Ealier today we shared the video of Steve Milloy being interviewed by Laura Ingraham on Fox News, where, during the entire conversation, Milloy tried to convince the audience that breathing the smoke-filled air that's plaguing so much of the US and Canada right now is perfectly healthy for you. Yup, that's right, there's nothing at all bad about breathing that air, according to Steve Milloy. To accompany this blatant disinformation, Fox News added these alarmist (absurdist?) chyrons:
"Radical Left Uses Wildfire Smoke as Climate Cudgel"
"Climate Cult Use Canadian Fire to Co-Opt Freedom"
"Masked Media Manipulation"
"Dems Use Haze As Pretense for Mass Re-Masking"
If you want to learn more about Milloy, the lobbying group he works for, the "Energy and Environment Legal Institute," and other individuals and organizations who are on the frontlines of climate disinformation, get yourself over to DeSmog. It's a great critical media organization that has been recognized as "'the antidote' to the corporate smoke screen that surrounds climate and energy issues." Their website provides more information about the history and the mission of the organization:
DeSmog was founded in January 2006 to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science and solutions to climate change. Our team quickly became the world's number one source for accurate, fact-based information regarding global warming misinformation campaigns.
DeSmog continues to expand our focus to other areas where misinformation has eroded public understanding and political action to address critical societal challenges, such as meeting the world's energy needs, confronting environmental racism, and ensuring a just transition to a sustainable economic paradigm.
Through hard-hitting investigative journalism, in-depth research, and collaborations with other investigative outlets, DeSmog works tirelessly to provide climate accountability and serve as an antidote to science denial and disinformation. Supported by science and dedicated to equity, our team is helping to clear the way for clean energy solutions, environmental justice, and the preservation of democracy.
Now a global organization, with reporters and researchers spanning North America, Europe, Africa, and beyond, the DeSmog team works to expose corporate misinformation from major fossil fuel interests, including the likes of ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and others with a documented history of undermining climate science and action. We conduct original research and reporting on a range of issues in the broader energy policy dialogue. In many cases, we find the same tactics, and many of the same people, that DeSmog first began exposing in our early research into the climate denial industry, are now sitting alongside a new breed of lobbyist, downplaying potential solutions to climate change, and promoting questionable "silver-bullet" solutions.
Our research databases provide vital information on over 800 organizations and individuals responsible for spreading misinformation on a range of energy and science topics. We first started reporting on Koch Industries' funding of climate denial in 2007, and continue to track Koch-linked groups and operatives in our Koch Network Database. In 2020, we added two new databases — the Air Pollution Lobbying Database and Agribusiness Database — showing how vested interests are working to slow action across multiple sectors.
DeSmog is a great go-to resource to learn more about pretty much anyone talking about the climate on Fox News or other right-wing "news" sources. For instance, DeSmog has pages dedicated to debunking both Milloy and the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. The Milloy page provides this background on Milloy, and then follows with dozens of damning facts about his involvement with disinformation campaigns:
Steve Milloy joined the Heartland Institute's board of directors in 2020.5 He previously worked as director of external policy and strategy at Murray Energy Corp, which claims to be the largest privately-owned coal producer in the United States.6
Milloy held that position from October 2013 until May 2015 according to LinkedIn. Milloy is the publisher of the website JunkScience.com, a former columnist for Fox News,7 co-creator and manager of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a former adjunct scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the president of the business consulting firm Steven J. Milloy, Inc.8 Milloy is also a senior policy fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute.9
On his website, Steve "The Junkman" Milloy proclaims himself a pioneer fighting against "faulty scientific data used to advance special, and often hidden, agendas."10
DeSmog's page on the Energy and Environment Legal Institute includes this information:
The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), formerly the American Tradition Institute (ATI), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Washington, DC. A 2011 study by the Institute for Southern Studies reported that E&E legal had connections with "the Koch brothers, Art Pope and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence." [1], [4], [49]
The Guardian has described E&E Legal/the American Tradition Institute as having "a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations," while E&E Legal has been called "a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud" that uses tactics including "filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research." [28], [4]
The group's website at one time stated it was part of a "broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation." [4]
So next time you suspect someone's spewing PR disinformation about environmental issues and climate change on right-wing media, head on over to DeSmog and find out the truth.
