NextGen Video Hits GOP Candidates for Climate Change-Denial

NextGen Climate Action released a April Fool’s-themed web video today that mocked Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio skepticism and denial of climate change. The environmental political super PAC linked the Republican White House hopefuls’ beliefs with that of Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, the chair of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee who wrote a book calling climate change “The Greatest Hoax.”

In a press release announcing the video Wednesday morning, NextGen proclaimed, tongue-in-cheek, that “It looks like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and the other science deniers are right! Ninety-seven percent of scientists (not to mention NASA and the U.S. Military) are wrong: climate change is an elaborate prank and we don’t have to worry about it! Today NextGen Climate obtained new footage showing how 97% of scientists tricked the world into believing the “Global Warming Hoax.”

The video resembles one of The Onion’s fake newscasts, with a “scientist” describing how climate change has actually been one elaborate hoax, fabricating years of global temperature increases and glacier melting. The interviewees claim Rubio and Cruz are actually right, that climate change is no more real than other science-based “pranks” like tobacco causing cancer, astronauts landing on the moon, and the existence of germs. A supposed Russian explains how he recruited a “method-acting” polar bear to create visuals of global warming.

The video is likely a sign that NextGen intends to get involved in the presidential primary race, targeting Republican candidates for their views on climate change, support for oil companies and reluctance to back renewable energy. The organization invested tens of millions of dollars into Senate and Governor races around the country in 2014, backing Democrats who supported their environmental message.

See the ad below:

by Pat Rynard
Posted 4/1/15