CALGARY—The United Conservative Party is under fire after a Calgary nomination candidate cast doubt on the legitimacy of climate change in several social media posts.

Randy Kerr, who is vying for the UCP nomination to run in the provincial riding of Calgary-Beddington, is a former campaign manager for party leader Jason Kenney. Some of his posts linked to a website with connections to Breitbart News, the far-right U.S. media outlet, which is associated with the so-called alt-right and has been accused of being sympathetic to white nationalism.

“My first reaction to that is, so what,” said Kerr, when asked about the social media posts.

Scientific consensus is that climate change is real and humans and their heavy creation of carbon dioxide are the main cause. This summer, extreme heat, wildfires and flooding worldwide have killed hundreds — conditions climatologists have attributed to the effects of climate change.

In one post from Aug. 13, 2007, Kerr used his personal Facebook account to link to a blog post he said “exposes global warming for the hoax we’ve always known it to be.” The post is from Small Dead Animals, a Canadian conservative political blog.

“My opinion is that this trashes the heart of the global warming theory but I don’t expect to see this on the front page anytime soon,” Kerr wrote at the time.

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Kerr told the Star the posts were his, but that sharing a post or link doesn’t necessarily mean he endorses the information within them. Kerr said he does believe climate change is happening, but there is “a lot of debate” on the extent to which humans have caused it.

Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said there is no debate, adding that the statement is an example of a “common trope of conspiracy theorists.”

“Mr. Kerr should take his views to the Flat Earth Society convention in Red Deer,” said Phillips. “That’s where those views belong.”

Kerr’s Facebook page has a long history of posts denying the existence of climate change, or expressing skepticism about the phenomenon.

In April 2017, Kerr shared an anti-climate change article from the Daily Caller, another right-wing U.S. news site website.

In October of that year, he posted an article from Calgary-based climate change denial group Friends of Science. Its title was “Don’t Call Climate Change Skeptics ‘Deniers,’ Call Us ‘Correct.’”

Kerr posted an article forecasting a “mini ice age” on Jan. 2, 2018. It was published by Climate Change Dispatch, a site whose managing editor has also written articles for Breitbart.

On May 8, Kerr posted a graphic falsely claiming that “climate alarmists” exaggerate carbon dioxide’s affect on climate change by failing to account for water vapour and its warming effect on the atmosphere. The idea has been refuted by a U.S. government scientist speaking to the Scientific American.

That graphic is credited to Dixon Diaz, a blogger who has spread several hoax images.

Another article shared to the account on June 15, entitled “Swedish Researchers Confirm 20th Century Global Warming ‘Does Not Stand Out’ over Past 2500 Years!” is from No Tricks Zone, a climate skeptic blog whose posts have previously been debunked by Snopes and picked up by Breitbart.

When asked if he considered the blog a reliable source, Kerr said, “No, it’s just an ongoing source. Just another one of the many voices out there.”

“I don’t have any view either way,” he added.

A July 4 post falsely claiming that more than 200 scientific papers in 2018 had cast doubt on climate change also came from Climate Change Dispatch. (A similar article Kerr shared on April 5 comes YourNewsWire.com, which also spreads 9/11 trutherism and a variety of other conspiracy theories.)

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Kerr also shared an article from the Global Warming Policy Forum, a U.K.-based climate skeptic group, on July 13.

When asked if he typically verifies information before sharing it on social media, Kerr said it “probably depends whether we’re having some fun with it or not.”

“Typically they’re very common sources,” he said. “That one may not have been, but in my search for more reading material on this topic I’ll read anything and everything on both sides.”

Phillips said science has proven that climate change is real, and poses significant risk to Alberta’s food supply, infrastructure and security, especially in the form of more extreme and frequent natural disasters.

“This is not a laughing matter,” Phillips said. “This is not a time for tin foil hats. It is distasteful and it is frankly shocking that Jason Kenney would encourage people with conspiracy theorist views to be seeking public office in this province given what’s at stake.”

UCP executive director Janice Harrington didn’t answer questions about how Kerr was vetted before becoming a nomination candidate, and whether or not the party was aware of the social media posts. (In the past, Harrington has said the UCP carefully vets nomination candidates.)

Instead, Harrington redirected the Star to a previous interview where Kenney said: “Climate change of course is a permanent factor of the natural environment, but there’s clearly scientific consensus around it being a significant anthropogenic element to recent climate change, and that’s why I support prudent, reasonable measures to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

In recent months, several UCP candidates have come under fire for social media posts expressing extreme views.

In July, nomination candidate Sandra Kim apologized for a Facebook post denouncing homosexuality and same-sex marriage. She is still seeking the nomination for Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin.

Weeks earlier, Brooks-Medicine Hat nomination candidate Todd Beasley was ousted after a social media post surfaced in which he called the Islamic prophet Muhammad “a dark age warlord” and a “pedophile.”

“Not a day goes by, it seems, where we aren’t faced with yet another example of how Jason Kenney’s team is full of people who deny climate change, who hold other views that are simply offside of Albertans and Canadians and that are rooted in conspiracy theories,” said Phillips.

Kerr said he doesn’t think climate change is a major issue for Albertans.

“I think climate change in general has come up at one door that I’ve been at this entire campaign over the last four or five months,” he said.

“It’s not a priority for people out there. They want to get people back to work.”

The UCP’s Calgary-Beddington nomination contest is scheduled for Aug. 14. Kerr’s opponent for the nomination is Josephine Pon.

Emma McIntosh is an environment, justice and investigative reporter with StarMetro Calgary. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaMci

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