Trump stacks administration with climate change skeptics
BY DEVIN HENRY - 09/09/17 12:52 PM EDT
President Trump has stacked his administration with officials who doubt the scientific consensus behind man-made climate change, underscoring a growing divide within the Republican party.
Even as leading scientists, environmentalists and most Democrats accept research that shows climate change accelerating and as some see it contributing to the two mammoth hurricanes that have threatened the United States this year some in Trumps administration have openly raised doubts.
The rise of climate change skeptics has been most pronounced in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which helped lead then-President Obamas efforts to regulate climate change-causing pollutants. Administrator Scott Pruitt has questioned carbon dioxides role as a primary contributor to a warming climate, something accepted by most researchers. Hes also called for a public debate over climate change science, a proposal that has caused scientists, environmentalists and former regulators to bristle.
I think its going to have a chilling effect on science overall because its going to elevate those scientists who are in the vast minority and give them a stage that, frankly, they dont deserve, said Christine Whitman, President George W. Bushs first EPA administrator, who called the proposal shameful in a Friday New York Times op-ed.
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http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/349877-climate-skeptics-on-the-rise-in-trumps-epa