Scientists Slam Movie Clip from Marc Morano’s Climate Hustle Documentary as “Patently Stupid” and Misleading

By Graham Readfearn:

Marc Morano has been promising that his new documentary Climate Hustle will be released in theatres across the United States early in 2016.

Whether or not the full-time climate science denialist will be able to make good his promise remains to be seen, but the film has been getting predictable support from conservative media and denialist bloggers.

Morano works full-time for the “think tank” the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and runs a clunky website ClimateDepot.com to promote climate science denial.

So far, Morano has promised the film will “rock the climate debate”.

DeSmog was told by CFACT it would not be able see the film when it got its “premiere” in Paris in early December because the small Cinema du Pantheon move theatre was full. But DeSmog was told by sources that the cinema was “half empty” during the screening.

But even before an official release, the details about the film that have been released suggest it will be the same tired old climate science denial myths repackaged.

DeSmog has written how Climate Hustle would be a reheat of old denialist talking points and also revealed a particular brand of religious zeal behind the movie’s production.

Much of the cast list published by Morano are old favorites of the denialist movement, with individuals like Christopher Monckton, Bob Carter, Anthony Watts and Patrick Michaels making appearances.  Several of the cast turned up in Paris for the movie’s “red carpet premiere” – an exercise in fakery and stage management.

Morano also handed over clips of Climate Hustle to Fox television presenter Sean Hannity – himself a climate science denialist.

But the documentary’s producers, CDR Communications, also had a little-seen clip destined for the film on its own website.

The clip uses slick film graphics to suggest that because carbon dioxide emitted by humans is only a small part of the atmosphere, it can’t influence the climate.



I sent the clip to climate scientists Professor Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales, Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University, and Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Mann asked rhetorically whether Morano would “therefore argue that a concentration of hydrogen cyanide of 0.04% couldn’t possibly be harmful” when, “in reality, it is fatal.”

Sherwood said it was “unbelievable” that denialists were “still pursuing such patently stupid arguments.”

Schmidt suggested the title for the clip should be “How to mislead and dissemble using great graphics”.