Plus, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK conference to host radical anti-climate group...
From the Editor's Desk
This week, a group of more than 85 leading climate experts — from MacArthur “Genius” Fellows to members of the National Academy of Sciences and veteran EPA scientists — unleashed a blistering critique of the Trump administration’s July Department of Energy report written by 5 notorious climate deniers.
Experts called the Trump DOE report a “travesty for U.S. scientific integrity,” and lamented that the only “silver lining is that this document is a wonderful example of junk science” that will “serve as an example for years to come.”
DeSmog’s Sharon Kelly and Emily Gertz take a deep dive into the experts’ critique of the ‘zombie arguments’ reproduced by the five long‑time climate deniers — Steve Koonin, John Christy, Ross McKitrick, Judith Curry, and Roy Spencer — who seek to recycle long-debunked claims, while downplaying the risks of record-breaking heat, intense rainfall, wildfires, sea level rise, and health hazards well established in the peer-reviewed literature. Read more here.
The DOE report opens a dangerous gateway to the climate science denial influencing Trump’s U.S. policy and the public’s understanding of the urgent threat of climate change. DeSmog has spent the past two decades exposing climate deniers, publishing robust database profiles and investigations about the characters who wrote this report.
Take for example, the one Canadian contributor to the DOE report, Ross McKitrick. This week we focus on McKitrick, an economics professor and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a new feature co-published with The Tyee, a media outlet based in British Columbia.
“Meet the Canadian Aiding Trump’s ‘Insane’ War on Climate Science” exposes McKitrick for the charlatan that he is. For years, he claimed his views were long “overlooked.” But not anymore with his contributions to the MAGA climate denial report.
Among his many ridiculous stances, McKitrick has described greenhouse gas emissions as beneficial for humankind — the same ‘CO2 is good for you!’ anti-science trope in circulation since the 1950s, as DeSmog’s Rebecca John proved in her groundbreaking story, “Big Oil Told 70 Years Ago That Fossil Fuel Emissions Could Impact ‘Civilization.'" John uncovered that the vice president of Chevron’s predecessor company stated that sulfur dioxide from oil and gas refineries was “actually beneficial to plants and people.”
Trust DeSmog to uncover climate distortions like this, and read more on the Canadian denialist spreading the same nonsense today.
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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
P.S. DeSmog continues to keep you informed about threats to our climate across the globe — from up-to-the minute reporting to essential database profiles that help others fight climate denial and delay. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?
Image: Memorials for some of the more than 100 people killed in July 2025's catastrophic flash flooding in central Texas, which was intensified by climate change. Credit: World Central Kitchen (CC BY 4.0)
Meet the Canadian Aiding Trump’s
‘Insane’ War on Climate Science
— By Jen St. Denis (6 min. read) —
Ross McKitrick claims his views have long been ‘overlooked.’ Now his work is helping guide the MAGA assault on climate regulations.
Scores of Climate Experts Condemn Trump Climate Report as ‘Junk Science’
— By Sharon Kelly and Emily J Gertz (7 min. read) —
A 435-page review found the authors used standard climate denier tropes to produce a report riddled with errors.
Meet the UN-backed ‘green’ investors’ group that invested in fossil fuels
—By Giorgio Michalopoulos and Stefano Valentino (4 min. read) —
Despite having pledged to reach net-zero emissions, major members of Net Zero Asset Managers hold billions of dollars’ worth of fossil-fuel stocks, including those in “carbon bomb” projects, while marketing their funds as green and sustainable.
Climate Deniers to Converge
on Reform Conference
— By Sam Bright (10 min) —
Campaigners say Farage is showing “open contempt” for the British public.
Mark Carney’s Climate Warning from 2015
and the Perils of Pragmatism
— By Mitch Anderson (4 min. read) —
Canada’s PM once cautioned that most fossil fuel reserves will become unburnable. What happened?
From the Climate Disinformation Database: Roy W. Spencer
Roy Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, is one of the coauthors of the Trump administration’s July 2025 Department of Energy report undermining climate science. His views on climate change include this April 2021 statement in an article at the Global Warming Policy Forum: “. . . there is no Climate Crisis. There is no Climate Emergency. Yes, irregular warming is occurring. Yes, it is at least partly due to human greenhouse gas emissions. But seldom are the benefits of a somewhat warmer climate
system mentioned, or the benefits of more CO2 in the atmosphere (which is required for life on Earth to exist).” Spencer is an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance, formerly the Interfaith Steward Alliance (ISA), an evangelical Christian group that claims environmentalism is “one of the greatest threats to society and the church today.”
Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database, Ad & PR Database, and Koch Network Database.
