On August 13, Axios’ Lachlan Markay reported that Newsmax Media has registered several web domains that seem critical of the reality of climate change.
Newsmax's climate denial
Written by Jason Campbell
Published
This news comes on the heels of the United Nations’ devastating report on the threat climate change poses to our planet. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the recent IPCC report a “code red for humanity.”
Newsmax repeatedly pushes rhetoric that denies the existence of climate change and the threat it poses for our society.
On July 20, host Rob Schmitt interviewed climate denier Steve Milloy regarding one of the forest fires devastating the West Coast this summer. During the interview, Milloy denied that the climate is warming and suggested that the government log forests to prevent fires (it is not true that logging helps prevent forest fires). Milloy further said the “environmentalists” were “sacrificing the forest on the altar of global warming.”
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From the July 20, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Rob Schmitt Tonight
ROB SCHMITT (HOST): So the left, you know, any time they see any kind of bizarre weather, they just scream climate change. That's the automatic response. What's your response?
STEVE MILLOY (GUEST): Well, yeah, any time they see anything weird they just scream climate change. Look, you know, we have natural records going back 1,200 years. The West periodically goes into what we call [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. Some of these have lasted as long as 200 years. So for all we know, you know, this drought is a few years old. This drought could go on for another 200 or so years. We just don't know. But the important thing is it's naturally caused. As far as the heat, this is not unusual heat. There is no trend in hot days in the Pacific northwest. This is, you know, there's no evidence this is climate change. So what are we left with? We're left with hot, dry weather. We don't know how long it's going to last. We don't know what caused it. None of it really matters. What matters is what are we going to do about it? Well, you know, in these Democrat states where the forests are just burning out of control -- and by the way these are government owned forests. I mean public lands, but, you know, government managed --
SCHMITT: Yeah, federal.
MILLOY: They don't manage them. And so, they're gonna burn until there's nothing left to burn unless the government steps in and allows, you know, management of the forest, including logging. Logging will thin the forests, will create natural -- will create fire breaks and, you know, prevent these out of control fires.
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Well, look, you don't have to chop down all the trees, but there is some management that needs to be done. There is some logging that would help the health of the forest. You know, you don't need -- we don't need to burn them down or allow them to be burned down, and we don't need to chop them down. There is a healthy mix that we can engage in which can be profitable and safe for the forest. But the environmentalists, of course, they don't want to do any of this because what they're doing is they're sacrificing the West. They're sacrificing all these woods. You remember, you know, they were worried about the spotted owl 40 years ago. Well, the spotted owls will all get burned out now because they're sacrificing the forest on the altar of global warming.
SCHMITT: It's interesting. I mean, when you look at these fires, you do realize one thing is that I mean, you know, we've been able to bring water into places where we're probably not supposed to be living, which is in some of these places where it's just -- I mean, at the end of the day, it's like it's so dry out there. I mean, you drop a match on the ground, it all burns down. But you are saying that you have definitive proof that it's not any hotter, that there's no climate -- it's like, you know, you'd ask a liberal and they you know, they probably say, oh, it's five degrees warmer than it was 100 years ago out here, and that's why everything's burning.
MILLOY: No, there's no trend in hot days. Look, the drought is natural, draught is natural in the West. It can last a long time and, you know, it turns out that the 20th century may have been an unusual -- unusually wet period. Of course, you know, we're never going to know any of this for sure, because none of us are going to live long enough. So the question is, what are we going to do? And the only sensible thing to do is to mitigate the disaster, and that means managing the forest. And if we can do so, and turn a profit at the same time, what's wrong with that?
On August 10, hosts Steve Cortes and Jenn Pellegrino interviewed Anthony Lupo, who is on the payroll of the climate-denying Heartland Institute. During the interview, the hosts and Lupo denied the threat that climate change poses. Additionally, Cortes suggested that people are not worried about climate change because Miami waterfront real estate prices continue to rise
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From the August 10, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Cortes and Pellegrino
JENN PELLEGRINO (HOST): Well, something else that seems a bit suspect, the United Nations panel on climate change had just reached released a new report blaming us for the dire state of things, writing "It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred."
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STEVE CORTES (HOST): Professor Lupo, you know, climate alarmists, who don't believe in nuance, they have been wrong for so many years. And yet it seems that there never discredit. And let me give you a specific example. Back in 2008 on Good Morning America, one of the most popular morning shows in the United States, Chris Cuomo was then the host -- somebody we've been talking about for other reasons lately -- but he was the host of Good Morning America, and they put out a large report, ABC News did, called Earth 2015. And they made a number of incredibly dire predictions of what would happen regarding the environment by 2015. Among those predictions, they said that Manhattan would be underwater, literally that it would be underwater by 2015. It is, of course, 2021 and Manhattan is just fine. What do you make, though, about this constant trend of climate alarmism? And there seemed to be no consequences for those who get the predictions massively wrong.
ANTHONY LUPO (GUEST): Well, you're absolutely right, they do get them wrong. If you look at the actual amount of sea level rise over the last 100 years, it's on the order of about eight inches. And if you look at the IPCC projections, they predict anywhere from 15 to 20 inches. And so this is not -- this is not -- or they'll tend to show you the worst results, the most eye popping results, the model scenarios that tend to be a little bit exaggerated.
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Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, it's not just him, but there are others who buy big houses in areas that are near the beach, who also will sing the song that we're going to be underwater and that the seas are going to rise by 20 feet by 2100. And so, you wonder whether they believe their own hype.
CORTES: Right. Well to that point we've been talking quite a lot about Barack Obama and his $12 million estate that is very, very close to the water. I also think, too, to your point professor, you know the proof is in the pudding. Look at the prices, for example, of Miami real estate on the water. It's done nothing but soar. If people were actually worried about rising sea levels, that real estate would not be very valuable because people would legitimately think that in 10 years they're going to be underwater.
On April 23, in a ridiculous moment, host John Bachman referenced the debate over carbon capture and its potential to alleviate the climate crisis. Bachman asked, “If we take all the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, what are the trees going to turn into oxygen?”
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From the April 23, 2021, edition of Newsmax's John Bachman Now
JOHN BACHMAN (HOST): It sounds like a big challenge, because if we take all of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, what are trees going to turn into oxygen? That's the Biden administration's climate czar John Kerry, speaking at the White House's climate summit, virtually. Those comments came after the administration announced that it would seek a 50 to 52% reduction in U.S. carbon emissions by 2030. Environmentalists say we should focus on cutting back carbon emissions and not pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. I don't even know how you do that. Maybe stop by -- you could start by stop taking these private planes.
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Does anyone want to weigh in on John Kerry saying we got to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere? Aaron, I was wondering if I'm gonna be taxed for exhaling -- you know, remember that movie "Waiting to Exhale"? Call this taxing to exhale.
The world is facing an unprecedented challenge in combating the threat of climate change. With only 50% of Americans recognizing that climate change is a critical threat to our society, Newsmax’s rhetoric damages our country’s capacity to respond to this crisis.