Scott Waldman
@scottpwaldman
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White House reporter focused on climate change at @POLITICO's @EENewsUpdates. Contact: [email protected]
Washington, DC
Joined March 2010
NEW: Two former Trump White House officials told me they had to show voter data to Trump to get him to release disaster funding to CA wildfire victims. He released it after learning that he had as many GOP supporters in Orange Co. as he did in Iowa.
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NEW: Trump never distributed wildfire aid to Washington in 2020 after he battled with @GovInslee over climate/COVID policy. GOP Rep @cathymcmorris was also pleading for help. WA had to wait until Biden took office to receive funding. @ByTomFrank and me.
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This revelation comes as Trump continues to attack Biden/Harris for their response in GA/NA with false claims about not helping Republican areas. Trump himself has an extensive history of partisan disaster response. @ByTomFrank and I lay it out in our story today.
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In this clip, Trump says the solution to climate change is to clean up power plants and vehicle pollution. Those are the primary regulations his administration has rolled back, which will worsen climate change.
"In Europe they have forest cities . they don't have fires like this, and they have more explosive trees . they maintain their fire" -- Trump on the link between climate change and wildfires
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Facebook quietly overruled its own fact checkers to reinstate a climate denial group’s misleading post. The company also created a loophole, allowing climate denial to be considered “opinion” and therefore immune to fact checks.
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A judge has ordered @EPA to produce scientific research supporting @EPAScottPruitt claims that global warming is not primarily driven by humans. It's one of 2 cases that may put Trump administration's alt-science in a courtroom. My latest in @sciam
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At multiple points in his swaggering speech tonight, Biden made a point of using his major new climate bill to dunk in the face of deniers who blocked action for so many years.
"We also had to take on the climate deniers. And guess what? We beat them" -- Biden
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For years, Rep. Lamar Smith devoted himself to attacking climate science (despite a mountain of evidence showing he was wrong). Turns out he was making millions on oil and gas from land he inherited from his grandmother. Really great story by @benhulac
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The Trump administration is delaying National Climate Assessment, which shows Americans how climate change is affecting their communities. Meanwhile, Trump told one advisor he wants a hostile climate science review after election and WH recruiting deniers.
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The EPA has shut out reporters from its announcement on making science-based regulations more transparent. The audience, visible in the live feed, is a who's who of climate deniers, all of whom have worked to weaken established climate science.
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At the White House where Biden is taking a victory lap after a strong midterm election for Democrats. He notes that Democrats lost fewer seats than any first-term president in 20 years. He credits young people who voted to tackle the climate crisis.
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Important pushback on the president’s willful ignorance on climate science, which confuses weather and climate. His own agencies are now publicly correcting him.
Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening.
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That was fast
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A climate scientist withheld research data, claiming it was the only way to get published in @Nature. Conservative media embraced him as a whistleblower. Nature's editor provided evidence that he lied. He also damaged the reputation of his 7 co-authors.
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People are being arrested at the Grant Town power plant that buys Manchin’s coal. Manchin has used his political power for decades to support policy that has kept this money-losing plant open. It has cost utility customers $100 million+ in last 5 years.
BREAKING: West Virginians + allies are blockading the coal plant that burns Joe Manchin’s coal waste + makes him millions. #CoalBaronBlockade
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In the days before the deadly Texas storm, Fox’s Sean Hannity insisted Gov. Greg Abbott seek advice from his show’s “official” weatherman, who also denies basic climate science and works for energy companies. Ted Cruz and Abbott spent hours talking to him.
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.@DrBrianMay, the famous astrophysicist (and Queen guitarist) wants to hold another Live Aid concert, this time to fight climate change. All climate reporters should get free passes, obvs.
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The GOP gubernatorial candidate in PA said a woman asking him about climate change was “young and naive.” He has said human body heat and the Earth spiraling toward the sun are contributing to global warming.
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The Navajo tipped AZ to Biden in 2020, but GOP voter integrity rules threaten their vote over proof of citizenship. Biden's climate bills are providing solar power to the 1 in 5 Navajo homes that lack electricity. A Trump victory destroys that.
