It’s not just misleading to tweet about bad science. It’s dangerous. The collapse in Arctic ice formations is already putting major cities in the crosshairs of sea level rise, and leaders in the federal government need to act.
Unfortunately, Lamar Smith (R-TX), an outspoken climate change denier, is the committee’s chairman. (The official Twitter account of the committee is maintained by the majority.)
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), a minority member of the committee, also reacted to the article — tweeting that it was time to bring science back to the Science Committee. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the committee’s ranking member, also responded, saying that the spread of “false facts puts us all in danger.”
Smith has used his position on the committee to spread climate skepticism and and harass NOAA. He once issued a statement alleging that scientists at the government agency of manipulating the data at the behest of the Obama Administration to provide evidence for climate change.
The article is not particularly surprising, coming from Breitbart. The site, now notorious as a platform for white nationalism, has a history of pushing anti-global warming propaganda and of gleeful attacks on climate scientists and their work.
Breitbart was formerly headed by President-elect Trump’s current Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, himself a spirited climate science denier. Bannon, while head of the site, said on his daily radio show that the Pope’s concerns about climate change amounted to “hysteria.”