Geoffrey Supran, the director of the Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami, is one of the country’s foremost experts on climate disinformation.

That’s why the former Harvard researcher was called to testify in the Senate Budget Committee’s hearing yesterday, titled “Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change.”

Supran’s opening statement for the hearing included 120 cited sources, all of which he said “clearly demonstrate that the fossil fuel regime has deliberately denied Americans and Congress their right to be accurately informed about the climate crisis, just as tobacco companies misled Americans about the harms of smoking.”

So when it came time for Senator John Kennedy—a heavily oil-funded Republican from Louisiana—to question Supran, one might have expected him to take issue with Supran’s sources or claims.

Instead, Kennedy attempted to discredit Supran personally, by tangentially associating him with a climate activist group that routinely calls politicians potty-mouth names. (The horror!)

In an attempt to cast doubt on Supran’s credibility as an academic, Kennedy accused him of making social media posts “in support of” the youth-led direct action group Climate Defiance.

Kennedy: On December 14th, 2023, you tweeted in support of Climate Defiance. That's an entity that the Brookings Institute has called a “radical climate change group.” Is that correct?

Supran: I don’t recall, I’m afraid.

Kennedy: Would this be the same Climate Defiance—I'm looking at your tweet, you tweeted in support of them—that called, Senator Joe Biden a “sick fuck?”

Supran: I don’t know.

Kennedy: Would this be the same Climate Defiance that called Senator Lisa Murkowski a “murderer?” 

Supran: I don’t know, but as I said in my statement…Kennedy: Would this be the same Climate Defiance who told the CEO of Exxon to “Eat shit, Darren?”

Supran: I’m not responsible for the statements of others.

Kennedy: Nice group you’re hanging around with, doc.

Visibly confused by the accusation, Supran asked to see the tweets in question. While he waited to receive them, Kennedy cast doubt on Supran’s ability to be objective as a researcher, repeatedly calling him “doc” and “good doctor.”

“Thank you for your ‘objective’ advice, doc,” Kennedy said. “I’d like to submit all of the good doctor’s objective tweets.”

But Supran had never actually posted or re-posted any of the profane name-calling statements Kennedy referenced. Supran had only ever re-posted one tweet from Climate Defiance in December, which had described the group’s preferred method for climate action: chasing down fossil fuel CEOs and politicians, rather than sending letters or signing petitions.

Kennedy was using Supran’s re-tweet of Climate Defiance to associate the academic with everything the activist group has ever said. “The line of questioning itself was a bad faith, ill-mannered, and failed attempt to bait me,” Supran told HEATED. “It is unfair and unrealistic for anyone to be held accountable for everything that an independent organization has ever said.”

At the time, though, Supran did not have a chance to explain or clarify this. He only interjected: “These are not my tweets. These are retweets”—which made it seem like he had, in fact, retweeted a statement calling Joe Biden a “sick fuck.”

To this, Kennedy exploded. “Do you often retweet stuff you don't support?” He said. “Is that what you're telling me, doc?” 

“I just want to say, this form of character assassination is characteristic of the propaganda techniques of fossil fuel interests,” Supran said.

“Are you gonna call me a sick fuck??” Kennedy replied.

Shortly afterward, video clips of Kennedy’s “sick fuck” remark went viral—but not because of outrage at Supran.

In fact, they went viral in part because they were re-posted by Climate Defiance as a fundraising tool.

“We really struck a nerve,” the group said in an e-mail blast to its supporters about the exchange.

Indeed, Climate Defiance founder Michael Greenberg told HEATED that Kennedy’s meltdown was a powerful endorsement of his group’s aggressive tactics.

“It shows that this stuff is working and getting under peoples skin, and making people in power squirm,” he said. “The fact that an oil-funded Senator from Louisiana is referencing a group of young, broke kinds fighting for their lives shows the power of the movement we’re creating and the change we’re making.”

As for Supran, he told HEATED in a statement that he hopes the exchange can serve as an unorthodox educational tool:

More important than the Senator’s theatrics themselves is how they typify the hostile tactics that the fossil fuel industry and its allies have resorted to for decades to attack not just the message but the messenger.

It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues has shown that character assassination has been one of the most common ways in which fossil fuel interests have attempted to deny accountability for the climate crisis. 

The Senator’s behavior is also living proof of the influence of oil money on American politics. As I mentioned in my testimony, scholars at Yale and Cambridge have statistically shown that the more Congresspeople vote against the environment, the more money they get from oil companies.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that Senator Kennedy has taken $1.5 million from the oil and gas industry.

Further reading:

• Charge Big Oil with conspiracy, former tobacco prosecutor says

• New internal Big Oil documents just dropped

• Ro Khanna's quest to expose Big Oil

• Big Oil is getting subpoenaed

Catch of the day: Rey and Max are very good at reminding reader Karen to take a break from the computer and pay attention to them!

Want to see your furry (or non-furry!) friend in HEATED? It might take a little while, but we WILL get to yours eventually! Just send a picture and some words to catchoftheday@heated.world.