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And here it is again, in case you missed it. NASA/NOAA and science agencies around the world have found the claims here to be false. The author is affiliated with groups paid to muddy climate research.
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The Epoch Times is rapidly growing and bringing climate disinformation into dozens of countries. Here’s how Facebook is helping it expand:
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This is the second interview today in which Trump conflates climate change with air and water pollution. Also, he is incorrect that the US has the cleanest air and water globally.
REPORTER: What do you think of our president's comments when he said your stance on climate change is reckless?. TRUMP: We have the cleanest air in the world in the United States, & it's gotten better since I'm president. We have the cleanest water. We're setting records.
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Scientific modeling of future conditions just went through a major public experiment, and saved hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been lost to COVID-19. Now, modeling is under assault by climate deniers. My story in @ScienceMagazine:
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Scientists now entering politics to run against members of House Science Committee who want to cut federal science:
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In Florida today, @JoeBiden is mocking Trump for wanting to nuke a hurricane as part of a climate plan. As @RadioFreeTom told me recently, there’s basically nothing stopping him unless someone commits treason.
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Coal baron Bob Murray told me he privately met w/ @EPAScottPruitt last week and they discussed how to craft a climate science debate that could be used as first step in larger attack on environmental policy:
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A number of male lawmakers garner the headlines as climate hawks in Congress, but @SenTinaSmith is quietly doing some of the most meaningful climate work, particularly around the Clean Electricity Standard, which would have long-lasting effect on policy.
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Here's my story in @sciam. It's worth noting that a number of the men leveling character attacks against this 16-year-old girl are actively shaping the Trump administration's environmental policy.
Climate deniers launch personal attacks on teen activist Greta Thunberg
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In a few hours, @JoeBiden will issue an executive order that obliterates much of Trump’s deregulatory climate agenda. It is the first step toward restoring protections for national monuments and endangered species and re-entering Paris climate agreement.
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The Washington Free Beacon landed an interview with Scott Pruitt, subject of more than a dozen watchdog investigations, and asked him about his favorite candidate on The Bachelorette.
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Manchin specifically mentioned rising utility bills as a reason to defeat the BBB. But utility bills in WV are some of the highest in the nation, and part of that is because of the money-losing power plant has netted millions of dollars for his family.
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NEW: The power plant connected to Sen. Joe Manchin hasn’t paid rent in a decade. It has paid millions of dollars to Manchin and plant executives during that time.
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There are at least 10 climate skeptics who in the running for a key science advisory board at the @EPA: 1/.
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More than 300 people are going to prevent trucks from entering the power plant that buys Joe Manchin’s coal on Friday. Some are preparing to be arrested.
BREAKING: there are now over 300 people signed up to blockade Joe Manchin’s coal operation this weekend. But we’ll need to double that for this peaceful & powerful blockade to hold. Can you sign up right now - and RT so that enough people know to come?.
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Trump's de facto science adviser is a 31-yr-old politics major from Princeton. That's not going to change any time soon because candidates Trump wants reject climate science and can't get senate approval.
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My 5-yr-old watched West Wing with me and said Martin Sheen doesn't look like a real president. Why? Because he's not black.
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Hey @nytclimate, this is a rewrite of my story from two weeks ago and you talked to the same people. Could you at least link to the original?
Under Facebook’s guidelines, climate change articles can be classified as opinion and therefore exempted from fact-checking procedures. Critics say the policy amounts to a huge loophole for climate change deniers.
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Every year brings more animals without names. The Inupiat language is thousands of years old, but they don't have words for all of the new animals brought to their homeland by climate change.
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Senior @EPA officials and @EPAScottPruitt have repeatedly sought climate policy advice and research briefings from a network of groups that deny and distort established climate science and that are funded by the Mercer family
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Sen. Joe Manchin is escalating his conflict with the Biden administration over the new power plant rules released today. vowing to block EPA nominees. What Manchin hasn't said is that the proposed new rules could personally cost him millions of dollars.
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As they rode in the presidential limo through Key West @carloslcurbelo pressed @realDonaldTrump to take sea-level rise and climate change seriously. "I've studied millions of years of history, and you have nothing to worry about,” the president replied.
