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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
Never before have people who reject the mainstream scientific evidence that the world is warming due to human activities occupied so many positions of power, from the White House to federal agencies and both houses of Congress. Depending on the policies they enact, these individuals could have dire consequences for the planet.
It was just one year ago this week that world leaders came together in Paris to adopt the most far-reaching climate change agreement ever negotiated. At the time, the Paris agreement seemed to be a repudiation of climate denial, with climate action ascendant from Beijing to Washington and Delhi to Nairobi.
Then Donald Trump was elected president.
Trump's narrow electoral victory suddenly catapulted climate denialists to the center of policy making in Washington. People whose views rendered them fringe backbenchers will now be cabinet secretaries, capable of abruptly and profoundly altering course on U.S. climate policy. For each of the major environmental agencies, including the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior, President-elect Trump has nominated climate deniers and avowed proponents of fossil fuels.
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| Officials celebrate the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement in Le Bourget, France on Dec. 12, 2015. Image: WITT/ SIPA PRESS/SIPA |
Other senior advisers who will occupy high-level roles in the White House also deny that human activities are the primary cause of global warming.
In the scientific community, there's virtually no debate about the following based on observational evidence alone:
- Greenhouse gases are at the highest level they've been in all of human history.
- Global temperatures continue to increase, with 2016 on track to be the hottest year on record.
- The current decade is likely to be the hottest on record, beating the benchmark set in the 2000s, which in turn beat the 1990s.
- Sea levels are rising as the world's ice sheets melt, causing more frequent and damaging coastal flooding in low-lying cities.
- Arctic sea ice is melting, permafrost is melting and spring snow cover is declining as temperatures increase at twice the rate of the rest of the globe.
Here's a guide to the people Trump is putting forward for high-level positions, and what they think about the mainstream scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.Scott Pruitt, EPA Administrator
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
Pruitt also created a "federalism unit" in the Oklahoma AG office dedicated to fighting the Obama administration's policies on immigration, health care, finance reform and environmental protection.
As EPA administrator, Pruitt would oversee policies and programs designed to reduce air and water pollution, curb greenhouse gas emissions, clean up oil spills and protect communities from toxic chemicals, among many other responsibilities. Pruitt has vowed to scrap environmental regulations to make it easier for companies to produce and burn fossil fuels.
In a Trumpian twist, if he is confirmed, Pruitt would inherit the task of working with the Justice Department to respond to the lawsuit that he himself helped bring.
Would he rule in his own favor?
Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
He currently sits on the board of Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, the two companies behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Perry has called himself an "all-of-the-above" energy advocate and oversaw a boom in both oil drilling and wind power as Texas governor.
The Energy Department's last two leaders were both highly regarded scientists, befitting of an agency that is a top funder of physical science research in the United States. Perry, who was briefly a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, marks a striking departure from this mold.
The Energy Department has a complex mandate that includes managing the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and running 17 national labs, as well as setting regulations for energy-efficient appliances and funding research and development for clean energy technologies.
Perry, who once vowed to eliminate the Energy Department entirely, may move to slash spending on advanced research into risky, early-stage energy technologies. In particular, he could target a little-known clean energy agency called ARPA-E, an agency that was an early backer of Tesla Motors.
Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
As CEO, Tillerson has moved to have Exxon acknowledge the central role that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions play in global warming.
The company now supports putting a price on carbon emissions and has invested in biofuels and carbon capture and storage — two advanced technologies that would still allow oil and gas to be burned in the future.
Tillerson's close personal ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin are expected to come under scrutiny during Tillerson's nomination hearing with the Senate.
Exxon is currently under investigation for misleading its investors and the U.S. public about the threat of global warming since the 1970s. Investigative reports by multiple media outlets have shown that the company knew its oil and gas products were causing climate change, yet funded disinformation campaigns to convince the public the science of climate change was unsettled.
Tillerson will manage the messaging of U.S. climate policy to the rest of the world. Secretary of State John Kerry was central to negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement and brokering collaboration with Chinese leadership. It's unclear if Tillerson has the same conviction that climate change should be a high priority for American foreign policy, given Exxon's track record.
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
The Interior Department manages and protects U.S. natural and cultural resources, such as national parks, landmarks and public lands. The agency plays a key role in monitoring climate impacts and updating land management strategies to account for those changes, such as addressing wildfire risk in drought-stricken areas and preparing for sea level rise.
Zinke supports keeping U.S. public lands under federal control, but he has also called for opening those areas up to more private oil and gas drilling, coal mining and logging. He has also voted against regulations to protect waters in national parks from toxic pollution — another role of the Interior department.
Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
The position of White House chief of staff is widely considered the second most powerful job in Washington. By serving as the gatekeeper to the president and manager of issues and ideas that make it to the president's desk, Priebus will be able to exert significant influence over the White House's policy agenda. Priebus may be even more powerful than previous chiefs of staff due to Trump's lack of political experience.
Priebus himself has downplayed the significance of human-caused climate change and supported politicians like Walker, who deny the scientific evidence tying greenhouse gas emissions to increasing global temperatures.
Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
Carson has said his years of treating inner-city patients, plus his childhood in Detroit, make him qualified to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agency oversees affordable-housing programs and enforces fair-housing legislation.
In the wake of 2012's Hurricane Sandy, which damaged hundreds of public housing units in East Coast flood zones, HUD has also become a lab for climate change resiliency. In January, the agency awarded $1 billion in grants to help communities prepare for natural disasters such as floods, heat waves and wildfires, which will grow more frequent and severe because of climate change.
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
Sessions has opposed many major Obama-era policies, including legalizing same-sex marriage, immigration reform, health care reform and regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
As attorney general, Sessions would be responsible for directing the legal defense of federal regulations, including any lawsuits against the EPA's Clean Power Plan. Sessions has been a harsh critic of the plan, arguing it would not solve global warming.
Steve Bannon, Chief Strategist
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
Breitbart plays host to numerous writers that regularly skewer and distort climate science findings and policy initiatives like the Paris Agreement. Recently, for example, Breitbart ran a story claiming the world is rapidly cooling, even though 2016 is about to set a record for the globe's hottest year.
Before joining Breitbart, Bannon was a U.S. naval officer and an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. In the 1990s, he helped run Biosphere 2, a research project in Arizona designed to replicate life on Earth. Bannon is also a Hollywood media executive and the host of a satellite radio show.
Mike Pompeo, CIA Director
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| Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable/Getty |
A West Point graduate, Pompeo has close ties to Charles and David Koch, the billionaire conservative brothers who have funded many recent efforts to spread misinformation on climate change.
His questioning of Obama administration environmental officials has revealed that he questions whether global temperatures are increasing, and if so, if human activities are the main cause.
As CIA director, Pompeo will oversee a sprawling intelligence agency that, in addition to tracking and eliminating terrorists affiliated with ISIS and other groups, analyzes broad global threats to stability and U.S. national security.
Under President Obama, CIA analysts have been involved in assessing how climate change may service as a risk multiplier in the future, helping to trigger crises. This may already have happened, given scientific evidence tying the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War to a severe, climate change-related drought.
For example, a report earlier this year from the National Intelligence Council found that "climate-change-related disruptions are well underway."
Under the leadership of a climate denier like Pompeo, however, the CIA might be less willing to continue pursuing such research, leaving it to academics or other agencies to pick up the slack.
This could harm U.S. national security if it keeps policy makers in the dark about how profoundly climate change may soon be altering the national security landscape.
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