obama, went on to add, you know, "a barrage of additional information that makes clear the robustness of climate science". Is the, actually the outcome of all these hacked emails. I’m curious, since you’re so gung ho in favor of transparency and letting it all hang out and who’s talking about what and where…Pardon?
Marc Morano: No, I will not release my email, is that what you’re about to ask me?
Thom Hartmann: Well, I’m curious about your relationship with David Koch. The right wing billionaire, this is the guy who has funded Americans for Prosperity, the group that in 1984, he founded this and continues to finance it which has been funding most of the tea party, many of the tea parties. He funded, he funded the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which we debate regularly, in fact, Myron Ebell from CEI is gonna be on tomorrow which has been one of the most aggressive conservative front groups heralding these hacked emails and calling this Climategate. He’s funding this hot air tour. I’m wondering how much money are you guys getting directly or indirectly from David Koch and his sources? Because he’s making his money, I should say, on oil and gas and refining thereof. That’s how his fortune is made.
Marc Morano: I have no idea but if, we could use a hundred more Kochs because when you’re competing with the United Nations. And I’m surprised at you not wanting independent inquiries into this. You have, this is circling the wagon time. By the way are you aware, Thom, that the UN chief called for an investigation and according to Andrew Revkin in the New York Times today he’s now calling for a review as lessons learned. I think he’s backing away from his call for an investigation. You have, this is political statements you’re giving me. Oh Obama’s advisor said x y z and this is meaningless. It’s kind of like the Dan Rather, the memogate thing with Dan Rather. The documents may be fake but the information is accurate.
Thom Hartmann: I don’t recall your answering my question, Dan. You know here we’ve got… I’m sorry? Marc, I called you Dan. Marc Morano, ClimateDepot.com. Marc, you didn’t answer my question about aren’t you curious where the money’s coming from that’s going into your pocket?
Marc Morano: I mean, sure I am but I know we get something like 85, 86 % from private individuals in terms of we’re not getting the corporate funding you’d like to believe we are.
Thom Hartmann: But David Koch is funding most of this as a private individual and he’s making his money off of oil and gas. Wouldn’t you feel a little uncomfortable to find out that the oil and gas industry is behind your efforts?
Marc Morano: They couldn’t be of any significance but I would love, I would actually welcome that because we need more folks like that. When you have again, 10s of billions of dollars spent in the United States alone promoting this. Al Gore is spending 300 million to promote climate fears. You have the UN, you have the media you have foundations. This is….
Thom Hartmann: Al Gore’s got 300 million dollars?
Marc Morano: That’s what he claimed three years ago, two years ago. He was gonna spend $300 million dollars a year promoting climate change. I don’t know if the money panned out. And by the way…
Thom Hartmann: Good on him if he can do that. Okay, so I guess we’re both saying we like our sides. Have you seen the special report, Low Carbon Future in the current New Scientist where they actually had an independent group, exclusive study for the New Scientist, shows how much it’s gonna cost us if we radically cut carbon emissions and maintain our current lifestyles over the next 50 years?
Marc Morano: I have not seen that specific study but I assume it’s gonna support your position. But go ahead.
Thom Hartmann: Well sort of, actually it’s over the next 40 years. It’s by 2050. If we cut you know by 90 % our carbon emissions by the year 2050, you know, the goal, the real goal, what should be the real goal. They’re saying that the cost of air travel is gonna increase 140%. That’s a number that you’ll like a lot. The cost of electricity will go up 15%. The cost of clothing will go up 1%, the cost of alcohol will go up 2%. The cost of food will go up 1%, the cost of cars will go up 1%, the cost of tobacco and electronics will both go up 2% and the cost of communications will not change.
Marc Morano: These kind of projections, and I’ll say this for both sides. Whether you’re talking about climate model predictions of 50 years from now or whether you’re talking about economic models, scaring people about the cost of that, you just can’t put a lot of stock into that. The main thing you have to look at is yes it’s gonna increase cost, but the more important thing, and this is what should trouble you Thom, it’s gonna be transfer of decision making over to centralized authorities. Be it the United States congress when it comes to our climate bill or an international body like the UN. Does it trouble you when German climate advisors talk about a global CO2 budget for every man woman and child on the planet? Where an international body is going to be watching your emissions, watching your thermostat, watching your airplane miles? This is not…
Thom Hartmann: Well yeah let me answer your question. An international body that is democratic and that, and that represents every nation on earth, and where all the nations on this earth are members, some of them bad actors you and I will agree, but nonetheless it’s a democratic institution versus David Koch, versus Koch Industries, versus you know, or Kimberly-Clark which he also owns a chunk of which cuts down forests and Koch is burning oil, it’s carbon on both ends. And a handful, literally a handful and you know this, you know 5, 6, 7, what is it called. Used to be the 7 sisters, now it’s the 5 sisters, the big oil companies that basically control that resource for the world. Yeah I would much rather have a democratic institution be making those decisions than the oil companies.
Marc Morano: The oil companies aren’t making a decision to control your personal life and monitor your behavior.
Thom Hartmann: You wanna bet?
Marc Morano: You talk about carbon….
Thom Hartmann: You don’t think that they’re controlling the cost of oil?
Marc Morano: Wouldn’t you rather have…
Thom Hartmann: OPEC is a cartel, Marc.
Marc Morano: Right, but they so much controlling the cost of something. We’re talking about controlling you. When you’re talking about the level of CO2 control that they’re talking about, that’s a personal control of your lifestyle. That’s what the UK has proposed a carbon ration card. And it’s not, when you get to the level of an international body affecting everyone, monitoring everyone's global CO2 budget, that’s Orwellian.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Well, apparently it’s frightening to people who make their money off of putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Marc Morano: Thom, the scare is over. Climategate’s revealed this was collusion. You should be worried about the climate cartels.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. I got it. Marc Morano, ClimateDepot.com. Thanks Marc.
Marc Morano: Thank you Thom.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