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Listening to Marvin Gaye through a Marantz receiver is like having God whisper in your ear. Also, my wife brings 💯 of the style to any place she occupies.
Classic mantel view. Great plant work. Hi fidelity. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On for the win. 10/10 @scottpwaldman
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And yes, my daughter asked what the administration is doing about climate change (her own question) but I can’t tell you the answer because this is off the record.
First press briefing in 45 days. Off the record and for children.
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The Trump campaign is now arguing that climate change should not be discussed at the final debate because it’s not relevant to foreign policy. (NB: Climate change is definitely related to foreign policy).
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“Pollution is on the decline,” says @EPAAWheeler. In fact, Carbon emissions increased last year, according to @EIAgov, for first time in years.
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Here’s my story from today, up now at @sciam. USGS scrubbed climate change from releases about changing polar bear habitats, coastal flooding and how atolls housing military equipment, such as system that detects North Korean missiles, could be uninhabitable in just 20 years.
Trump administration officials scrubbed climate change from press releases
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These satellites will provide essential climate change data. They'll measure the way water moves from the melting polar ice caps as well as deep ocean currents that could be shifting as a result of climate change.
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Newly revealed emails show the EPA ignored its own scientists and reached out to Myron Ebell to "fact check" story by me and @niina_h_farah ( on Scott Pruitt's false claims that humans would benefit from more global warming
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Critics say science rejection is overdue for political reckoning: “We may look back at the coronavirus crisis as a critical moment where we were all afforded a terrifying view of the dangerous + deadly consequences of politically and ideology-driven science denial.” @MichaelEMann.
For months, Trump has used climate denial techniques to justify his administration’s coronavirus response, including minimization of risk and cherry-picked data. It could spell the end of climate denial’s political power in the future.
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My daughter getting coverage for asking an actual climate question of our elected leaders. @SpeakerRyan didn’t claim climate change wasn’t real, as he has in past. Thanks @grist!
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The White House has been recruiting climate deniers/critics to seed top NOAA positions. They were told they can shape future direction of one of the world’s premiere climate science agencies, and they might be “burrowed” in so Biden admin can’t fire them.
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Here’s @AGSchneiderman congratulating the reporter who would take him down a few weeks later for abusing women
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One small spot of good news for those worried about the planet. Carbon emissions declined for 3 years running. My latest in @sciam
Global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuel did not grow at all last year.
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School children in Florida could soon learn that climate activists are like Nazis, that renewable energy pollutes and that global warming is not a serious threat thanks to the approval of PragerU materials for the classroom.
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Amazing how much Cynthia Nixon has gotten done in just a few weeks.
NEW: Source says @NYGovCuomo expected to issue a statewide ban on plastic bags.
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Trump still not realizing that running the climate denial playbook (relying on cherrypicked stats to create misleading narrative) in the short-term will likely come at a significant political cost in the long-term.
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!.
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Facebook’s newest fact-checking partner is owned by the Daily Caller, which routinely promotes climate doubt and holds climate skeptics up as counterweight to consensus climate reports. It will have the power to bury news stories that it rates as untrue.
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For the first time, Biden has appointed a climate scientist to help the U.S. Intelligence Community better prepare for threats. @coralsncaves is a top researcher in her field and an IPCC lead author.
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Female reporters face far more toxicity than their male colleagues and it’s outrageous. I was honored to be a colleague of @maxinejoselow for years and whatever story she’s working on will be great, accurate and fair, just like the rest of her excellent reporting.
In the course of reporting a story, The Washington Post’s @maxinejoselow has been subjected to vitriol and baseless attacks on social media. She conducts her work with fairness and to the highest standard, and we are proud to count Maxine among our talented staff of journalists.
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This is a major story from @maxinejoselow, showing how car companies also conducted their own climate research decades ago, and like energy companies, didn’t inform the public because it would hurt their bottom line.
SCOOP: Scientists at General Motors and Ford — two of America’s largest automakers — conducted research in the 1960s showing that car emissions contributed to climate change. @EENewsUpdates
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Climate deniers inside and outside of the administration have tried to shut down the vital climate research conducted by @NASAClimate for the last three years and they have failed at every turn.
