I know Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to head the EPA; he replaced the egregious Drew Edmondson as Oklahoma Attorney General.
Pruitt seems like a good man.
But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) says different. “Mr. Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also . . .”
Wait: that “climate change denier” charge is everywhere. But all I’ve seen is assertion.
It would indeed be weird were he — or anyone — to deny the reality of climate change. Way back in my Seventies’ youth, I saw all sorts of climate change articles . . . predicting a new Ice Age.
Decades later, the headlines began to change: Global Warming was in.
But note: those Seventies’ articles usually mentioned that the world had been heating out of the recent Little Ice Age, with the thaw beginning before the dreaded Industrial Revolution.
I bet that what our new Trump pick really believes is that
- warm weather is generally better than cold weather;
- CO2 is not a poison as such (plants thrive with more carbon dioxide);
- every major climate model has predicted more warming than we’ve experienced; and
- stifling progress to offset poorly understood climate events would be disastrous, especially for the poor.
Betting aside, what does Pruitt believe? The Advocate actually repeats the disproven “97 percent of climate scientists” meme to pile on the abuse*, but did link to a National Review article Pruitt co-authored with Alabama’s attorney general.
They did not deny climate change, merely insisting that “the debate is far from settled.” More importantly, they argued that governments should not intimidate energy companies in service to the climate cause. Instead, they called for open debate.
Shocking!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The Advocate also irrelevantly charged Pruitt with “transphobia.” But then, Trump’s Small Business Administration pick, Linda McMahon, has also been tarred with the “climate denier” charge, which is as irrelevant to an SBA head as vegetarianism would be for a Secretary of Treasury.
Original (cc) photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr