Former BP Scientist Steve Koonin Claims Climate Journalists Are Spreading 'Hysteria' [View all]

[Brenda]

By Geoff Dembickion Nov 10, 2023 @ 11:30 PST

A former chief scientist for the oil and gas producer BP claims that journalists specializing in climate change reporting are spreading false claims about extreme weather — an accusation that a major climate media organization deems “factually careless and ideologically driven.”

“There are a number of interests that align to produce the current climate hysteria,” Steve Koonin argued last week during a webinar for Canadian post-secondary students. “The media are indeed a big factor in that.”

The webinar was hosted by the Fraser Institute, a conservative Atlas Network think tank based in Vancouver that has previously received funding from Exxon and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is associated with the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch. For decades, the think tank has disputed whether climate change is a crisis along with questioning whether human activities like fossil fuel production are to blame.

Koonin pointed specifically to Covering Climate Now, an organization that assists and promotes climate coverage in over 50 countries and whose more than 600 partners include media outlets such as the Guardian, BBC and NPR, as well as DeSmog. “[They] have agreed to not publish anything that disagrees with the narrative that we’re headed for certain catastrophe,” Koonin said.

The executive director of Covering Climate Now accused Koonin of distorting the organization’s work and climate reporting in general.

“Mr. Koonin’s comments about Covering Climate Now are as factually careless and ideologically driven as his writing about climate science,” Mark Heertsgaard wrote in an email to DeSmog.

“CCNow has zero tolerance for climate denial,” Heertsgaard went on. “That’s because the scientific consensus — that climate change is man-made, extremely damaging (especially to the poor and generations to come) and bound to get worse unless humanity rapidly phases out oil, gas, and coal — is rock solid.”

Why was this guy the Under Secretary for Science at the US Department of Energy for 2.5 years (May 2009 – November 2011) in the Obama administration?

https://www.desmog.com/2023/11/10/former-bp-scientist-steve-koonin-claims-climate-journalists-are-spreading-hysteria/