During testimony on March 9 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Loretta Lynch — responding to a question from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) — said that the matter of whether to refer a civil case against the fossil-fuel industry for denying that carbon emissions cause climate change to the FBI “has been discussed.”

Lynch’s statement came during the committee’s hearing, “Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

During the course of the hearing, Whitehouse, whose liberal record is apparent from his paltry 30-percent score on The New American’s latest Freedom Index, compared the fossil-fuel industry to the tobacco industry and asked Lynch whether her department would pursue the same course of action against energy companies that the Clinton administration took against tobacco companies. The exchange went as follows:

Whitehouse: Madame attorney general, the similarities between the mischief of the tobacco industry pretending that the science of tobacco’s dangers was unsettled and the fossil fuel industry pretending that the science of carbon emissions dangers is unsettled has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who study the climate denial apparatus that the fossil fuel industry has erected.

Under President Clinton the Department of Justice brought and won a civil RICO action against the tobacco industry for its fraud. Under President Obama the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme.

A request for action by the Department of Justice has been referred by you to the FBI. My question to you is, other than civil forfeitures and matters attendant to a criminal case, are there other circumstances in which a civil matter under the authority of the Department of Justice has been referred to the FBI?

Lynch: Senator, thank you for raising that issue and thank you for your work in this area. I know your commitment is deep. This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for what we could take action on. I’m not aware of a civil referral at this time. I will look into that and get back to you. But I’m not aware of a civil referral outside of the one that you just raised.

Whitehouse: Are there any civil cases with the United States as plaintiff, within DOJ’s civil division in which the FBI is preparing a case for the civil division?

Lynch: Regarding climate change issues?

Whitehouse: Regarding any matter.

Lynch: I couldn’t give you that information right now.

Whitehouse: I will take that as a question for the record.

There are several disturbing elements found in the exchange between Whitehouse and Lynch, most notably the fact the Lynch admitted that the possibility of the DOJ referring a civil case against the fossil fuel industry to the FBI, simply for denying that carbon emissions cause climate change “has been discussed.”

Contrary to Whitehouse’s assertion that the fossil fuel industry is “pretending” that the science of carbon emissions dangers is unsettled — that is exactly the case.

Whitehouse went so far as to claim that the fossil fuel industry has “erected” a “climate denial apparatus,” but offered no evidence that this was the case. Furthermore, it would have been unnecessary for suppliers of fossil fuels such as coal and oil to waste their resources establishing any such “apparatus,” because there is a wealth of credible data collected by independent scientists with no connection to the energy industry indicating that climate change, if it exists at all, indicates that global temperatures have cooled in recent years. And even during previous years, when average global temperatures rose, there is nothing to indicate that these rises were caused by human activity (i.e, were anthropogenic), but that they were much more likely to have resulted from naturally occurring cycles. As was noted in “Is Climate Change Cyclical? NASA Study Suggests Yes,” an article for AmericaSpace by science writer Jason Rhian, “Climate change appears to be a naturally recurring process and one that is cyclical in nature.”

The opinion quoted above was far from unique; moreover, but is supported by statements made by a large number of respected scientists who dispute that “global warming” or climate change is caused by human activity. A number of such scientists gathered in Paris last December to take part in a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which was designed to counter much of the propaganda being disseminated at a nearby United Nations “climate” summit. As The New American reported about the alternative conference, dubbed “Day of Examining the Data,” the conference featured numerous presentations, each one debunking multiple elements of the increasingly discredited anthropogenic (man-made) global-warming theory (AGW).”

Among the scientists speaking at the realist conference, noted the TNA article, were Dr. Robert Carter, former chief of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University. “Global warming is not happening,” Carter explained at the Paris conference.

During his presentation, Carter disputed the claim that CO2, which is exhaled by humans and critical to life, especially plant life, is “carbon pollution” that must be regulated. Quite the contrary, he said, noting that even at current atmospheric concentrations, the Earth and the plants it supports are “starving” for more CO2. He explained that during the past, CO2 concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere were 10 to 15 times higher than today.

“Attempting to stop climate change is an exercise in utter futility,” Carter added, noting in an interview with The New American that nobody would seriously consider trying to “stop” other naturally occurring climatic events such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

Another respected scientist at the conference was University of Virginia Professor Emeritus Dr. Fred Singer, founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

“There has been no statistically significant warming in 18 years,” Singer told the summit, using a slide comparing observed temperatures with the various false predictions made by “climate models” relied upon by the UN. These UN models all predicted warming as CO2 increased.

“The models don't work. We should not use them to make policy,” Singer added.

Another article in The New American in January, “Meet the Climate Realists,” profiled several other scientists who dispute that carbon emission released by humans results in global warming. These scientists have suffered personal attacks and threats to their careers as a result of championing true science in the face of the global-warming “apparatus” — to borrow a term from Senator Whitehouse. Among the climate realists are:

Judith Curry, Ph.D., professor and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., founder of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a volunteer network of scholars focused on applying biblical principles to economics, government, and environmental policy.

Anthony Watts, who hosts the popular climate blog Watts Up With That? (WUWT), admitted by friend and foe alike to be one of the world’s most influential online global-warming resources. Watts also launched the renowned Surface Stations Project, which effected an overhaul of the way the U.S. government tracks surface temperatures.

Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D., emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT, and a leading expert on climate dynamics and global heat transport.

Patrick Moore, Ph.D., who co-founded Greenpeace in 1971 and served 15 years as a director of Greenpeace International, earning a worldwide reputation as an environmental leader. Moore departed from Greenpeace after the “chlorine scandal,” in which the radicalized organization tried to ban chlorine, which is essential for water purification.

And Art Robinson, Ph.D., recipient of the Voice of Reason Award at the Heartland Institute’s 2014 International Conference on Climate Change, which granted it to him for his Global Warming Petition Project. More than 31,000 U.S. scientists have signed the document he authored.

The complete stories written about each of these scientists provide an illustrative example of how those who contradict the global warming cartel incur the wrath of the political establishment. As Rebecca Terrell, the writer of this article, noted: “Though climate alarmists never tire of demonizing greenhouse gases and ‘fossil’ fuels, hell has no fury equal to the venom they reserve for those maligned as ‘climate deniers.’ ”

The article noted that NASA’s James Hansen testified before a congressional committee in 2008 that “CEO’s of fossil energy companies … should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Hansen’s legacy lives on in Senator Whitehouse, who wants to know (with eager anticipation, apparently) if there are circumstances in which a civil case against the fossil fuel industry has been referred by the DOJ to the FBI.

Whitehouse was probably delighted to learn that “this matter has been discussed.”

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