Whole Foods CEO John Mackey Also a Global Warming Denier

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
on

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey is not only delusional about healthcare, it turns out heโ€™s also a first rate climate change denier.

Mackey upset many Whole Foods customers, employees and shareholders last summer with his Wall Street Journal op-ed trashing President Obamaโ€™s health care reform efforts.  Now heโ€™s back with a new bone to pick โ€“ โ€œhysteria about global warming,โ€ will โ€œraise taxes and increase regulationโ€ and lead to โ€œsocialism.โ€  Boo!

Mackey, โ€œa vocal libertarian, an orthodox free-marketer, an admirer of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and Ayn Rand,โ€ spoke candidly with The New Yorkerโ€™s Nick Paumgarten about his climate change denial.  Wacky Mackey reveals that one of the books on his nightstand is โ€œHeaven and Earth: Global Warmingโ€”the Missing Science,โ€ a skeptic screed authored by Australian climate denier (and director of three commercial mining companies) Ian Plimer

According to The New Yorker:

โ€œMackey told me that he agrees with the bookโ€™s assertion that, as he put it, โ€œno scientific consensus existsโ€ regarding the causes of climate changeโ€œhysteria about global warmingโ€ to cause us โ€œto raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.โ€ One would imagine that, on this score, many of his customers, to say nothing of most climate scientists, might disagree. He also said, โ€œHistorically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures.โ€

Paumgarten probes many of Mackeyโ€™s wacky views, and notes how the โ€œright wing hippieโ€ and โ€œunrepentant foot-in-moutherโ€ is as much a liability as an asset to the company he co-founded.  Mackey admits that many of Whole Foodsโ€™ 54,000 employees โ€œoccasionallyโ€ consider him to be โ€œmore like a crazy uncleโ€ than his self-described title as their โ€œdaddy.โ€

As disturbing as those descriptions are, the โ€œcrazy uncleโ€ one rings true.  Mackey is bizarrely candid, as evidenced by his admission to the Wall Street Journal last August that at Whole Foods, โ€œWe sell a bunch of junk.โ€

Climate change denial is a perfect example of the junk Mackey sells. 

Can we get a cleanup in Aisle 1 please?

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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