• CyborgMarx [any, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    In 2011, Epstein founded the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), which he calls a "for-profit think tank".

    In 2012, Epstein debated American environmentalist Bill McKibben while representing CIP at an event held at Duke University.

    In 2013, Rolling Stone placed Epstein and the Center for Industrial Progress on its list of top global warming deniers. Epstein wrote a rebuttal in Forbes that criticized the term global warming denier, which he said was a smear tactic intended to liken critics of environmentalism to Holocaust deniers.

    In 2014, Epstein and CIP publicly supported the Keystone Pipeline. He wrote The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, which reached #17 on a list of bestselling science books in early December 2014. In the book he calls the idea that the majority of climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change a "fabrication." A Foreign Policy review of the book found that it "doesn't engage with much of the relevant scientific context" and "paints a paranoid picture of a climate science that cannot be trusted."

    In 2015, The Guardian published an opinion piece by Jason Wilson critical of Epstein and CIP, stating, "Epstein's work has been popular and influential on the right because it is a particularly fluent, elaborate form of climate denialism. The CIP prides itself on being able to train corporate leaders to 'successfully outmessage "environmentalists"'."

    In 2016, Epstein testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the invitation of the committee's chairman, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has called climate change a "hoax." Epstein suggested that rising carbon dioxide levels "benefit plants and Americans." When questioned by committee member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as to why Epstein, whose academic training is in philosophy, was even there, Epstein responded, "to teach you how to think clearly." Boxer replied "... you are a philosopher, not a scientist, and I don’t appreciate getting lectured by a philosopher about science."

    Holy shit this guy fuckin sucks, what a demon