This week, ThinkProgress conducted an impromptu interview with David Koch — one of the richest men in America, co-owner of the conglomerate Koch Industries, and a top financier of right-wing front groups — after we found him leaving the swearing-in ceremony for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). In the first part of the interview, Koch said that he "admire[s]" the Tea Party movement, and that "the rank and file are just normal people like us." As ThinkProgress has detailed, Koch operatives orchestrated the first anti-Obama Tea Party protests, channeled Tea Party groups into increasing the Koch's personal wealth, and organized Tea Parties for Republican campaigns and lobbying drives.
When we tried to speak to Koch — who never said he did not want to talk to us — his employee Tim Phillips, president of Koch's Americans for Prosperity, tried to push ThinkProgress' Scott Keyes away and yelled into the camera Keyes was holding. Phillips is a prolific "astroturf" lobbyist who has worked for Jack Abramoff's forced-abortion sweatshop clients, Enron, and had a hand in an anti-Semitic campaign against Rep. Eric Cantor's (R-VA) first bid for Congress. Despite Phillips' distractions, Koch answered several of our questions about climate science and global warming.
Asked why Koch's Americans for Prosperity focuses so much on denying climate change, Koch said it was because "regulating CO2 excessively … really damage[s] the economy." Koch however was hesitant to answer if he himself believes in climate change. He eventually denied anthropogenic global warming by giving a standard climate denier response: "Climate does fluctuate. It goes from hot to cold. We have ice ages." However, he simply shrugged when asked if carbon pollution — like the carbon pollution Koch Industries heavily contributes to — affects climate change:
rest at http://www.truth-out.org/tea-party-billionaire-david-koch-denies-climate-change-shrugs-off-his-carbon-pollution66723
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