Guest post by David Middleton
Look at All the Climate Change Deniers Vying for Jobs in the Trump Administration
This
can’t be goodis grrreat!!!JEREMY SCHULMANNOV. 18, 2016
Donald Trump is a global warming denier. He wants to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement and repeal the Clean Power Plan—the twin pillars of President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. He’s even promised to revive the coal industry, against all odds.
But Trump won’t be able to do these things all by himself. To fulfill his campaign promise and reverse the steps of his predecessor in the fight against warming, he’s going to need an entire administration of like-minded people. Environmental officials who reject climate science. National security officials who dismiss concerns that climate change will destabilize the world. Diplomats who oppose international climate agreements. Department heads who want to drill, baby, drill.
[…]
Some “highlights” from MJ’s blacklist…
Reince Priebus
Position: Chief of staff
Views on climate change: “Democrats tell us they understand the world, but then they call climate change, not radical Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to national security. Look, I think we all care about our planet, but melting icebergs aren’t beheading Christians in the Middle East.” [CPAC speech, 2/27/15]
I’m fairly certain that “melting icebergs aren’t beheading Christians in the Middle East,” or anywhere else in the world.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
Position: Attorney general nominee
Views on climate change: “The balloon and satellite data track each other almost exactly, and it shows almost no warming. So what we’re talking about is: The predictions aren’t coming true.” [Washington Watch via Right Wing Watch, 11/30/15]
Well, d’uh….
Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state
Position: Head of transition team for domestic issues
Views on climate change: “Another false environmentalist narrative is the global warming hoax. A few decades back, environmentalist “scientists” started devising computer models that predicted man-made calamity—Manhattan submerged by rising Atlantic waters—within 10 or 15 years ago. It turns out the models were rigged, the data were falsified and, in fact, there has been no measurable warming for nearly 20 years. Most troubling of all, the lying scientists colluded to ruin the careers of honest scientists who tried to tell the truth.” [Washington Times, 4/30/15]
“Manhattan submerged by rising Atlantic waters—within 10 or 15 years”… Riiiight…
Eric Bolling, Fox News host
Possible position: “A position…in the Department of Commerce,” according toPolitico. Among other things, Commerce oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is one of the country’s most important bodies for researching climate science.
Views on climate change: Bolling, a former crude oil trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange, pointed out last year that “there’s a great tweet that’s going around the internet: When Al Gore was born, there were 130,000 glaciers, and now there are only 130,000 glaciers.” Here’s how he explained his views on climate science in 2014: “I have two questions for you. Number one: If a…meteorologist can’t tell us if it’s going to rain tomorrow or be, you know, 20 degrees or or 50 degrees, how can they tell us what it’s going to be 2,100 years from now—that this whole global warming thing, what we’re doing now, is going to affect then? And the other thing is: Even if some of the carbon we’re emitting…is manmade, how much is it? And is it really the reason why the globe is increasing in temperature—if it is—every so slightly? I mean, there’s so many questions. The hoax is that if a meteorologist were to say, or a weather scientist were to say, that ‘yeah, this is normal—it’s weather, it’s cold, it’s hot, it’s normal,’ then they wouldn’t get funded. All these big projects wouldn’t be funded.”
Future NOAA Director Bolling is wrong, there are 198,000 glaciers in the world.
John Bolton, former UN ambassador
Possible position: Secretary of State
Views on climate change: “Obama can achieve his climate change legacy only through delicate negotiations with Congress. His poor relations with the House and Senate, especially on foreign policy, appear to render success unlikely. Obama may rely on his unilateral authority to join a world climate pact [in Paris], but without Congress his most important promises will be empty ones whose fate will be left to his successor.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/1/15]
Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas)
Possible positions: US Supreme Court justice
Views on climate change: “If you are a…liberal politician who wants government power, if that is your driving urge—government power over the American citizenry—then climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory. Why is that? Because it can never be disproven…The climate is always changing. It has been changing from the beginning of time.” [Cruz campaign event via the Washington Post, 2/3/16]
Future Supreme Court Justice Cruz is spot-on. Just ask Dr. Kevin Trenberth
Dr Kevin Trenberth, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, argues that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is now so clear that the burden of proof should lie with research which seeks to disprove the human role.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.)
Possible position: National security adviser
Views on climate change: “And here we have the President of the United States up in Canada talking about climate change. I mean, God, we just had the largest attack…on our own soil in Orlando. Why aren’t we talking about that? Who is talking about that? I mean, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Boston, people forget about 9/11!” [Fox News, 6/29/16]
Gov. Nikki Haley (S.C.)
