"I want to grow oranges in the Arctic!"

The Intersection
By Chris Mooney
Jul 4, 2007 5:49 PMNov 5, 2019 10:17 AM

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The Bush administration climate "policy" is a sham and an embarrassment. The number of abuses against science--and of power--that we've seen on this topic over the past six years is overwhelming. Sometimes, though, one choice quote can capture it all far better than a laundry list of well-documented misbehaviors. A choice quote like, say, this one from a recent Rolling Stone expose on Bush and climate:

One e-mail exchange about the study underscores just how many industry foxes were guarding the climate henhouse. When Matthew Koch (a White House energy adviser who today lobbies for API) saw the study, he wrote to Cooney (the former API lobbyist who is now "corporate issues manager" for ExxonMobil) and CC'd O'Donovan (who now works for Shell Oil). "What??!!" Koch wrote in mock disbelief at the study's claim that the planet isn't really heating up. "I want to grow oranges in the Arctic!"

Note to special interesty-type people who dismiss or deny global warming: When working in government, resist the urge to include what you really think in emails that will inevitably be retrieved later. It makes you look like....well, I'll let readers fill in that blank (provided they can avoid profanity).

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