Three prominent House liberals have called for what amounts to a mass burning of books and DVDs that question global warming and sent to 200,000 K-12 teachers, a ban rejected as an "April Fool's joke" by the science institute that provided the materials for free.

"Is this a belated April Fool's Day joke? If not, it should be. This is hilarious," said Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute.



The liberal cleansing effort, led by three House Democrats, claimed the Heartland book and DVD, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, are full of "lies" to protect corporate polluters.

"Lying to children about the world we live in to further corporate polluter profits is cruel," Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva said in a release also signed by Reps. Bobby Scott, of Virginia, and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. Scott is the top Democrat on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Grijalva the ranking member on the Committee on Natural Resources, and Johnson of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Theirs is the latest effort by liberals to kill any scientific doubt about global warming, climate change, and man's role in it.



Heartland, one of the nation's leading voices for the opposition, sent the packages to thousands of teachers. In his release, Bast said, "students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists on how big the human impact on climate is, and whether or not we should be worried about it. That sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Not, apparently, to out-of-touch Democrats in Washington."

Heartland also ripped apart the press release from the lawmakers for falsely suggesting that mega donors like the Koch brothers were behind the book. In their release, the three Democrats cited a Frontline story as their source of information used to attack the book.

Bast suggested that the three instead read the book, written by three scientists.

"My advice to Grijalva and his colleagues is that they pull their heads out of the sand long enough to read the book. Then they will understand why scientists, voters, and now the president of the United States all believe global warming is not a crisis. It's time to move on, find another fake crisis to hype to scare voters and raise campaign dollars. The global warming scare is over," he said.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com