“I just think the hypocrisy runs rampant,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said of European critics of the Trump administration.
07/12/2017 07:02 PM EDT
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed European critics of President Donald Trump’s climate policies as hypocrites on Wednesday, while chastising German Chancellor Angela Merkel for phasing out her country’s nuclear power plants.
“I just think the hypocrisy runs rampant,” Pruitt said in an interview with POLITICO. “To look at us as a nation and say, ‘You all need to do more’ in light of what we’ve done in leading with innovation and technology — the hypocrisy is palpable in those areas.”
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Pruitt mentioned Merkel by name, urging the public to press her on the issue. If reducing carbon dioxide emissions “is so important to you, Madam Chancellor, why are you getting rid of nuclear? Because last time I checked, it’s pretty clean on CO2,” he said.
Merkel is one of the most vocal public defenders of the Paris climate change agreement, the 2015 pact that Trump said last month he intends to leave. Merkel hosted the recent G-20 summit of the world’s wealthiest economies, where the United States was the only country not to throw its support behind the deal. At the same time, Germany announced in 2000 it would phase out nuclear power, a shift that Merkel accelerated after the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan.
Pruitt repeated his criticism of the Paris deal, casting doubt on whether the United States would remain part of the climate agreement even if the Trump administration rewrites former President Barack Obama’s aggressive plan to cut U.S. emissions. When Trump announced the withdrawal June 1, he held out the possibility of negotiating to “re-enter” the accord “on terms that are fair to the United States.”
Pruitt argued that the United States has shown it can address climate change without being bound to an international agreement. He noted that U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined since President George W. Bush decided in 2001 to abandon the Kyoto Protocol.
“What we ought to be focused upon in my view is exporting innovation and technology to nations like China, like India, to help them with respect to their power grid,” he said.
Pruitt said the United States will continue to engage with the international community on climate change, but he called the Paris deal “pure symbolism,” adding, “It was a bumper sticker.
“Engagement is unquestioned. We’re going to continue to engage,” he said. “But we have led with action.”
Still, Pruitt continued to raise concerns that remaining in the Paris deal could create legal complications as the administration tries to unravel Obama’s domestic climate regulations, arguing that outside groups could seek to hold the U.S. to its pledges in court. “Why would you hold yourself out to that type of legal liability?” he said.
During the administration’s monthslong debate over Paris, Pruitt and other opponents of the agreement made that argument behind the scenes, clashing with other Trump advisers who believed those legal fears were unfounded. Pruitt, along with Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, was the most forceful advocate of ending U.S. participation in the Paris deal.
Pruitt bristled at the phrase “climate denier,” a description that his critics have often applied to him in light of his repeated statements disputing scientific conclusions about the large role humans play in warming the planet.
“What does it even mean? That’s what I think about it. I deny the climate? Really? Wow, OK. That’s crazy, in my view,” he said.
Pruitt reiterated his position that the climate is warming and humans contribute to that, but “the ability to measure with precision the human contribution to warming is something that’s very challenging to do.”
Bravo Scott Pruitt!
Rebuttal of Global Warming Hysteria:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, P.Eng. Calgary, June 12, 2015
On 9, Germany has the world’s most reliable grid… and a lower winter mortality, despite lower temps on average, than the UK – and 35% renewable energy.
Oh – yes the unit price of electricity is high, but Germans use 35% less of it per household than Americans. Plus they very well might have their own renewable energy income stream…
Griff wrote: “Germany has the world’s most reliable grid”
That is false. The German grid has come within millimeters of total failure due to wind power.
One example:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/01/south-australias-blackout-apparently-triggered-by-the-violent-fluctuations-from-the-snowtown-wind-farms/comment-page-1/#comment-2310685
[excerpts]
There was a near-grid crash in Germany due to wind power on Christmas Eve, 2004, as cited in my post below from circa 2005.
Naturally, our imbecilic politicians cannot grasp this simple concept: “The wind does not blow all the time.”
Some of them believe that grid-scale storage is a current solution – it is not.
