Climate change is no joke

to climate change is one of them.

Scott Pruitt, Trump’s appointee as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has broken with global scientific consensus and argued that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming.

Doubting science by claiming that a theory is just a theory without broad consensus behind it is a favoured technique of tobacco industry lobbyists and others who try to confuse or dissemble. They pretend disagreement exists where it does not or they attempt to turn very small differences into polar oppositions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US have all been clear that rising temperatures have been ‘‘driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere’’.

Pruitt’s statement even contradicted the position held by the EPA itself and conflicts with the laws and regulations the EPA is expected to enforce. The EPA’S own website says ‘‘carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change’’. While carbon dioxide is ‘‘absorbed and emitted naturally’’, human activities, ‘‘such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, release large amounts of carbon dioxide, causing concentrations in the atmosphere to rise’’.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased by more than 40 per cent since preindustrial times, the EPA website adds.

Most observers of US politics expected that Trump would follow through on the anti-environmental rhetoric of his campaign.

Pruitt was known to be an advocate for the energy industry before his appointment by Trump. He drafted letters to send to the EPA and other bodies pleading economic hardship if environmental rules were not relaxed and reportedly sued the EPA 14 times.

Pruitt is now expected to preside over funding cuts and a review of his agency’s role in monitoring emissions and protecting waterways. The implications of a wholesale attack on an environmental agency are enormous, and not just for the United States. There is nothing remotely funny about any of it.