MEDIA ADVISORY
January 13, 2016
Contact: Jason Kowalski, (202) 670-5345
Video: Ted Cruz Stands with ExxonMobil on Climate Denial
Londonderry, NH — When asked by Griffin Sinclair-Wingate, an organizer with 350 Action, if he would support a Department of Justice investigation into ExxonMobil lying to the public about climate change, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz went on a nonsensical climate denying speech for a full two minutes.
Cruz denied that there has been any significant warming for the last 18 years, called Secretary of State John Kerry “shockingly, entirely, absolutely wrong” on the issue, and cited the existence of ice in Antarctica as evidence that the climate isn’t changing.
Perhaps the Senator’s climate denial has something to do with his political donors? Since 2012, Cruz has accepted over $24,000 donations from ExxonMobil alone. Other top donors to the Cruz campaign include Chevron and BP. In 2015, the notorious Koch brothers gave a Cruz super PAC a staggering $15 million in addition to the hundreds of thousands Cruz has accepted from oil, gas and coal companies.
Video: http://bit.ly/22ZYkqT
Full Transcript:
Griffin Sinclair-Wingate: Recently it’s come out that ExxonMobil knew about climate change in the 1970s and they’ve funded climate denial since then. Do you support a DOJ investigation against them?
Ted Cruz: Listen, I think that public policy should follow the science, and with regard to global warming, there are an awful lot of of politicians in Washington that want to see more government power on the economy in your and my lives, and they’re disregarding the science.
Sinclair-Wingate: So you don’t…
Cruz: [Interrupts] For example, the science shows the satellites that are measuring the temperatures. The last 18 years there’s been no significant reported warming whatsoever. Those are the facts.
Sinclair-Wingate: But the last two years have been the hottest years on record.
Cruz: Look, we’ve had 18 years of no significant warming whatsoever. Those are the facts.
Sinclair-Wingate: That’s not true. The last two years have been the hottest years on record.
Cruz: With respect, the facts matter, and I would encourage you… I chaired a hearing with a number of eminent scientists on the science behind global warming. I would encourage you…
Sinclair-Wingate: What…
Cruz: [Interrupts] Watch the hearing, and in particular, we have one quote from John Kerry that I had up on a poster board. John Kerry said by 2013, the polar ice caps will be melted. Now the interesting thing about making predictions with a date is you can test it. It turned out Kerry wasn’t just wrong. He was shockingly, entirely, absolutely wrong. It is in fact a fact that the polar ice caps are bigger today than they were before. One of the things I had was a picture — there was a ship that was sent down to Antarctica, and it believed the computer models that the ice had all melted, so it went down there to document the lack of ice in Antarctica. The ship got stuck in the ice because instead of the ice melting, the ice caps are bigger. And so one of the problems is there’s far too much propaganda, and political agenda, from politicians who want power and who want to drive up your electric bills and mine. And I’m much more interested in standing with a single mom that’s trying to feed her kids, and not having her electric bill doubled than standing with politicians…
Sinclair-Wingate: The science…
Cruz: [Interrupts] Thank you.
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350 Action is working in primary states to urge candidates for president to take bold action on climate change by pledging to keep fossil fuels in the ground and support a just transition to a 100% renewable energy future.