(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The debate over climate has seen many revisions and updates over the course of more than 50 years.
Scientists have fluctuated, like the earth’s temperature itself, from panicmongering over global cooling to global warming to climate change—and have, in the process, torqued up the varying degrees of catatrophe, moving the goalposts as needed.
Since the time is now and the world has not in fact ended, it seems appropriate for @GretaThunberg to delete this tweet. Otherwise she might be considered a fear-mongering fraud and a false prophet pic.twitter.com/v89gxjnFvU
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) March 12, 2023
However, the climate debate may have devolved into its purest and most absolute form at an elite supper club on Manhattan’s Upper East Side Tuesday evening, when former Page Six gossip columnist turned literary agent Doug Dechert let out a loud, prolonged fart during a heated exchange on the topic.
Fittingly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion to one of the Left’s great 20th century political dynasties, was there to bear witness.
Dechert, who is known for representing conservative writers in the precarious Manhattan literary scene, has nonetheless written admiringly of the Kennedy campaign, suggesting that he may personally support the darkhorse Democrat candidate’s 2024 run against President Joe Biden.
He was reportedly the host of the private dinner for 16, according to one of the guests in attendance, David Patrick Columbia, who wrote a relatively restrained account that made no mention of flatulence.
It was Dechert’s own former outlet, the New York Post‘s Page Six, that let leak the lurid details of the Italian family-style meal at Tony’s Di Napoli, with an extra side of scoreggia.
“The gaseous exchange—to which Page Six bore reluctant witness—began after a guest asked Kennedy, founder of the ecological organization Waterkeeper Alliance, about the environment,” wrote reporter Mara Siegler.
Dechert “became enraged and screamed at the top of his lungs: ‘The climate hoax!'” she continued.
That triggered octagenarian art critic Anthony Haden–Guest, “who appeared to have been sleeping happily for most of the dinner, [but] was roused by the abrupt rumpus,” Siegler wrote.
The longtime friend of Dechert reprimanded him and called him a “miserable blob.”
As the cross-table exchange grew more heated, Kennedy and his campaign manager, former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, gazed on stoically.
Yet, Haden–Guest appeared to be besting Dechert in the war of words, prompting what Siegler described as a “new rhetorical tack.”
The host “let rip a loud, prolonged fart while yelling, as if to underscore his point, ‘I’m farting!'” she reported.
It was unclear, Siegler noted, “whether Dechert was farting at Haden-Guest personally or at the very notion of global warming.”
On Wednesday, Dechert offered a formal statement of apology following Page Six’s inquiry: “I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.”
The site reported that he also asked to be referred to as either “gallivanting boulevardier” or “beer-fueled sex rocket.”
Haden–Guest, who has written for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, insisted he was not sleeping prior to the exchange but merely thinking.
He also told Page Six that despite having disavowed his three-decade relationship with Dechert during the heated encounter he “didn’t mean it” and was sure they “will talk again.”
Nonetheless, he underscored his believe that the entire drunken interaction was a bit “ridiculous”—before proceeding to attack Dechert’s climate skepticism anew.
“Doug said it was a hoax and scam,” he said. “A scam for who [sic]? Who is benefiting? That’s not a political thing, it’s a human existence thing.”
Although Haden–Guest claimed it was “unusual” for him to bicker publicly, “when it is preposterous and it’s a life-or-death issue with the planet, to treat it as a zany political thing is foolish.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.
