The CO2 Coalition (Disinfo Group) Getting Blocked By GOP Staffers In DC, Protested On Campuses

[hatrack]

A group that touts the benefits of carbon dioxide is being blocked from getting its message to members of Congress by young Republican staffers. The CO2 Coalition, which includes former Trump administration officials, has spent about a year trying to brief lawmakers on its assertions that climate change isn't a problem because more carbon emissions could help feed the world. Members of the group have reached some lawmakers, but at other times have been challenged by GOP staffers who don't buy the message that the effects of climate change are minimal, said Caleb Rossiter, the group's executive director.

That led to another strategy: The group is trying to reach young people before they enter the workplace by traveling to college campuses. "We find that they are scientifically challenged, I'll be very polite," Rossiter said. "They just have very little understanding of the basic physics and geology involved in all these matters, in the climate debate. This is our way to try to reach them a little earlier and to get college campuses to listen."

EDIT

Ed. (MS GOP Senator Roger) Wicker did not respond to a request for comment. But one of his interns attended a CO2 Coalition briefing earlier this year and said he wasn't convinced by the presentation, which claimed that plants would thrive if humans released more carbon dioxide. "I'm still not convinced that that's not an issue that something needs to be done about," Sean Bland, an intern with Wicker at the time, told E&E News.

In the House, it's hard to find young GOP staffers who reject climate science, said Alex Flint, executive director of Alliance for Market Solutions and a former staff director with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In the last two years, his group has briefed dozens of Republican House members on climate change and only encountered one staffer who rejected climate science. That's because those who are younger than 35 are concerned with finding ways to address it through a conservative-friendly policy, he said. Groups that try to convince congressional aides that climate change isn't a threat will find that the "era of climate denialism has passed," Flint said. "The college students that end up working in Congress are generally pretty smart, so you're going to have a hard time trying to fool them with climate denialism," he said.

EDIT

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061604619

[Zambero]

1. Not enough up-and-coming Stephen Millers to further muddy the waters

Interesting that even younger GOP staffers who would tend to lean conservative are capable of differentiating scientific fact from fantasy.