Possible positions: Secretary of State
Views on climate change: “‘[The Clean Power Plan] is exactly what we don’t need,’ the governor said after addressing a gathering of the SC Electric Cooperatives at Wild Dunes Resort on the Isle of Palms. ‘This is exactly what hurts us. You can’t mandate utility companies which, in turn, raises the cost of power. That’s what’s going to keep jobs away. That’s what’s going to keep companies away.’ She added that officials in Washington ‘stay out of the way.’…’We need to be able to do our jobs and continue to recruit companies and recruit jobs without additional mandates,’ Haley said.” [The Post and Courier, 6/3/14]
Harold Hamm, oil and gas executive
Possible positions: Secretary of Interior, secretary of Energy
Views on climate change: “Obama imposed punitive regulations to stop this [oil and gas] renaissance, and in his administration’s very own words, they want to crucify America’s oil and natural gas producers…President Trump will release America’s pent-up energy potential, get rid of foreign oil, trash punitive regulations, create millions of jobs, and develop our most strategic geopolitical weapon: crude oil…Every time we can’t drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded…Climate change isn’t our biggest problem; it’s Islamic terrorism. Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk.” [Republican National Convention, 7/20/16]
Bonus—Views on earthquake science: “Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state’s nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean’s e-mail recounting the conversation. Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey’s scientists. ‘I’m very approachable, and don’t think I’m intimidating,’ Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. ‘I don’t try to push anybody around.'” [Bloomberg,5/15/15]
Note to Mother Jones: Wastewater injection wells and fracking are two different things.
EARTHQUAKES
Hamm says he wasn’t pressuring Okla. scientist, but seeking information
Laura Ingraham, radio host
Possible position: Press secretary
Views on climate change: “This entire effort [the Paris climate negotiations] is about setting up global rules of governance. Rules that will, if instituted—which we know they won’t be—but if ever instituted would mean that we have less control over our own destiny as a country than we do today. Because Congress will have limited ability to change any treaty. Again, I don’t think it’s going to happen. But if these rules should go into place, we should expect the same compliance from countries like China that we get from China in deals like the World Trade Organization and the World Trade Organization Treaty. So, if people want less sovereignty in the United States, less independence, less oversight, our congressional authority to be meaningful, then we should all be excited about what’s going on with 150 leaders in Paris. But this has nothing to do with terrorism. It has everything to do with bringing America’s economy down, hurting the fossil fuel industry, etc., etc.—one of the few sectors that’s actually growing jobs and still paying people decent wages in the United States. So forgive me if I’m not all hot and bothered by the Paris events.” [Fox News via Media Matters, 12/1/15]
Future Press Secretary Ingraham nails it…
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.”
–Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska
Possible positions: Secretary of Interior
Views on climate change: “I want people to be empowered to ask questions about what is being fed them from the scientific community, that something’s not making a whole lot of sense when it comes to inconsistent data that is being produced and being fed, especially to our children, when it comes to global warming or climate change—whatever they’re calling it today…It’s a problem right from the start when you’re led to believe that 97 percent of scientists all agree that there is a consensus on global warming.” [Guardian, 4/15/16]
Rick Perry, former governor of Texas
Possible positions: Secretary of Energy
Views on climate change: “I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think that there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change…The cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions, if not trillions, of dollars at the end of the day. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and, from my perspective, is more and more being put into question.” [Perry campaign speech via CBS News, 8/17/11]
Considering the fact that 43% of Americans are unwilling to pay more than $1 per month to fight the mythical AGW beast and less than one-out-of-three are willing to pay more than $20 per month, it’s a safe bet that there is little support for spending trillions and devastate our economy to “battle climate change.”
How Much Will Americans Pay to Battle Climate Change? Not Much
Sam Ori is the executive director of the Energy Policy Institute at University of Chicago.
A wide range of public opinion polls point to a clear and growing trend: Americans of all political stripes are increasingly worried about climate change. This is undoubtedly good news for those advocating for robust policies to reduce carbon emissions, the main contributor to climate change.
But here’s a less asked and probably more important question: What are Americans actually willing to pay to do something about it?
[…]
This is what researchers from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) and the Associated Press—NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago set out to better understand. Their nationally representative poll found that 43% of Americans were unwilling to pay an additional $1 per month in their electricity bill to combat climate change—and a large majority were unwilling to pay $10 per month. That’s despite the fact that a whopping 77% said they think climate change is happening and 65% think it is a problem the government should do something about. Support plummets as the amount of the fee increases.
This is an upside-down result. The best available science tells us that Americans should be willing to pay considerably more, because the damages from climate change are so great—including to them personally. If we use the federal government’s estimate of the combined social cost of carbon pollution and apply it to the typical U.S. household’s electricity consumption on today’s national grid mix, the average household faces damages of almost $20 per month. Yet just 29% of respondents said they would be willing to pay at least that much.
