Your Guide to Climate Change Nay-Sayers

Your Guide to Climate Change Nay-Sayers

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Michael Steele

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, March 20, 2009.

"We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I use my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process."

Czech President Vaclav Klaus

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, July 11, 2007.

"Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming. The recent awarding of Nobel Prize to the main apostle of this hypothesis was the last straw because by this these ideas were elevated to the pedestal of "holy and sacred" uncriticisable truths."

Fred Barnes

Weekly Standard co-founder Fred Barnes, February 16, 2009.

"Obama sounded like Al Gore on global warming. The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his [stimulus] bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering."

George Will

Washington Post columnist George Will.

Will wrote an article for the Washington Post misleadingly referencing scientific data to suggest that climate change didn't exist. When a slew of news organizations, bloggers, (including TPMmuckraker) and scientists (including those whose data Will had used in his column) pointed to the innaccurate conclusions he'd drawn, Will wrote a second column sticking to his guns. New York Times Science reporter Andrew Revkin asserted that Will's earlier column, published February 15, was guilty of "inaccuracies and overstatements," in the view of experts.

Gov. Sarah Palin

Alaska Governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, August 2008.

"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)

Rep. John Shimkus, March 30, 2009.

"The earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)

Rep. Joe Barton addressing Al Gore:

"I have an article from Science magazine that explains a rise in CO2 concentrations actually lagged temperature by 200 to 1000 years. CO2 levels went up after the temperature rose. Temperature appears to drive CO2, not vice versa. You're not just off a little. You're totally wrong."

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)

James Inhofe, then chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, in reference to the Kyoto treaty, which would cost $2,750 per family per year, July 20, 2006.

"The things started with the United Nations, the International Panel on Climate Control, and they used one scientist... Well, one thing they forgot to do is put in the medieval warming period, which was from about 900 to 1400 A.D., when it was warmer then than it is now...

I was right on this thing. This thing is a hoax."

Fred Thompson

Former Republican Senator from Tennessee, and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, March 2007.

"Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto... This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists."

Steve Doocy

FOX News anchor Steve Doocy, March 2008.

"Despite it being bitterly cold outside in the northern plains, we hear a lot about global warming. Is there another side to this story? Many scientists would say yes, but most media outlets -- the mainstream media -- only cover Al Gore's 'Earth has a fever' perspective. This is the worst winter in some parts of America and around the world and perhaps we should be worried now about global cooling."

Dr. Roy Spencer

Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer.

"Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming...it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade...

Climate change -- it happens, with or without our help."

John Coleman

Weather Channel founder John Coleman, November 15, 2007.

"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming."

Pat Michaels

CATO Institute Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies Pat Michaels, February 12, 2009.

"We can never run the experiment to see if indeed it is the constant hyping of this issue that has sent it to the bottom of the priority ladder. But, as long as scientists blog on that both warming and cooling of the coldest place on earth is consistent with their computer models, why should anyone believe them?"

David Legates

Delaware State climatologist David Legates, March 24, 2006.

"The underlying theme is that the climate system is complex, resilient and inherently stable. Research from a wide variety of disciplines [...] supports this conclusion. Throughout the millennia, life has survived and thrived despite wide changes in solar output, air temperature and atmospheric gas concentrations. [...] Importantly, much of the scientific evidence contradicts assertions that substantial global warming is likely to occur soon and that the predicted warming will harm the Earth's biosphere."