Marc Morano has been a vocal member of the climate change denial crowd for a while now. As a one-time aide to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), while he was chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Morano actually wielded some power. But I have to give him credit. He’s the first person to expose me to the use of the word “warmist” to describe those who accept the scientific consensus that manmade CO2 emissions are having profound environmental effects. (I guess that makes Morano a “coldist”?)

I now see, thanks to Morano, that this term has some currency among deniers (and among those who struggle to spell “warmest”).

What’s prompted us to throw a spotlight on Morano again? He and others in the professional ranks of those committed to blocking the regulation of carbon emissions are howling over the betrayal of physicist Richard Muller, whose own skepticism about climate change science led him to undertake a review of the global data, with helpful funding from, among others, a Koch brother’s foundation. Muller’s findings have disqualified him as a fellow traveler and have catapulted climate change deniers even deeper into flat earth territory.

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.