Politico’s “Hit Piece” on Me (Roy Spencer) and Energy Secretary Wright – Watts Up With That?

From Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog

by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. For the uninitiated, while Politico is allegedly a news organization, it has a history of supporting Progressive and Leftist causes.

To be fair, the summary lead at the top of the article is pretty good: “A common refrain: Climate policy hurts the poor, and the continued use of fossil fuels is a boon for humanity.“ But, at best, today’s Politico article entitled, “Meet the 4 influencers shaping Chris Wright’s worldview” is a mix of truths, half-truths, and misleading innuendoes. The article is by Scott Waldman. The four alleged influencers of Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s views on climate science and energy policy are, in order, Bjorn Lomborg, me, Alex Epstein, and John Constable.

I will let the others speak for themselves. What follows is, verbatim, the article addressing my influence on Sec. Wright. I don’t need to comment on everything because some of it is true. I will only offer clarifications where appropriate. Why? Because there are a lot of untruths circulating about me and unless I address them from time to time, those things become part of a narrative that is difficult to dislodge.

Quotes from the article are in italics; my response & clarifications are in bold:

Spencer, whose work was cited as a resource in Wright’s report, is a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is listed as an adviser to the Heartland Institute, which promotes climate misinformation. I used to give talks at Heartland conferences, but haven’t in recent years. I don’t have a formal relationship with them. I don’t speak for Heartland Institute, but I thoroughly disagree with the claim that they promote “climate misinformation”. That shoe fits Politico much better.

While some of Spencer’s work on atmospheric temperatures and other areas of study has been funded by NASA and the Energy Department, he has attacked federal climate researchers as being biased because they receive taxpayer money, and he has claimed that people alive today won’t experience global warming. On the first point… true. On the second point, I believe what I have said is that most people today will never notice global warming in their lifetimes because it is too weak (about 0.02 deg. C per year) compared to natural climate, seasonal, and day-to-day weather variability. In my book, people who believe they have witnessed human-caused global warming are about as delusional as flat-Earthers.

Spencer also served as a visiting fellow for the Heritage Foundation, which produced the Project 2025 policy proposal that has guided the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The groups Spencer has been affiliated with have received millions of dollars in donations from foundations that oppose regulations, but he claims the American public has “been misled by the vested interests who financially benefit from convincing the citizens we are in a climate crisis.” That includes environmental groups and journalists, in his telling. And I stand by that claim. Look at the artwork at the top of this article, and see if you can figure out what it implies.

“Climate change is big business for a lot of players,” he wrote in a Heritage Foundation publication. “That includes a marching army of climate scientists whose careers now depend on a steady stream of funding from governments.” True. And I have said my career also depends upon that funding.

For years, Spencer has worked with organizations that have received funding from an interlinked network of fossil fuel companies — a multitrillion-dollar global industry — as well as wealthy foundations with billions of dollars in holdings that support groups opposing climate and energy regulations. What are you implying, Scott? That I’ve been paid off by this multitrillion dollar global industry? I know that’s what you are doing. But they have never funded me. At most, I have giving an occasional invited talk, which I receive honoraria for when offered (standard practice, and the same has applied to environmental organizations I have spoken to).

He states on his website that he has not been paid by oil companies, but a court filing in 2016 revealed that he received funding from Peabody Energy, the coal giant that for years spent millions of dollars on funding climate denial groups. That was one of my invited talks: As I recall, it was a Peabody board of directors meeting, and they wanted someone to provide a counterpoint to a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) talk given at the same meeting. Peabody never funded me to do work.

Spencer has appeared before Congress a number of times, typically as a Republican witness attacking climate policy and downplaying climate risks. He served as the climatologist for the late conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, who regularly promoted climate denialism on his show. Again with the “climate denialism” mantra? You really don’t have a second gear, do you, Scott? I don’t deny “climate”. I don’t even deny recent warming. I don’t even deny that recent warming is probably mostly due to humans.

Like Lomborg, Spencer claims climate policy will hurt the poor even as science has overwhelmingly shown the effects of global warming would disproportionately affect the world’s most vulnerable populations. “Science” has shown no such thing. Opportunistic researchers have indeed made such claims, though. But Lomborg, Epstein, and Roger Pielke Jr. are better at refuting those claims than I am.

He authored a book entitled: “Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor.”

Spencer did not respond to a request for comment. True. I long ago learned which media outlets cannot be trusted to represent what I say fairly.

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