#1542: Tom DeWeese

Wingnut think tanks attract the craziest shit. The American Policy Center (APC), for instance, has got themselves Tom DeWeese, a global warming denialist bent on turning Dunning-Kruger into an art form, for president. According to DeWeese global warming is a hoax because trees give off carbon dioxide (oh, yes – read that again). Furthermore, “[t]he fact is some scientists [who shall apparently remain unnamed] have done some studies saying we’ve got a carbon dioxide shortage right now”. To nail his conclusion, DeWeese also claimed that environmentalism was the work of communist leaders bent on destroying the freedoms of the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and … oh, well – let’s just quote him:

“The bottom line is, CO2 is not a poison to human beings, CO2 is not affecting the atmosphere, there is absolutely no evidence, I can say this with absolute confidence, there is no evidence of man-made global warming causing problems. We are actually going through a cooling period right now, which is going to increase over the next few years, it’s cyclical, it happens. I used to have a weatherman in my hometown who started the weather by saying ‘whether it’s cold or whether it’s hot, we’ll always have weather, whether or not’ and that’s exactly what this is. Every time we have a dry season or we have strong hurricanes or we have a really hot summer or a mild winter, these idiots start this drumbeat again, ‘global warming, see here’s what it is.’ They tried to say that this year is the warmest on record, it’s not. They will just keep coming up with his stuff, it’s just craziness …”

I suppose the last sentence, read strictly in isolation, might be onto something.

The APC is also behind the Annual Freedom21 National Conference, where rightwing lunatics (such as Chuck Baldwin, Jerome Corsi and Phyllis Schlafly) gather to blow up the conspiracy behind the evil idea of sustainable development, especially as promoted by the UN and its nefarious Agenda 21, which is set on turning Americans into slaves for the anti-family, Satanic communists of the New World Order (indeed, Tom DeWeese is more or less responsible for mainstreaming Agenda 21 conspiracies on the far right). A telling detail that illustrates how these people view the world, science and politics: DeWeese disinvited Bob Barr from the conference in 2008 since Barr had talked to Al Gore about global warming. You can’t talk to Al Gore and be all friendly with the enemy: “This is not some nice little debate,” said DeWeese: “This is war.”

Diagnosis: In fact, it’s not just craziness. Hatred also seems to play a part.