Effects that scientists had predicted would result from climate change are now occurring, and experts have high confidence that global temperatures will keep rising for decades, largely due to human-produced greenhouse gases.
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AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers, future NOAA administrator, just said he agrees that humans are the primary driver of climate change, a rare position in Trump admin. Commits to continuing climate research w/in budget constraints.
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.@EPAScottPruitt now says that global warming could help humans, claims hotter surface temperature for the Earth could beneficial.
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Clean Electricity Standard included in budget reconcilation package will include renewables, hydrogren, hydro, nuclear and carbon capture, per @SenTinaSmith. It will use incentives to push for more clean energy deployment, fine utilities who fail to comply.
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Sen. Joe Manchin has made millions of dollars selling waste coal in the last three decades. At the same, he has repeatedly used his position as an elected official to protect and promote waste coal, as well as the tiny plant that is his primary customer.
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My colleagues, Francis Chung, risked his safety to take this and other photographs at the Capitol today, Mr. Mayor. Let’s give our talented photojournalists the credit they deserve without appropriating their images as if they were taken by an anonymous party.
None of today's violence happens without the seditious actions of @HawleyMO. He sparked a violent incident that endangered lives and threatened the sanctity of our democracy just to further his own political ambitions. He doesn’t deserve his seat. He should resign immediately.
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The CDC, which has history of avoiding conflict, cancelled a climate change event after Trump election:
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This member of Congress had to play dead for hours on a runway at Jonestown to escape a violent cult.
We are in a safe place. I will have lots more to say about this. We are not a 3rd world country but you couldn’t tell that todaytoday.
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Climate denialist David Legates tried to publish misleading climate brochures on the White House website, was caught, and has now been relieved of his duties at @WHOSTP
Kristina Baum, OSTP Spokesperson: “Dr. Droegemeier was outraged to learn of the materials that were not shared with or approved by OSTP leadership. He first became aware of the documents when contacted by the press. ” (1/2).
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An electrical engineer with connections to the Heartland Institute is tasked with stripping climate change references at Interior websites to make them "scientifically more accurate." Great story by @amusedbrit.
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In the U.S. the Biden administration treats VP Harris as a supporting player in its climate goals. In Africa, Harris showed that when she's abroad, she's a climate leader, cutting deals and pushing back against China's control of the clean energy industry
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My talented colleague, Francis Chung, took this shot. It will likely be an image that follows @HawleyMO for his political career.
From our Francis Chung, Sen. Josh Hawley greeting protesters in the east side of the Capitol before riots began.
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No mention of climate change in 45-minute speech detailing Trump administration environmental policy. Audience stacked with climate science denialists.
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This is a hell of a thing to read about my work from the very first journalist I was ever exposed to as a kid. I learned about how the world worked by watching Dan on the evening news with my dad. Thanks for sharing @DanRather
Meanwhile, THIS was happening in our House of Representative yesterday. The whole article is worth a read and a share. Climate change and resulting sea level rise is not fake news. And it can't be lost amidst all the other noise of our current news cycle.
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An @EPA panel will meet this week to review the latest air pollution science. The review, which could affect millions of lives, is being led by a researcher whose work is funded by @APIenergy but also reviewed and EDITED by them before it is published
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.@SpeakerRyan got a rare question on climate change today. From my 7-yr-old daughter. Here's what he said.
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One of the most significant bailouts of coal and nuclear plants in the Trump era, supported by admin officials, turns out to be a $60 million web of corruption that touches the highest levels of Ohio politics and will have ripple effects for years to come.
The company that paid Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder bribes is unnamed in this affidavit, but it's pretty clear that company is FirstEnergy.
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A nuclear weapons expert is quietly leading the White House plan to conduct an “adversarial” review of climate science. He does not have a climate science degree.
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Some of us, such as @EENewsUpdates, do exactly that.
My take this am-/ Why isn’t the media covering climate change all day, every day?
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I’m excited for this, and to go back my roots at @politico. More importantly, this will introduce a wider audience to the incredible journalism produced by the talented @EENewsUpdates news team.
