It isn’t just the news media censoring viewpoints on climate change anymore.
According to a WikiLeaks email, the left-wing website Think Progress took responsibility for getting a professor ousted from writing at Nate Silver’s 538 blog. The professor diverged from Think Progress’ climate alarmist views by challenging claims that global warming causes more extreme weather.
In the 2014 email, TP Editor-in-Chief Judd Legum touted the organization’s role in forcing Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. out of his position writing about climate change for 538. His boasts were sent to one of the left’s billionaire financiers: Tom Steyer.
“Thank you for your support of this work,” Legum wrote in the email to Steyer, “I think it's fair say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538.” Pielke works for the University of Colorado at the Sports Governance Center and as a professor of the Environmental Studies Program.
“Pielke wrote a piece questioning the link between climate change and extreme weather. Within hours, ClimateProgress published a comprehensive debunk, with quotes from many prominent climate scientists,” Legum wrote to Steyer. Pielke had written an article for 538 on March 19, 2014, saying that the cost of natural disasters had risen “but not because of climate change.”
His article attributed the rising costs to wealth gains in the world and cited a UN climate report which “concluded that there’s little evidence of a spike in the frequency or intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes ...”
Think Progress immediately went on the offensive. Legum said if Pielke had continued writing at Silver’s website, he would be “providing important cover for climate deniers ... because of our work, he is not.”
Think Progress is the blog of Center for American Progress Action Fund, a “sister” organization to Center for American Progress. Center for American Progress (a nonprofit 501(c)-3) has channeled at least $2 million to the Action Fund, which is a 501(c)-4 — meaning it has more freedom for political activism.
Steyer is a Center for American Progress board member, and donated at least $3.85 million to the organization. Liberal billionaire George Soros has also donated more than $10.1 million to CAP.
Legum’s email closed by thanking Steyer for his support and said he was “looking forward to doing even more in the coming months.”
Steyer spent millions trying to make climate change a central election issue. He is also the largest political donor in the 2016 election. The Democratic Party Platform, approved at the DNC in July, adopted much of Steyer’s climate agenda including his opposition to coal. Steyer has also been trying to unite “Democratic interest groups” to campaign for Clinton’s election.
