KCOL's James baselessly asserted Gore would equate global warming skepticism with Holocaust denial, Nazism

In discussing remarks global warming skeptic William Gray made before a group of Republican legislators, Fox News Radio 600 KCOL's Scott James baselessly asserted that former Vice President Al Gore would liken global warming skepticism to Holocaust denial and would call Gray a “Nazi” for his beliefs about climate change. In fact, Gray once equated Gore's position on global warming to Adolf Hitler's feelings abut Jews.

On the April 30 broadcast of Fox News Radio 600 KCOL's Ride Home with The James Gang, host and KCOL program director Scott James again associated former Vice President Al Gore's anti-global warming activism with Nazi tactics. Discussing comments by Colorado State University professor and global warming skeptic William Gray, James asked, “How long is it before Al Gore's gotta be calling him 'a global warming denier!'? ... 'Denying global warming is like denying the Holocaust! So therefore, you must be a Nazi!' ” Furthermore, in portraying Gray as the potential victim of such fictitious accusations, James ignored Gray's reported comment that “Gore believed in global warming almost as much as [Adolf] Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.”

James made his remarks about Gore -- whose documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, highlights the scientific consensus on global warming -- while discussing Gray's statements on April 27 to a group of Colorado Republican lawmakers examining climate change.

From the April 30 broadcast of Fox News Radio 600 KCOL's Ride Home with The James Gang:

JAMES: Our environmental hero, Dr. Bill Gray, in the news. How long is it before Al Gore's gotta be calling him “a global warming denier!”? “You global warming denier! You closed-minded individual! Denying global warming is like denying the Holocaust! So therefore, you must be a Nazi!” Dr. Bill Gray, out there saying that he thinks, let's see, he said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was mush.

[...]

JAMES: Hurricane forecaster William Gray said on Friday that global ocean currents -- not human-produced carbon dioxide -- were responsible for global warming, and that the Earth might begin to cool on its own in the next five to 10 years.

CHRIS CRUZ (CO-HOST): Blasphemer!

JAMES: Again, I say -- I, I say that within the next five to 10 years, in this same period there, Al Gore will be seen right on the same level as Cindy Sheehan. A former vice president -- arguably, of course, I guess, once a vice president, always a vice president -- a vice president of the United States will be seen on the same level as moonbat Cindy Sheehan. Out there trying to sell this tripe and then trying to say if you don't believe in it, you're akin to a Nazi sympathizer. I mean, it's the same thing that they're saying. “It's the same thing as denying, same thing as denying the Holocaust!”

James offered no substantiation for his assertions that in promoting the consensus view on global warming, Gore is “trying to say if you don't believe in it, you're akin to a Nazi sympathizer” or that Gore has suggested denying global warming is the “same thing as denying the Holocaust.”

James' reference to Nazis and the Holocaust echoed his March 22 broadcast, in which he likened Gore's so-called "mass persuasion campaign" on global warming to Nazi propaganda efforts. As Colorado Media Matters noted, James' comments were similar to those of CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck, who on his March 22 broadcast said Gore “sounded a little bit like” Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Similarly, as Media Matters for America noted, Beck asserted on the April 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show that in advocating for action against global warming, Gore is using “the same tactic” as Hitler did in “rounding up Jews and exterminating them.”

Furthermore, James promoted Gray as a credible authority on global warming issues, and did not challenge a caller who touted Gray as “a scientist who's been predicting climate change”:

JAMES: Of course, Bill Gray from Colorado State University -- interviewed him a couple of times here; find him to be a level-headed and enjoyable man. He also said increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would not produce more or stronger hurricanes. It's like blasphemy. How long is it before they try to chase this learned and reputable man out, out of whatever PC circle -- of course, he may not have ever been in the PC circle, don't know. But how long is it before they try to chase him out of the “in crowd”? He said that over the last 40 years, the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the Atlantic Coast has declined, even though carbon dioxide levels have risen. Gray, speaking to a group of Republican state politicians, had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming. “They're blaming it all on humans, which is crazy,” he said. “We're not the cause of it.” Now, when it comes to issues of climate, somehow I'm going to trust Bill Gray more than I am Al Gore. [Caller] -- welcome, sir! How are you?

CALLER: Well, I'm doing fantastic. I actually won some of the tickets, so I got to go to the Eagles game --

JAMES: Oh, good. Good.

CALLER: -- on Sunday night. It was fantastic 'cause they actually won. So that was a plus.

JAMES: That's great.

CALLER: You don't believe that a scientist who's been predicting climate change knows -- you, you actually believe he knows more about it than the man who created the Internet and probably -- if we traced it back -- he created the universe, Al Gore?

JAMES: I know it! I, I -- it's difficult to believe.

However, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, a wide variety of sources have called into question Gray's “expertise” on the subject of climate change. For example, a May 28, 2006, profile of Gray by Washington Post Magazine staff writer Joel Achenbach reported that the weblog Real Climate -- produced by scientists who support the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities -- "criticized Gray for not adapting to the modern era of meteorology, 'which demands hypotheses soundly grounded in quantitative and consistent physical formulations, not seat-of-the-pants flying.' " The profile also noted that “when you press him [Gray] on his theory of how thermohaline circulation has caused recent warming of the planet and will soon cause cooling, he concedes that he hasn't published the idea in any peer-reviewed journal. He's working on it, he says.”

Criticism of Gray's “theory” has not been limited to supporters of the scientific consensus on global warming. Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of meteorology Richard S. Lindzen -- whom Achenbach described as the global warming skeptic with “probably ... the most credibility among mainstream scientists” -- said of Gray: “His knowledge of theory is frustratingly poor.”

Although James predicted that Gore would call Gray “a Nazi” for his skepticism over global warming, it was Gray who was quoted as saying, “Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.” Gray has since reportedly expressed regret for that comment.