The Top 10 Garbage Climate Stories From The Koch Brothers’ Favorite Right-Wing Website

The Daily Caller is a right-wing “news” website/heaping pile of garbage that is largely funded by a climate-denying investment magnate and the oil billionaire Koch brothers. Here are worst climate change stories the Daily Caller has published so far this year, put in their rightful place:

1. The one that tried to link the Orlando shooter to clean energy advocates

Denise Robbins / Via articles.baltimoresun.com

After CBS discovered footage from a 2012 documentary of Orlando, FL shooter Omar Mateen criticizing workers who were cleaning up the BP oil spill, the Daily Caller ran an article with the headline, “Was The Orlando Shooter An Anti-Fossil Fuel Zealot?” The Daily Caller is just asking, people.

2. The one that compared respected climate experts to an X-Files villain who planned to “kill all of humanity”

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: dragonpreneur

The Daily Caller thought it was newsworthy to point out that in the season finale of the X-Files reboot, “the villain’s master plan was to kill all of humanity to prevent global warming.” The article then compared Pope Francis’s climate adviser and President Obama’s science adviser to the X-Files villain, writing, “Reality does contain many powerful people who think humanity is the root cause of most environmental problems.”

3. The one where a fossil fuel shill says nasty things about Al Gore

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: andrewbain

It’s probably true that Alex Epstein, founder of a for-profit “think tank” that celebrates dirty energy and "man’s impact on nature," is “popular” among oil industry executives. But that doesn’t excuse the Daily Caller promoting Epstein’s smear of Al Gore as the “leader of the climate fascists,” or Epstein’s canard that Gore is leading an “unconstitutional crusade against the freedom of scientific speech.” As if that weren’t enough rubbish for one article, the Daily Caller also described Gore’s efforts to fight climate change in China as “propaganda missions” to “properly indoctrinate Chinese citizens” about global warming.

4. The one where the same fossil fuel shill drops the F-bomb on Massachusetts’ attorney general

Denise Robbins / Via whyfiles.org

The same week that Epstein smeared Gore, the Daily Caller also managed to base an entire article on Epstein swearing at Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Healey recently announced an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil worked with climate denial organizations -- including Epstein’s Center for Industrial Progress -- to fraudulently deceive shareholders and the public about climate change. The Daily Caller eagerly promoted Epstein’s “terse response” to Healey: “Fuck off, fascist."

5. The one that turned American refugees’ suffering into clickbait

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: worldbank

After The New York Times reported that a Louisiana indigenous community receiving government funding to relocate due to sea level rise would comprise the “first American ‘climate refugees,’” the Daily Caller complained that “it’s not the first time the media claimed to have identified America’s first climate refugees.” It’s true that multiple media outlets have used that designation when discussing Alaskan communities. But even the Daily Caller noted that the Louisiana community’s relocation will be “the first time a government has used global warming to justify moving people,” which means, in the words of Daily Kos’ ClimateDenierRoundup, that the Daily Caller “has spun an entire story out of a pedantic nitpick.”

The ClimateDenierRoundup concluded: "Not only is this distinction not worthy of a 'news' story (though it does alert the Daily Caller’s audience to the refugees ' plight, when perhaps they would’ve otherwise not realized their fellow Americans are losing their homes to climate change), turning the suffering of these peoples into clickbait is pretty despicable."

6. The one where cutting your carbon footprint means acting like an “eco-nut job”

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: fabiane13

“Eco-nut jobs” is not exactly the wording used in the study, which found that Americans are “more willing to take advice” about how to act on climate change “from climate researchers who reduce their own carbon footprint.” The study author noted, “To communicate effectively, advocates of energy conservation need to be the change they wish to see.”

7. The one that found four random Twitter users to “bash” President Obama on climate change after the Brussels terror attacks

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: digbyfire

On the day of the Brussels terror attacks, the Daily Caller cited four random Twitter users (including one who has 49 followers) who “bash[ed]” President Obama and other Democrats on Twitter for having said that climate change is America’s biggest long-term threat. “Now, conservatives with Twitter accounts are throwing these remarks back in their faces,” the Daily Caller gloated.

8. The one that cried crocodile tears about EPA agents carrying guns

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: statefarm

This is the lede of February article at the Daily Caller: “An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agent mistakenly left a gun in a restroom stall in the agency’s headquarters, according to a Freedom of Information Act request from Environment & Energy Publishing’s Greenwire published Monday.” The article went on to tout efforts by a GOP Senator to “strip EPA of its firearms.” But while the Daily Caller is apparently concerned about EPA agents carrying guns when pursuing violators of environmental laws, that concern doesn’t extend to anyone who entered to win “free guns” by signing up for Daily Caller email updates. Maybe if a few EPA officials signed up, the Daily Caller would finally get off the agency’s back.

9. The one where any compliment about China is an endorsement of communism

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: mauri212

When Christiana Figueres announced she would step down as executive secretary of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Daily Caller objected to the fact that she once criticized the United States Congress’ “deep partisan divide” and praised China’s efforts to advance renewable energy. According to the Daily Caller, Figueres “will long be remembered for her remarks castigating democracy and praising communist China’s progress on global warming.”

10. The one that tries to do math and fails miserably

Denise Robbins / Via Flickr: froderik

The Daily Caller tried to debunk a recent analysis by Carbon Brief showing that solar energy generated more electricity than coal in the United Kingdom for an entire month. The Daily Caller declared that Carbon Brief “claim[ed] that solar out-produced coal in May by almost 50%, but The Daily Caller News Foundation has found that number to actually be only 36%.” Unfortunately, the Daily Caller’s math was completely wrong, as a reader pointed out in the comments. Or as the ClimateDenierRoundup put it, the Daily Caller “claims that solar out-produced coal by only 36%, when in fact it’s 49.6%, which is what Carbon Brief said in the first place.” And even if the Daily Caller’s math had been right, the fact that British solar outpaced coal for the first month ever would still be a historic milestone.