Al Franken: “Now, let's make a distinction between people who are climate skeptics and people who are climate deniers. This is kind…”

“Now, let's make a distinction between people who are climate skeptics and people who are climate deniers. This is kind of an important distinction. There is nothing wrong with skepticism. In fact, we love skeptics. Scientists are, by nature, skeptical. If someone has a new idea, they need to prove conclusively they are right before 97 percent of scientists will believe them. This has already happened for an overwhelming majority of climate scientists who have concluded, again, that global warming is happening and that it is caused by mankind. But there are a small number of them who still have questions. On the other hand, a climate denier is someone who would not be convinced no matter how overwhelming the evidence. And, as I pointed out, a lot of these deniers are being paid by polluters to say what they want. Now, shortly after climategate, or climategate-gate, a physicist at the University of California Berkeley, Richard Muller, who was skeptical of the prevailing views on climate science, decided to test the temperature records. Muller, a skeptic, started the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study to reevaluate the record and weed out scientific biases. This was gold to climate deniers. In fact, among the funders for the Muller study was the Charles Koch Foundation. But things didn't work out the way the deniers had hoped. In late March, Dr.…”