Jon Stewart: Steven Chu a Super Hero Battling Global Warming Deniers

onJul 22, 2009 @ 11:07 PDT

Last night’s guest on the Jon Stewart Show was Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu.

They spent much of the discussion talking about the Global Warming Denier crowd and the right-wing nutosphere contingent in the House and Senate.

Stewart asked Chu if he had a secret Super Hero identity that battled the deniers – it was pretty funny stuff and begs the question: Why doesn’t Stewart become the Global Warming Denier SuperHero and start hammering away at these fringe players? It would make for great comedy.

In a way Stewart already is a Super Hero for putting the deniers in their place on last night’s show.

Here’s a partial transcript of the Stewart/Chu interview:

Stewart: There is a contingent now within the Congress, within the Senate that believes global warming is a hoax. They have the myths: carbon occurs naturally it can’t be bad, it’s in nature.

Chu: That is true. But on the other hand water is generally very good, water in great deluges is not good.

[…]

Carbon dioxide, too much of it is unequivocally changing our climate.

Stewart: Climate change is a hoax, I have a petition signed by 30,000 scientists… scientologists. Sorry, no, scientists. It says the planet is not getting hotter, it’s getting colder.

Chu: Yes, I don’t know where they’re getting that data from. The IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] data that is unequivocal…

Stewart: The IPCC I’m assuming is a leftist organization? No? Alright.

Myth number three: this is just a way for the electricity companies to make a lot of money cornering the big solar… I don’t know I just threw that in there.

Is this collusion? Is this an environmental/industrial complex?

Chu: I don’t think the environmentalists usually collude with industry. But in any case, the bulk of the science, the overwhelming majority, any serious scientist who are trying to look at this, virtually everyone that I know say its gotten warmer in the last dozen years.

Stewart: And also believe that it is manmade and not something that occurs naturally.

Chu: That’s correct and I think that became clear over the last fifteen years. In 1990 the first international panel looked at this and said the climate’s changing but there’s no convincing evidence that it was caused by humans. By 2007, it said yes the climate’s changing and there’s a high probability that a predominant part has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Stewart: Has there been no, as someone who has won awards for their science, how difficult is it for you to now transition to the legislative process where people who are elected officials with real power in this country stand on the floor of the Senate on the floor of the House and say things like: But if we curb emissions we’ll be taking away food from trees. Which is what I think somone said on the floor of the Senate. Do you physically….

Let me ask you this. Can you physically when you get angry bust out of your clothes and get really big and then destroy them as the Incredible Secretary Chu?

Chu: You mean where the big “S” appear.

Stewart: Ya, where you turn green and go: “Chu ANGRY!”

Chu: No I think….

Stewart: No wait, if you want, I want to jump in here. If you do not want to reveal your identity right now, which I can understand. As a Super Hero you can feel free to perry the question.

Chu: I think I’ll save it for the phone booth.

By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.