[…]
This bit is priceless and worth repeating:
The best available science tells us that Americans should be willing to pay considerably more, because the damages from climate change are so great—including to them personally. If we use the federal government’s estimate of the combined social cost of carbon pollution and apply it to the typical U.S. household’s electricity consumption on today’s national grid mix, the average household faces damages of almost $20 per month. Yet just 29% of respondents said they would be willing to pay at least that much.
The first part strikes me the same way that this Roy Spencer quip did:
95% of Climate Models Agree: The Observations Must be Wrong
“The best available science tells us that” the observations are wrong. So, if that same “best available science tells us that” global warming will inflict $20/month of damages on the typical household, we should be thankful that President-elect Trump will populate his administration who will focus economic growth and combating Islamist terrorist groups, rather than regulatory malfeasance and combating the weather.
the average household faces damages of almost $20 per month.
===========================
In Canada it is estimated that Trudeau’s carbon tax will cost $50 per month per household to try and prevent $20 per month in damages.
So, instead of being out of pocket $20 per month, we are likely to be out of pocket $70 per month. Because if there is one thing everyone can agree on, governments have a pretty solid track record when it comes to taking small problems and turning them into big problems.
It is pretty sucky having someone who was a “consultant” for the Kremlin as the prime candidate for National Security Advisor. As a real conservative, I resent such a choice. No real conservative abides by foreign influence within the inner sanctum.
I think you are assuming too much about General Flynn. Remember: Innocent until proven guilty. Flynn has ties in Turkey that may serve us very well in the future, too. There is no reason to think any of these relationships are nefarious.
A great article that says most of what I’ve thought is on the NY Post, entitled “Dear liberals: Start practicing the empathy you preach”.
http://nypost.com/2016/11/20/dear-liberals-start-practicing-the-empathy-you-preach/
overall theme – jobs matter. We are not going to kill jobs on some half baked theory. About time Washington got the message.
The CAGW crew is in disbelief, just like all of the left was when Hillary lost. In both cases, they totally bought their own BS, resulting in overconfidence in winning an election an overconfidence that the public was behind them on CAGW. It is a double loss for them & arguably marks the victory of the skeptical side of the argument. Hopefully it leads to a broader victory of the re-establishment of honest science!
Do “all jobs matter”, or only “black jobs matter” – oops sorry?
“RockyRoad on November 21, 2016 at 9:50 am
Anything Trump can do that will destroy the demented agenda Obama has imposed on the US is completely acceptable.”
If Trump can derail the the AGW gravy train and begin the collapse of the of the whole hoax, he will go down in history as one of the free world’s great heroes for which we will all be immensely grateful. A lot of hope around the world is resting on his shoulders.
I’d never heard this one. Roy wins the clisci meme hands down, no second place:
Well done, Dr. Roy!
w.
It’s one of Dr. Spencer’s best… Right up there with this one:
A little off topic, but maybe not:
“Got that? History students are not required in the course of their study — the end result being a degree in history— to actually take a (US) history class, which explains why so many young people have trouble understanding how Donald Trump could win the election by winning the Electoral College vote and losing the popular vote. They’ve never studied it.”
“…An American Council of Trustees and Alumni study — “No US History? How College History Departments Leave the United States out of the Major,” based on requirements and course offerings at 75 leading colleges and universities — found that “the overwhelming majority of America’s most prestigious institutions do not require even the students who major in history to take a single course on United States history or government.”
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/11/21/george-will-college-kids-really-are-uneducated/
The name of the US is “The United STATES of America”. The Senate was to give the STATES equal representation in Congress. The House of Representatives was to give all the CITIZENS equal representation in Congress.
The Electoral Collage was an attempt to give the States and the Citizens an equal voice in electing the President BOTH want.
(PS Bill Clinton won both of his election when most of the voters (57% in his first run) wanted somebody else. I didn’t hear many complaints then.)
When I went to Purdue, American history was required for graduation. Attendance was taken in recitation class. Out of 30 students only three participated in the discussions.
At the time I was serving full time in the navy. My day job was getting an engineering degree because the navy needed line officers who were understood engineering. I love history but I am not good at those kinds of tests.
Later I found out that only three students got an ‘A’. I happened to be uniform and when I ran into the professor. He said the worst part of his job was teaching to those who do not want to be there. One of the other class trouble makers was from the south and had a different view of American history.
I believe one of things that make America great is the diversity of the debate. It would be nice if some understood how our government works and a little about science.
Not sure what you meant by that but I work with someone, much younger than, that I love and respect. She was continuing her education, including a black history class.
Somehow the subject of “Black” versus “African-American” came up.
She told me that she learned that the preferred term is “African-American” rather than “Black” because some white news writer came up with the “Black”.
I was alive back then. I bit my tongue and didn’t say that I doubt if “The Black Panthers” chose that name because some white guy told them to.
What happened, happened. Its past. Beware those who would twist it for a present gain.
“Black” became preferred in the ’60s as the logical alternative to “white”, replacing “Negro” or “colored”, although now we have “people of color”.
