Fox hosts climate denier to claim discussing the Amazon fires is “weaponization of the weather”
Published
Citation
From the August 26 edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight:
BRIAN KILMEADE (GUEST HOST): Let's talk about the Amazon, if we could. The Amazon right now, there's fires and it doesn't have the concern of the Brazilian leaders as much as it has the French leader and other celebrities that we've pointed out.
But right now, what is the truth about the Amazon? Is global warming burning up the nation's lungs? The world's lungs?
JOE BASTARDI: Well, the globe is greener than it's ever been in the satellite era. That was announced by NASA, okay? As far as the Amazon --
KILMEADE: What's the significance of that statement?
BASTARDI: Well, NASA isn't exactly agreeing with me on global warming. They believe that humans are causing it. I believe if humans are causing it, it's very, very slight -- but that's another story for another time.
KILMEADE: Gotcha.
BASTARDI: The Amazon has had above normal rainfall this year. That's the first thing. Second thing that's very interesting to us is that the water is cooling all through the southern hemisphere. It's much cooler than what it was two, three years ago, the sea surface temperatures. That has implications. And South America, the last three, four weeks, and as a matter of fact for much of the last 90 days, has been cooler than normal. I will tell you what this is, this is weaponization of the weather. And now, because --
KILMEADE: What do you mean by -- someone is weaponizing the weather, to scare --
BASTARDI: Well, yeah, what I wrote -- wrote about it in my book, saying every single event that shows up, they're going to say, "look at this, look at this." The average person doesn't know what happened 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. At weather bell, we love looking at the past because it's what you stand on today to reach for the future, so we compare all the things that are going on, and when you hear statements like this, you realize -- nonsense.