A group that calls itself “La Chorale du Peuple” (The People’s Chorus) is fighting back against an organization that claims that climate change is caused by the sun, not greenhouse gases or CO2. The People’s Chorus takes aim at the organization’s claims in “Blamons le Soleil” (We Blame the Sun).
Friends of Science has put out a press release to explain that they “agree with the premise of the YouTube video however, they dispute the charge of being a front for ‘Big Oil.'”
Friends of Science has been under heavy criticism by the media in recent weeks for their series of factually questionable billboard signs that have been cropping up across Quebec. A recent letter to the editor in the Montreal Gazette from Binh An Vu Van, president of the Quebec Association of Science Communicators, took aim at the organization earlier this week, blasting the group as well as the message, saying the billboard was “disfiguring” the landscape and peddling disinformation that is detrimental to scientific progress. “We should all firmly denounce this type of disinformation. It is not welcome; it will not be tolerated.”
Check out the video (turn on closed captioning for English subtitles):
Here are the lyrics (in English) to the song:
We Blame the Sun
Of course we call ourselves the “friends of science”
Even if oil companies in Alberta
Pay us to help make ignorance triumph
And deny our role in climate change
So we blame the sun, yes we blame the sun
We recommend forgetting about greenhouse gases
Of course we are climate change skeptics
We’d like to see Big Oil make more money
Our statements are far from being scientific
The pipelines (Energy East and Line 9) must obtain your consent
Of course we kill the culture of science
The federal government is there to help us with that
Their researchers don’t have the right to respond to our claims
They risk getting fired or muzzled
[Image Credit: Friends of Science]