Imagine if the grid actually crashed at Christmas in Germany, instead of a near-miss. It would have been a disaster, costing billions due to frozen pipes, etc., and much human suffering.
Imagine if that happened in a colder country, like Canada, or the northern USA.
Source: Wind Report 2005, by E.On Netz, then the largest wind power generator in the world.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
**************************
My post from circa 2005 follows:
Here is a quotation from Wind Report 2005 by E.On Netz for the German wind power grid. As you can readily surmise, wind power is a huge problem for grid operators.
Within just two days, the entire generating capacity of German wind power disappeared, necessitating the startup of the equivalent of TWELVE 500 megawatt coal-fired power plants.
During the steepest drop on December 24, 2004, they lost the equivalent of one 500MW power plant every 30 minutes!
The truth is that wind power requires 100% backup from conventional power sources, a duplication of resources that makes wind power entirely uneconomic.
The feed-in capacity can change frequently within a few hours. This is shown in FIGURE 6, which reproduces the course of wind power feedin during the Christmas week from 20 to 26 December 2004.
“Whilst wind power feed-in at 9.15am on Christmas Eve reached its maximum for the year at 6,024MW, it fell to below 2,000MW within only 10 hours, a difference of over 4,000MW. This corresponds to the capacity of 8 x 500MW coal fired power station blocks. On Boxing Day, wind power feed-in in the E.ON grid fell to below 40MW.
Handling such significant differences in feed-in levels poses a major challenge to grid operators.”
I loved this discussion going on here, I am from OZ but to see some common sense and logic at this time, especially from America is very heartening. The very amount and the depth of these hydrocarbons would suggest that it is a natural product that the world produces strange as it may seem. Long live America the world needs you.
In German: Heil Merkel! Translation: Hell Merkel!
Well said Pruitt. The bare faced truth is that European leaders are fundamentally ignorant about climatology and the history of climate change, and are fed by civil servant zealots, the Met office and the Royal Society – who do not follow their own motto. These should be weeded out by testing their knowledge base – easy. Who will start this rout? They are destroying the basis of western civilization.
Pruitt is so right.
Now … for some relaxation, let’s once again watch the following 2007 documentary because now we can see just how so true it was in demolishing the IPCC science and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”:
It is a very nice documentary. Why not Donald Trump is widely circulating this video in the media adding an introductory statement by himself? It would be so much in favour of his recent stance on climate policy. He needs to defend his climate policy to the world for what he is severely criticised. If he publicises similar/same documentary in his own defence, the actual (true?) Climate Science research will benefit a lot out of that endeavour. It is really frustrating to watch such an unhealthy environment in climate science research for so long!!
“America has reduced its CO2 emissions mostly due to fracking.”
Which is why there are so many ‘protests’ against shale gas in the UK. If you have a product that doesn’t work but which the government is subsidizing to the hilt, and someone comes along with a product that does what yours claims to.. Then since you can’t compete fairly the only option left is to sabotage your competitor.
Sounds familiar, somehow.
The globalists are lusting for climate control for one reason…a new and unlimited tax base. Science and reason will be turned on their ears to achieve it.
I would classify Pruitt as barely a Skeptic, and his statements about climate and on climate policy are borderline idiotic. For example, he says: “the ability to measure with precision the human contribution to warming is something that’s very challenging to do.” That alone shows that he doesn’t even understand the issue itself, let alone anything about it. He stupidly just handed the Climatists a straw man argument.
What do you mean? Human contribution to warming can be measured precisely or something else?
Inability to comprehend much? No one, not even Warmunists ever say or said that it can be measured with anything even approaching “precision”.
Mind reading, hat constant intelligence criteria and idiocy conclusions are beyond me – to a point I leave them to alarmist and other supreme beings.
Not sure about this…they report numbers to one hundredths of a degree, and claim that this is proof that dire actions are required to prevent catastrophe.
