U.S. Chamber of Commerce Proposes “Scopes Monkey Trial” to Debunk Climate Change

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Stephen Colbert could not have done better. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the leading opponent of regulating carbon emissions, says it wants a public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. A Chamber official told the LA Times that the hearing would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st Century.”

The Chamber either forgot that the creationists won that fight–though in the long run, the famous 1925 trial over the teaching of evolution, portrayed in Inherit the Wind, humiliated them–or it’s attempting the boldest metaphor in the history of climate spin: creationists = climatologists.

Setting aside the fact that the nation’s largest business lobby has supported plenty of dumb ideas, let’s assume that this isn’t really about science. Because there’s no way that a half-competent judge is going to rule that 95 percent of climatologists are wrong. Remember the Supreme Court case? The one that said the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon?

No, what this is really about is false populism. Though it’s evoking Scopes, the Chamber is actually calling for a “public hearing,” a gathering that would surely be more akin to the recent healthcare town halls that were stacked with anti-government nutjobs. What fearmongering and demagaugery did for health care, it could do for climate change!

Or not. My bet is that 90 percent of the Bubbas who’d show up would also be creationists, the people discredited in the first Monkey Trial. Good luck with that, fellas!

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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