Steve Bannon’s trip from climate conspiracy theorist to Trump’s White House

By Marianne Lavelle
16 November 2016 (InsideClimate News) – President-elect Donald Trump has famously called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, but the man he has chosen as his chief White House strategist advances a far more elaborate conspiracy. Stephen Bannon has called government support of alternative energy “madness.” His conservative website, Breitbart News, relentlessly pursues the idea that global warming is an invention of activists, university researchers and renewable energy industry profiteers determined to assert global governance for their own gain. “Pure scum” is how Breitbart News describes the alleged schemers, and the site suggested that the Vatican had been taken over by Marxists after Pope Francis urged the world to protect the environment and slow climate change. Bannon has cited a faked TIME magazine cover, purportedly from the 1970s, as evidence that scientists once thought the world was cooling. Global warming hoax theories are among a wide range of extremist views that were circulated on the pages of Breitbart News under its executive chairman, Bannon. The site’s at times overtly racist, anti-Semitic and sexist content has prompted many to protest Trump’s selection of him for a key post, and one that does not require Senate confirmation. The outcry has come from civil rights advocates, top Democrats and even some Republicans. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate group activity, reported in April that there had been a noticeable shift at Breitbart to more overt anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and racist rhetoric, making it, in effect, “the media arm of the alt-right.” [more]

Steve Bannon’s Trip From Climate Conspiracy Theorist to Trump’s White House