Viewers vow boycott after Rupert Murdoch buys NatGeo: 'Cash triumphs over conservation, conscience'

Angry National Geographic fans vowed to boycott its magazine and cable channels after Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox purchased the non-profit.

In a statement on Wednesday, the National Geographic Society announced that it had made deal worth nearly $1 billion to give Murdoch's company 73 percent control.

“The value generated by this transaction, including the consistent and attractive revenue stream that National Geographic Partners will deliver, ensures that we will have greater resources for this work, which includes our grant making programs that support scientists and explorers around the world," National Geographic Society President Gary Knell said. "We now will have the scale and reach to continue to fulfill our mission long into the future."

But frequent climate change denial on Murdoch's Fox News and Fox Business channels -- along with the billionaire's own dismissal of global warming -- sparked outrage among subscribers.

"Rupert Murdoch owning National Geographic is like putting Dr. Kevorkian in charge of a hospice," photographer James Cooper wrote on Twitter.

"I give National Geographic 18 months before publishing its first piece of climate change denial," Greg Stolze predicted.

"Cash triumphs over conservation, conscience and courage: National Geographic embraces Rupert Murdoch's chequebook," photojournalist Chris Westinghouse agreed.

Others called to boycott National Geographic.

"Cancel your subscriptions people!" a Twitter user named Jennifer demanded. "Boycott National Geographic. Shame on them for selling out."

"National Geographic readers care about the planet," another insisted. "People who care about the planet, boycott #Murdoch."

In an interview with Sky News last year, Murdoch downplayed the effects of climate change.

"In terms of the world's temperature going up, the worst, the most alarmist things have said ... 3°C in 100 years," he argued. "At the very most one of those will come from man-made, be man-made."

"World growing greener with increased carbon. Thirty years of satellite evidence. Forests growing faster and thicker," Murdoch tweeted in 2013.

"Just flying over N. Atlantic 300 miles of ice. Global warming!" he quipped in a tweet earlier this year.

Watch Murdoch's 2014 interview with Sky News below.