Guest essay by Eric Worrall
President Trump has nominated a climate skeptic who credits the rise of fossil fuels for the end of slavery to head the Council on Environmental Quality.
Trump to nominate climate doubter as environmental adviser (Update)
October 13, 2017 by Michael Biesecker
President Donald Trump will nominate a climate change skeptic with ties to the fossil fuel industry to serve as a top environmental adviser.
The White House on Thursday announced the selection of Kathleen Hartnett White of Texas to serve as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. White served under former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump’s energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing the state environmental agency.
White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration’s “imperial EPA” and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution. She is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has received funding from fossil-fuel companies that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron.
In a 2014 policy paper titled “Fossil Fuels: The Moral Case,” White praised the burning of coal and petroleum for “vastly improved living conditions across the world” and credited fossil fuels with ending slavery.
…
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called White’s selection “outrageous.”
“The nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White is the nightmare scenario for anyone who wants clean air and clean water,” he said. “Her record makes clear she is completely ready and willing to sell out the health of our kids to corporate polluters.”
Read more: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-trump-climate-doubter-environmental.html
What can I say – anyone who upsets the Sierra Club that badly has got to be worth a go.
Well done. Not the end of alarmism, but a good sequel to the nomination of Scott Pruitt. I hope he’ll bring more and more positively thinking people into office.
It’s time to change the Sierra Clubs tax free status. It would be a blast to look at their financial book’s.
In a world of pros and cons, how do they away with invalidating every large “pro” with any kind of “con?” By invoking the nonsensical use of “for health and for the kids.” It’s a tell that there arguments are otherwise entirely unpersuasive and one step removed from ad hominem irrelevance.
If the bloated elitists at the Sierra Club are agin her, I’m afor her.
Love to watch liberal heads explode with “OUTRAGEOUS OUTRAGE”.
Don’t it remind you of your 2 year old’s last temper tantrum?
This is a wonderful, textbook example of biased reporting.
“President Donald Trump will nominate a climate change skeptic with ties to the fossil fuel industry to serve as a top environmental adviser.
I have ties to the fossil fuel industry too – I regularly buy their products at my local gas station.
“White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration’s “imperial EPA” and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution. She is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has received funding from fossil-fuel companies that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron.”
Having established, via a drive-by smear in the first paragraph that the fossil fuel industry is something evil and shameful, the third paragraph then goes to reinforce the smear that the Texas think tank she is associated with is – gasp – receiving funding from that same evil industry. Not only that, she is apparently against stricter limits on air and water pollution.
I’m in favour of stricter limits too – people shouldn’t be allowed to breathe without a government permit, think of all that polluting carbon dioxide they’re releasing!
Do journalism schools teach this sort of thing nowadays, or does it just come naturally?
every time I read “climate doubter” I laugh………You would think with all the money they have….someone would have told them “don’t look so stupid”
The fact that the Sierra Club hates her cements my admiration for this pick.
The nominee has clearly stated publicly (and correctly) that CO2 cannot be a pollutant according to the usual understanding of that word. If it were to qualify as a pollutant simply by being a “greenhouse gas” then water vapor is a much more serious pollutant and I want to see the EPA find a way to regulate that. Scratch that – the old guard in the EPA are stupid enough to try.
At least she does not have a degree in “environmental health engineering”.
Marvelous! Maybe we can get some common sense into the government after all.
Just saying as a “Climate Realist” and having the academic plus real world experience to back that up – Ms. White’s bona fides are a bit lacking. Having said that – if the Sierra Club is now in “Night of the Long Knives” mode – PDT is on to something here…
Earlier comment stuck in moderation: was responding to Roger Graves citing recent NPR program as another example of blaming all resistence upon corporations:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/pbs-goes-full-climatist/
Shock, horror! Not.
Gosh, when will Trump make a politically correct choice? Hopefully never while the progressive socialists hold any of the cards.
These environumnuts have no clue. They honestly seem to think that CO2 is poisoning our air and water.
The stupid, it burns. Like napalm.
Nice! Winning!
Can somebody explain what the Council on Environmental Quality actually does?
certainly “climate doubter” is not the AGW approved term?
ended slavery and cured toenail fungus.
White on CO2:
https://youtu.be/i9Is3zisv18?list=PLLF4kBvOHH68jcsuPmA49KQgMQ8Tyx1wb
Sorry wrong video; looking . . . looking . . . bugger . . .
Sierra Club’s Michael Brune shrieks:
This is at best an immoral, though not likely legally actionable (it comes close, though, to libeling her….) misstatement of fact, i.e., asserting as fact what he knows he does not know the accuracy of. At worst, it is: a bold-faced lie.
(Note: his use of “corporate polluters,” lol, shows what an ignoramus he is about the significance here (none) of doing business as a corporation (versus a partnership or sole proprietorship or other legal entity).
What does Ms. White really say about pollution?
(“Fossil Fuels: The Moral Case,” Kathleen Hartnett White, (2014) https://www.texaspolicy.com/library/doclib/Fossil-Fuels-The-Moral-Case.pdf )
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GO, DONALD TRUMP, GO! 🙂
Sierra Club is just going to have to buckle down and work harder to keep their cash flow up .
Time to create a new even scarier bogie person .
How about donations to stop volcanos from exploding or to raise money for baby penguin
parkas .
Like Greenpeace the Sierra Club has gone full on corporate lobbyist . How would they ever qualify as a not for profit in the first place ? Even Suzuki got the message after the lobbying became too much to ignore .
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called White’s selection “outrageous.”
It’s good to see the heads are still exploding as the rollback continues.
James Bull
You people are insane. What kind of topsy turvy world are you living in where the Sierra Club is the corrupt organization and Exxon and the Koch Brothers are the good guys? Putin must be paying his troll farm very well to populate this site with idiotic comments.