I don't know if this is that crazy, because I don't understand climate science, but still:
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Thursday that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with the established scientific consensus on climate change.
Asked his views on the role of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas produced by burning fossil fuels, in increasing global warming, Mr. Pruitt said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “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.”
“But we don’t know that yet,” he added. “We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”
Mr. Pruitt’s statement contradicts decades of research and analysis by international scientific institutions and federal agencies, including the E.P.A. His remarks on Thursday, which were more categorical than similar testimony before the Senate, may also put him in conflict with laws and regulations that the E.P.A. is charged with enforcing.
Scott Pruitt is a lawyer and can't begin to understand climate science. I also have a hard time with the sincerity of someone of raising skepticism over something they have no idea about. And we go on to the real reason why someone might try to be skeptical about a scientific consensus:
Mr. Pruitt has faced frequent criticism for his close ties to fossil fuel companies. In his previous job as the attorney general of Oklahoma, he sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of the state’s economy. A 2014 investigation by The New York Times found that energy lobbyists had drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even Mr. Obama, outlining the economic hardship caused by the environmental rules.Mr. Pruitt’s remarks on Thursday were consistent with his past public statements questioning the established science of human-caused climate change, but in denying the role played by carbon dioxide, they go a step further. ...
In addition to putting him at odds with the consensus of climate scientists, Mr. Pruitt’s remarks also raise the possibility that, as the Trump administration moves forward with unwinding Mr. Obama’s climate change regulations, it could put the administration in violation of federal law.
In 2009, the E.P.A. released a legal opinion known as an endangerment finding concluding that, because of its contribution to global warming, carbon dioxide in large amounts met the Clean Air Act’s definition of a pollutant that harms human health. Under the terms of the Clean Air Act, one of the nation’s most powerful environmental laws, all such pollutants must be regulated by the E.P.A. A federal court upheld the finding, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to it.
Thus the E.P.A. remains obligated to regulate carbon dioxide.
In his Senate hearing, Mr. Pruitt said that as administrator of the E.P.A. he would not revisit that 2009 legal finding. “It is there, and it needs to be enforced and respected,” Mr. Pruitt said. But energy lobbyists close to the Trump administration have since urged the new administration to consider building a legal case against the endangerment finding.
So, if CO2 is not legally a pollutant then people in the oil and gas industry will make more money.