Now the belief that CO2 contributes any amount whatsoever to climate is the WRONG belief? Is there a consensus on that I missed? It used to be the fringe. Or are skeptics eating their own now too? Believe any warming is due to CO2 and you’re the enemy. The warmists did it if you did not believe it was a catastrophe, I guess the skeptics are due to turn on each other now too.
See my above reply.
Bruce…you would make a very lousy politician! Telling people that they are wrong and stupid has the opposite effect of what you might desire. If someone is in the dark (literally or figuratively), you do not help them see by shining a light in their eyes. They will just close their eyes tightly and be very angry at you. But if you bring up the light gradually, they will come to see clearly enough.
We don’t need to convince the world that we are ‘right’ about all the science. We just need to persuade the masses that their is no cause for alarm, and put an end to these destructive policies and pointless regulations.
There is a popular expression in the relationship business: “You can be right, or you can be married!” Ultimately, politics is about relationship. Is the global warming paradigm ‘wrong’? You bet, but much of the world can’t see that. If we are to live in relationship with this world, we have to give up our insistence that we are right they are stupid and wrong. We need to speak to them with words that they can hear and accept. Pruitt is basically saying to them: “Hey… I see your point, but what if we looked at it this way. Couldn’t we come up with something better?” They can start to hear words like that. They will start to be persuaded, not alienated.
The truth of the science will come out in time, but right now, I just want an end to the destructive policies and regulations. Pruitt is much more capable of steering the regulatory mess in the right direction than he is in changing the AGW paradigm. Let him do his job! He is on our side.
You’re statement is completely false. I know of no scientist that thinks CO2 will have no impact.
Well said, Pruitt. It’s about time somebody in a position of power and influence started telling it the way it really is. Much damage has been done by leaving the field clear for the warmunists for so long.
Since when are solar and wood ‘renewable’? what’s being renewed? The only form of ‘renewable’ energy is wood. Burn wood -> heat (energy output) and CO2 produced. CO2 + photosynthesis -> wood produced -> energy renewed.
Lots of things are renewable.
So what?
Someone earlier mentioned how bad Paris and Itlay was. Have you been to New York City lately? It is turning into a sess pool and getting more expensive by the day.
Was in Montreal last week for the Jazz Festival, first time in 10 years.
Big neighborhood changes, Little Italy is very different, a lot of halal shops popping up all over.
Lots of Islamic dress code all over the place.
Much begging on the streets and while stopped in traffic. Lot of construction downtown.
But the music was great and the International Fireworks Competition (it was Italy) at La Ronde was incredible.
Italy
Casting a suspicious glance, does “exporting technology” mean GE selling windmills and panels to Africa? Export coal and gas.
Sheri at 5:06
That is just a silly comment. Newton was right within bounds. Einstein was right within bounds. Ever notice how msny formulae have bounds? Pruit made a good statement. There are always bounds … Even if they are unstated or we don’t know what they are.
Have a good day.
Ms. Merkel, however, sounded a somewhat bleaker note. “The whole discussion about climate was very difficult, not to say unsatisfactory,” she said. “There’s a situation where it’s six, if you count the European Union, seven, against one.”
“This is not just any old agreement, but it is a central agreement for shaping globalization,” she said. “There are no signs of whether the U.S. will stay in the Paris accords or not.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/world/europe/angela-merkel-trump-alliances-g7-leaders.html?_r=0
lol
No wonder she is looking a bit sheepish in that photo.
“This is not just any old agreement, but it is a central agreement for shaping globalization,” she said.”….. How many people really understand the intent of ‘globalization’? Anyone in a successful country should be wary of any attempt to redistribute the world’s wealth based on Socialism. Socialism has been an abject failure yet it continues to be a spreading cancer.
Keep up the attacks weekly and from more agencies using the Obama round robin method of press releases.
Nailed it. It’s crazy in anyone’s view. Straight up loco no matter how you spin it.
The only science applicable to the current climate discussion is “political science” which in the end is just a way to warp statistics to get the desired outcome.
I blame termites for much more CO2 than humans. No talk about a termite full.
Cull, I hate predictive text.