EPA chief Scott Pruitt doubts climate change science

The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has long been considered as a primary contributor to global warming but Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt does not think so.

Pruitt, in his responses to questions in an interview with CNBC, once again demonstrated that he is unqualified to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA chief disputes climate consensus,” March 10).

He said we don’t know if carbon dioxide from human activities is a primary contributor to global warming; we need to continue the debate, review and analyze the data.

So decades after scientists first postulated that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the accumulation of data from a multitude of studies correlating increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere with increasing temperatures, and agreement by 97 percent of climate scientists, Pruitt thinks we still need more studies.

Pruitt also says it’s possible to be pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-environment all at once. Of course that’s true, who (other than Republicans) has said otherwise? There are all kinds of clean energy sources that can replace coal and oil, the development and expansion of which will create blue-and white-collar jobs.

Finally, Pruitt calls the international agreement to take actions that will mitigate climate change a “bad deal.” Actually it will be a bad deal for our country and the rest of the world if we discontinue the actions initiated by President Obama and put our heads back in the ground when it comes to climate change.

Agencies/Canadajournal