The newly-appointed EPA chief Scott Pruitt wasted no time once in office rolling back years of environmental progress in one fell swoop. Repealing regulations requiring corporations to reveal how much methane their processes were creating, as well as continuing to lock down the department he is leading, Pruitt seems intent on dismantling every good thing that the Environmental Protection Agency stands for.
This week, he turned that action into outright lies, declaring as the official opinion of the EPA that he does not believe that Carbon Dioxide is conclusively a major contributing factor to global warming.
Pruitt appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” when he made his declaration:
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Pruitt’s statement is in direct conflict with the beliefs of the previous administration, as well as the opinion of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Pruitt’s statement is also in direct contradiction to what hundreds of scientists believe about climate change and global warming.
In fact, while many other elements of global warming continue to be opposed by skeptics, the impact of carbon dioxide appears to be one of the most sound conclusions available. The idea that carbon dioxide is contributing to the earth’s warming is a major part of the “greenhouse effect,” a theory that a majority of scientists agree on.
Carbon dioxide emissions have increased due to human activity like deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, and when the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, so does the temperature of the earth. When carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and other elements increase, they create a barrier blocking the escape of heat from the earth’s surface. This is why emissions and gas efficency on vehicles has become such an important issue in recent years.
Of course, as we have seen, Pruitt’s EPA is not interested in following any of the previous guidelines intended to slow the expansion of global warming. Already, the EPA has attacked methane reporting guidelines, might any emissions testing be next?
By appointing Pruitt to head the EPA, the Trump administration guaranteed that the person at the helm of the agency would actively be working against the best interests of the agency – that’s the only thing you can expect when you hire on the man who spend years actively suing the agency he is now heading.
