US House Committee cancels climate denier hearing, due to weather

Climate Progress

Ever since Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) first took over as chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, the climate denier and Koch Industries beneficiary has planned a hearing to “review” climate science. But on Wednesday, a major snowstorm in Washington, D.C. put the hearing, which was stacked with climate deniers, on hold.

Wednesday’s event planned to “examine the current understanding of key areas of climate science,” and yet two of the three witnesses invited to testify hardly represent the scientific consensus on combatting global warming.

One of those two witnesses, Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology, is a conspiracy theorist who defends climate deniers like Anthony Watts and the Heartland Institute as being more credible than climate science advocates. The second witness, President of Copenhagen Consensus Center Bjørn Lomborg was a “friend” and “expert” of Heartland, until Lomborg left the discredited think tank over its unabomber billboard campaign. Lomborg has argued that inaction is the best course, despite the threat of climate change. So unless another well-timed storm strikes, expect ignorance on display at the rescheduled hearing.

While Washington’s “snowquester” may fall short of the forecasted snowfall, the city’s winter has mostly followed the climate change “less snow, more blizzards” pattern characteristic of the past 30 years.

This article was originally published on Climate Progress. Reproduced with permission