Brauchler on An Inconvenient Truth: “I don't watch communist propaganda ... why would I watch Al Gore's propaganda?”

Guest co-host George Brauchler parroted misleading claims and conservative talking points about climate change on the July 9 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show. He criticized Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth as “propaganda” and stated that there is no “scientific consensus” regarding global warming.

On the July 9 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show, guest co-host George Brauchler echoed a conservative talking point by saying of Al Gore's Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, “I don't watch communist propaganda, I don't watch Al Qaeda [propaganda] -- why would I watch Al Gore's propaganda?” Brauchler made the comparison after misleadingly claiming that “as many times as Al Gore wants to say it is now a foregone conclusion or a fact that global warming exists and it's man's fault, it ain't. That's not the scientific consensus.” To the contrary, as Media Matters for America repeatedly has documented, thousands of scientists as well as scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share the consensus view that, as stated in a June 2006 NAS report, human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming of the Earth.

From the July 9 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show, with guest co-host George Brauchler:

BRAUCHLER: The reason this is a partisan issue is because it's a partisan issue. I -- as many times as Al Gore wants to say it is now a foregone conclusion or a fact that global warming exists and it's man's fault, it ain't. That's not the scientific consensus. There are a lot of scientists that say that it is, a lot that say that isn't. Even if global warming exists, though, I'd like to know that I'm at fault for it before I'm asked to carve a little “G” into my chest and have that scarlet letter for “green” in there before I give into that.

CRAIG SILVERMAN (co-host): Well, I believe the consensus is that mankind is causing it. Did you see An Inconvenient Truth?

BRAUCHLER: No. No.

SILVERMAN: Here --

BRAUCHLER: Why --

SILVERMAN: -- I'll give you three bucks. Rent it.

BRAUCHLER: Wait a minute. It has been roundly criticized for promoting things that aren't true. There, there are articles all over the Internet about facts that it quotes that are, that have since been debunked.

SILVERMAN: But why won't you even see it? It was an Academy Award-winning documentary.

BRAUCHLER: I, I don't --

SILVERMAN: Why not expose yourself?

BRAUCHLER: I don't watch Cuban propaganda, why would I -- I don't watch communist propaganda, I don't watch Al Qaeda prop -- why would I watch Al Gore's propaganda? If you and I can agree that he uses facts that aren't legitimate, why would I -- it's like saying, “Rush out and watch Michael Moore's films,” when we know those are fake too.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted (here and here), scientists have reached the consensus that human activity is primarily responsible for the rise in global temperatures. Further contradicting Brauchler are the conclusions of the recently released first volume of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report. The IPCC -- which, as The Washington Post noted, is “made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries” -- found that “based on new research over the last six years, it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half-century.”

Brauchler's attempt to discredit An Inconvenient Truth echoed similar efforts by other conservative critics of Gore's documentary, as Media Matters has noted. For example, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck on April 30 said Gore is using “the same tactic” to fight global warming that Adolf Hitler used to vilify Jews in Nazi Germany. On June 7, 2006, Beck compared Gore's campaign to raise awareness of global warming to the Nazis, saying that An Inconvenient Truth is “like Hitler.” Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, on the May 23, 2006, edition of Fox News' Dayside called the film “propaganda” and added, “You don't go see Joseph Goebbels' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't want to go see Al Gore's film to see the truth about global warming.”

Moreover, on the March 22 broadcast of Fox News Radio 600 KCOL's Ride Home with The James Gang, host and KCOL program director Scott James likened Gore's self-described "mass persuasion campaign" on global warming to Nazi propaganda efforts, as Colorado Media Matters noted.