The oil-industry funded front group for Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, has a Buzzfeed list featuring animated gifs of the “Top 10 Ways To Celebrate Earth Day: For Conservatives.” Media Matters has gathered all the ways that anti-conservation “conservatives” have truly decided to celebrate Earth Day this year:
10. Heavy Weight For The Fossil Fuel Industry
Fox News celebrated Earth Day by hosting Fox Business' John Stossel who is “cheering for fossil fuels” that were responsible for dozens of disasters last year. Forbes contributor and oil and gas industry consultant David Blackmon caught on to the trend, writing an op-ed glorifying the fossil fuel industry titled “Be Thankful On Earth Day For Oil & Gas.”
9. Compare Earth Day To Communism
Earth Day happens to lie on the same day as Vladimir Lenin's birthday, so it must be a communist plot, according to conservative blogger Erick Erickson. Erickson filled in for Rush Limbaugh on his radio show on Earth Day by ranting about the connections between environmentalism and communism.
8. Break Out Your Shovel And Snow-Troll
The United States (and globe) has been warming since the first Earth Day -- but that didn't prevent snow-trollers from emerging once again to cast doubt on global warming. On April 22, climate "skeptic" favorite Ryan Maue tweeted at conservative blogger Erick Erickson: “Remind folks on Earth Day... to not put away their snow shovels until July 4th.” Erickson later fulfilled Maue's request as a guest host for on The Rush Limbaugh Show.
7. Burn Tires
Jim Treacher, a reporter for the conservative news site Daily Caller, joked that he would celebrate Earth Day by burning “dangerous tires before they can pollute the planet,” mocking NASA's Twitter campaign asking the public to take a "#GlobalSelfie" for Earth Day.
6. Call Global Warming A “Religion”
Fox News frequent Marc Morano hyped a piece by Roy Spencer that equated climate science to a “religion” -- one of the most prominent ways conservatives erode trust in scientists according to a study by the Yale Project on Climate Communications. Spencer wrote, in honor of Earth Day:
As in other religions, most Earth worshipers are more or less hypocritical. Spend a day being “good”, spend the rest of the year failing.
[...]
I mostly find Earth Day just plain annoying for the rank hypocrisy on display. A state-sponsored religious day of worship, along with all of the 1st Amendment-violating regulations to codify it.
5. Party With Industry-Funded Lawyers
The Heritage Foundation hosted a special conference titled “Happy Earth Day: Dispelling Environmental Myths and Celebrating Human Achievement” featuring four lawyers and lobbyists, all on behalf of fossil fuel-funded organizations or the coal industry itself. In it, they attacked the “rogue” government's proposed regulations on carbon pollution while shamelessly promoting the coal industry.
4. Waste Energy
On the April 21 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Eric Bolling bragged he would celebrate by blatantly wasting energy:
BOLLING: It's an annual event in my house we open all the windows, we turn up the heat or the air conditioning, whichever is the opposite of temperatures outside... you know why? Because the oil industry, the carbon energy industry provides jobs, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenues and is the lifeblood of the most powerful economy on the Earth ... day.
3. Kick Your Dog's Poop Into A Bush
The Five co-hosts discussed Americans for Prosperity's list of things conservatives can do to celebrate Earth Day, which included “Tak[ing] your dog to the park.” In response, Fox News co-host Gutfeld retorted that he doesn't pick up his dog's waste, instead just “kick[s] it into a bush.” This was minutes after calling Earth Day a “nightmare” and as “meaningless” as “cat beards.”
2. Promote Teaching Children A Pro-Oil, Anti-Science Agenda
An Earth Day poster contest in Utah titled “Where Would WE Be Without Oil, Gas, & Mining?” drew outrage from parents, who criticized the disconnect between the one-sided theme and the meaning of Earth Day. One parent wrote he was “disgusted that the State is backing propaganda like this in our schools. Especially after a winter filled with some of the worst air quality we've ever seen.” The contest's sponsors included Utah's Division of Oil, Gas & Mining and a chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
And libertarian lobbying group Citizens for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which has been funded by ExxonMobil and Chevron, advocated that parents “take some time to explain to younger children that the Earth is very old and not going to suffer the claims Greens repeat and repeat” on Earth Day.
1. Don't
CFACT promoted an essay by conservative Alan Caruba on their website with a simple answer for how to celebrate Earth Day: ignore it. If this is how conservative media celebrate Earth Day, perhaps we'd all be better off if they just didn't.
