Climate Alarmists in Congress Ignore, Demonize and Lose on Fact-Based Science

Arlington, VA – The CO2 Coalition had the opportunity to correct the falsehoods lawmakers are using to push alarmist climate policies during Congressional hearing yesterday.

CO2 Coalition member Mandy Gunasekara, who served as the Trump administration’s top air and climate adviser at the EPA, was questioned by alarmist climate change activists such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform at a hearing entitled Examining the Oil Industry’s Efforts to Suppress the Truth about Climate Change.

“It’s important to understand that asking questions in the context of science is not denialism,” said CO2 Coalition member and Former EPA official Mandy Gunasekara. “The very essence of better scientific understanding is by asking tough questions and challenging the status quo. What’s different in the context of climate change science compared to different areas of science I’ve worked on is that anyone who speaks up and mentions some measure of uncertainty gets attacked and there’s a massive backlash for any scientist willing to ask tough questions and have some measure of reason and balance in assessing these sophisticated issues.”

“The problem with the Green New Deal is that it’s completely unrealistic,” she added. “It would force an unnatural shift to renewable energy sources, would lead to an exponential increase of the price of electricity, and there’s significant economic consequences to that. The technology that would be required to maintain access to a reliable source of energy in a system that is overly reliant on wind and solar power simply doesn’t exist.”

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, clearly unable to address the concerns brought up by Ms. Gunaskara, proceeded to use her time to attack the CO2 Coalition’s funding sources. This was the first time that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez actually talked with members of the CO2 Coalition.

In January of this year, she wrote to Facebook and Google, asking them to ban CO2 Coalition’s scientists and economists from speak at tech-sponsored conferences. In April she refused to engage with CO2 Coalition climate statistician Caleb Rossiter during his testimony before the same committee, and instead joined a rally in the hallway trying to shout him down.

The full exchange can be found here.