My black GF in the ’80s said she thought “African-American” was for Buppies. She was happy to go by “black”. We laughed over the quaint but then polite and PC “Negro” on her Chicago birth certificate.
Chimp, when I was in business, I had some “African American” customers. The problem with the term is that it does not really fit Egyptians, Tunisians, Moroccans, or Boers as commonly used.
Coming nightmares for Green Internationale:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/21/marine_le_pen_under_trump_us_has_regained_image_as_an_organization_of_peace.html
Or back to the future:
So here is the question……if the U.N. really believes in the doom and gloom and the sea level rise, etc., then why are they pouring BILLIONS into renovating the UN headquarters which is only feet from the East River instead of moving to higher ground?
TomB, interesting article in the NY post. On another thread I posted a piece by Jonathan Pie. Lots of f’s and b’s in it, but basically saying the same. The left caused their own downfall by denigrating their opponents rather than trying to persuade them. To shut them up (think climate debate shutdown, or no right or centrist opinions on campus, safespace, manplanation etc.), rather than debating them.
In a recent article, the BBC correspondent in New York (one assumes a responsible position in an organisation that has a charter allegedly maintaining its freedom from bias) wrote that people who voted Trump were either white supremacists, KKK members, confederate flag-wavers, or ultra right because they visited Breitbart for news or opinion. Ha ha. Does that mean that the 53% of white women who voted Trump belong in those groups? And what about the 27% of hispanic women who voted Trump? Are they hispanic supremacists or associate members of the local white supremacy group?
Two other articles I recently saw were by women who mentioned they had worked years for a more inclusive tolerant society. Both went on to complain bitterly about, and denigrate Trump voters. Same issue. They were promoting an inclusive society, but only provided everyone agreed with them. It did not occur to them that in complaining about older white women they were actually being racist sexist and ageist.
Finally, that NY Post article talks about the left moving more left. That is exactly what happened in the UK. The leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn is way further left than his predecessors, but at the same time many think he has made Labour unelectable.
In Spain, there has been a move to go further left via Podemos – a populist left party. The more traditional left, the PSOE, has partly rejected that by agreeing to allow the minority right party, the PP, to form a government. In doing so, they had to eject a more left leader. So the swing to the left was partly stemmed.
Interesting times.
ps, great article, David Middleton (from one geologist to another)
Walter Mondale. Remember him? Rumour has it that he’s on Trump’s shortlist for Secretary of State. That sure bucks the trend of climate sceptical/wary candidates listed above. For God’s sake, Mr President Elect, spare humanity another knucklehead as SoS!
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/mitt-romney-climate-change-shift
Sorry. Typo. I meant Mitt Romney, not Mondale!
Mitt would be a very good Secretary of State… He speaks French and was once the governor of a foreign land (Massachusetts)… /SARC
Seriously, Gov. Romney would be a great addition to the cabinet and proof that Donald Trump really wants to form a united Republican government and “drain the swamp”… You can’t drain the swamp without people who understand the swamp and know where the drains are.
I worried about Romney and his pseudo conservative stances until I realized he has a track record of conforming to whatever his bosses, including the electorate, want him to say or do. So he might be good at implementing what Trump wants. I still don’t like him, and I voted for him in 12, but then I would have voted for my Chessy against Obama.
That would fall under “senior moment”, not a typo, bub. Right there with you, so don’t feel too embarrassed. Whatever room he’s in, Romney is the smartest guy in it. And he’s smooth, very smooth. He’d probably make a fine S. o’ S. just a question of is he ready to immerse himself in the chaotic, frenetic world of Trump / Bannon.
“Whatever room he’s in, Romney is the smartest guy in it.”
How smart is it to try to get Hillary Clinton elected president?
“Not sure what you meant by that but I …..”
In high school, I was a ‘trouble maker’. My inter city history teacher was about as racist as they came. It was the 60s. In college, I was an independent thinker.
In the navy on my first ship I was labeled as the kind of trouble maker that leads a mutiny in time of war. I asked my Engineering Officer if his wife would visit him in Leavenworth? I did not say ‘sir’ either. Fortunately for me this man was smart enough to figure out he was in serious trouble if I was treating him with such disrespect. He decided to listen to the messenger rather than shoot him.
In the context of Donald Trump, I have often been criticized in the work place and at home for not being politically correct. My response to ‘you could have said it nicer’ was ‘I did the first time’.
I suspect Trump got elected because many are tired of the PC culture that is blind to real injustice.
I missed that you were quoting me. ( https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/21/mother-jones-on-possible-trump-appointees-be-afraid/#comment-2348791 )
The best summation of the PC culture refers the “Coexist” bumper stickers they are so fond of. What they really mean is, “You have to coexist with me. I don’t have to coexist with you.”
Kit, have you always had problems communicating your thoughts to others?