Company News: We are excited to announce that @politico has entered into an agreement to acquire E&E News. POLITICO will keep the E&E News brand and its journalism in place and invest resources to expand E&E News' audience and impact. Read on ⬇️ .
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Recently, @realDonaldTrump was briefed on climate science from Will Happer, who believes, against all contrary research, that the world is in C02 “drought.” It’s part of the WH ongoing effort to conduct an “adversarial” review of climate science.
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The $93 trillion price tag critics have attached to the Green New Deal comes from a network of shadowy groups. I peeled back the layers and found tens of millions of $ in dark money, @SecElaineChao, fossil fuel companies, a SuperPac and the Kochs.
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Of course, in this story, Agnew was corrupt, pleaded guilty to a felony and resigned. He coined this phrase to deflect from his own guilt and was known as “Nixon’s Nixon.”.
Today's word you can use: Nabob. The word was perhaps most famously used by Vice President Spiro Agnew, in a 1970 speech written by William Safire, when he referred to critical members of the news media as "nattering nabobs of negativism." @MerriamWebster.
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Scientists can produce all the reports they want, but accurate accounts in places like Fox are the most effective way to shift public opinion toward the truth about climate change.
.@ShepNewsTeam: New U.S. gov't report says climate change is real, & driven almost exclusively by human activity
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Trump’s new pick for a top NASA job wants to mine the moon and claims that building renewable energy sources in space are the best way to address climate change. @MichaelEMann calls it climate denial in “more acceptable clothes.”
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This could be DC’s climate change monument. It’s on the National Mall and protects the White House from getting flooded by the Potomac River.
Tomorrow (9/29), 17th St. between Constitution Ave & Independence Ave will be closed from 4am to 4pm for the annual test of the 17th St. levee. Motorists, pedestrians & cyclists should plan alternative routes. Read More: .#WashingtonDC
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This video is significant. It appears as if rioter later photographed w/hand restraints (or one of his well-organized cohorts) was let into Capitol by police w/visible weapon on right hip (about :20 in). Officer appears to say “I disagree with it, but I respect it” as he walks by.
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Here’s my story from what Sarah Sanders said about the climate report earlier today. Virtually everything she said about the National Climate Assessment was verifiably wrong.
"It's not data-driven. We'd like to see something that is more data-driven, that's based on modeling, which is extremely hard to do when you're talking about the climate," Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
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Democrats are hitting GOP colleagues over their rejection of mainstream climate science
NEW: Introducing the #FactCheck Project, to correct @HouseScience inaccuracies with sound science: #FactCheckSST.
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1/ Personal news: I’m moving to DC to cover climate change for @EEPublishing’s ClimateWire. I’ll be traveling wherever the story takes me.
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Mark Zuckerberg tells Anthony Fauci he is upset that COVID scientists are being undermined even as Facebook places restrictions on climate scientists, which it treats as political actors.
Mark Zuckerberg critiques the Trump administration’s coronavirus response in a live chat with Dr. Fauci 👇
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Also, my daughter just aced this quiz in case anyone needs an elementary school student to explain the difference between climate and weather
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Here’s how @LamarSmithTX21, a warrior against climate science, transformed his sleepy committee into potent weapon:
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Just imagine this White House climate press conference filled with climate reporters, who know this subject and could dig in with something other than tired talking points.
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We're not finished writing about this issue. We want to thoroughly document the harassment faced by women in science. To be clear, the harassers are almost entirely all men. If you are a scientist and want to talk on or off the record, contact is in my bio.
We don't talk about it much: but we get this, every day. The last few days, I was told I'm c---, a liar, full of bs, and have a fake degree. @coralsncaves @DrAndreaDutton @SarahEMyhre and most other women have similar experiences. Yet still, we persevere.
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Shell oil had a clear sense of climate change risks in the 1980s, and understood it presented an existential threat to parts of the globe. Yet, the company focused on climate denial for years, new documents show.
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I found a previously undisclosed, quiet effort to weaken climate science at the @EPA separate from red team debate. It would explore “uncertainty” of climate models and was spurred by Oklahoma oil industry CEO suggestion.
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The Trump plan to cut air pollution regulations that reduce fine particle pollution will kill more Americans. Here's my story in @sciam :
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