Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi has been pedding a trifecta of guilt-by-association this week, with a three-day series attacking Obama adminsitration "science czar" John Holdren by digging up the views of his "guru," geochemist Harrison Brown, as allegedly expressed in a 1954 book he wrote.
On Dec. 7, Corsi claimed that Brown "called for a global increase in carbon dioxide, precisely because of its perceived greenhouse gas effects." On Dec. 8, Corsi painted Brown as a eugenicist. And on Dec. 9, Corsi asserted that Bron "advocated world government in the 1950s to impose mandatory controls over population growth, carried out, if necessary, through sterilization and forced abortions."
Corsi can't claim that Holdren holds these views, but he sure tries. He complains that Holdren, in a 1986 book honoring Brown that he edited, does not "separate himself from Brown's enthusiastic endorsement of eugenics," and he asserts that Holdren once "argued involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, may be necessary and morally acceptable under extreme conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by 'climate change.'"
That last claim -- extrapolated from a lie WND previously spread about Holdren -- is misleading; as PolitiFact points out, in the book from which the claim is drawn, Holdren and his co-author "make clear that they did not support coercive means of population control. Certainly, nowhere in the book do the authors advocate for forced abortions." PolitiFact adds: "We think it's irresponsible to pluck a few lines from a 1,000-page, 30-year-old textbook, and then present them out of context."
