Trump’s Club: Sceptics in Spades
Our hearts bleed for climate activists following the latest set of appointments announced by President-elect Donald Trump.
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/808638507161882624
Head of Environmental Protection Agency: Scott Pruitt
Energy Secretary: Rick Perry
As governor, Perry championed the oil industry, questioning science that shows that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change and deriding what he called “the secular carbon cult.”
So that’s an Exxon man and two climate sceptics appointed to very senior posts. It’s going to be “popcorn time” looking at the responses from the usual suspects:
Oliver Milman in the Guardian: Trump’s transition: sceptics guide every agency dealing with climate change.
Grant Foster says he takes hope from reading Teen Vogue.
Donald Trump picks climate change denier, laments the Independent, in regard to Pruitt.
Green groups react with horror, says Ed King of Climate Home, in regard to Tillerson.
Climate Scepticism 
Tillerson is a very nice guy. And he’s more of a fence sitter like me. He is going to do a good job, but I don’t think the trump administration will be known for its romantic attachment to pro democracy movements. The guy is hard core pragmatic.
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Roll on 2017! The stage is being set for reality-based policy-making.
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What good news. It’s going to be so much harder attacking Denialism now since, unlike Delingpole, Monckton and – dare I say it? – some of us here, the Tillersons and Pruitts never say anything outrageous. Keeping the American economy running on cheap energy is a hard policy to criticise, especially if you’re giving evidence under oath to a Congressional Committee, and not just spouting off in the pages of the NYT or Guardian.
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To kick climate in the tenders, all they have to do is apply industry standards of auditing and regulation. I’m sure Exxoon know all about that. How could anyone argue against insisting on the best standards for something that important?
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Very interesting picks. Trump wants renegotiated trade deals and a China reset from State; Tillerson is an old pro. Trump wants EPA constitutionally reigned in; Pruitt as Oklahoma AG was leadingnyhemstate constitutionality challenges. Trump wants to muck out the DoE Augean Stables; Perry campaigned to abolish DoE. Trump wants Pentagon waste eliminated (F35 overruns, $125 billion per year in overhead waste report supressed) so puts Mad Dog Mattis in charge. Doing what he said, and what the Deplorables elected him to do. Going to be a fun and probably LOUD next few months.
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Not to worry, Geoff. Fodder for attack will be provided by Canada’s Obama-clone wannabe, aka the China-and-Castro-admiring empty suit trading on his father’s name and his cheerleading Climate Barbie Min. of the Environment and Climate Change – along with an immature Cabinet of ‘cuz it’s 2016 gender-balanced yes-persons – have given every indication that cold, hard facts and reality of the non-Goracle-kind are not on their agenda.
Alas, they – along with too many provincial premiers – have utterly failed to see the writing on the Brexit and/or European walls, and are bound and determined to carbon-tax and spend this once great nation into poverty. Not to mention that under the guiding light of former WWF-er, Gerald Butts – and quite possibly a helping hand from the despicable Soros and his gazillionaire ilk – thousands of jobs have already disappeared while the country attempts to absorb an influx of unscreened refugees who speak neither of our official languages. With a promise of more to come, while they generously fund Hamas – and ignore the genuine victims of the UN-generated and ignored Middle East mess, e.g. Christians and Yazidis.
If I were twenty years younger, I would seriously consider relocating me ‘n my cat to what I believe would be a more (you should pardon my use of the words) “sustainable and transformative” existence south of the border in order to escape from a sea of completely over the top snowflakey political correctness – and not just on the climate front**. Not unlike the ever-increasing undemocratic arms, elbows, hands and fingers of the UN, “let’s you and him fight” seems to be the guiding mode of this oh-so-PC government’s operation. Hypocrisy and mindless hashtaggian inanity are the orders of the day.
**See Not my Rights Movement. A long, but IMHO very worthwhile assessment of the sad state of this (long ago adopted) land of mine.
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Hilary
“…this (long ago adopted) land of mine.”
So you’re an immigrant? I hope you made sure your papers are in order before sounding off like that. I won’t be expressing my feelings about France’s daft energy policies until I’ve got my Carte d’Identité.
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Of the 5 sources cited by Paul, 4 are mainstream media and only one, Climate Change News, is a full- time Green propaganda outlet.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/12/13/exxon-ceo-rex-tillerson-nominated-as-top-trump-diplomat/
was published ten hours ago and has produced zero comments.
Climate Change News’s most popular blog article ever was this one published 5 days ago
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/12/08/gore-dicaprio-and-the-media-tools-in-trumps-climate-deception/
Again, no comments.
Climatechangenews is the website of ClimateHome, “a leading source of news and analysis on the fraught international politics of global warming” which is funded by Responding to Climate Change Limited (RTCC) which is in turn financed by a number of commercial partners including the European Investment Bank, plus the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Energy, a number of Spanish Universities, and a Peruvian Goldmine.
Climate Home is also funded directly by eight organisations, including the Green Environment Facility, the Arab African International Bank, Amundi Smith Breeden Asset Management, and the Green Climate Fund, which is an offshoot of the UNFCCC, and which has assets of $1.8 billion.
All this to lift a tiny corner of the curtain on a vast multi-billion dollar propaganda machine which has absolutely zero public support, and which is going to be deeply upset by Mr Trump’s appointments. They have salaries to pay, and investors to satisfy. Their world is in ruins. I wonder what they’ll do?
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Hilary, in a brief moment of early noughties climate madness I debated moving to my ancestral home in Scotland. I’m seriously white and not in a good way. I don’t like heat at all but then I thought about climate and decided that even if the worst alarms were right, Scotland would still be too cold. I figured that buying aircon for the two to three weeks a year it would be necessary wouldn’t break the bank so I’ve stayed put in sunny Warrington.
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Former science journal Nature says:
Donald Trump’s choice for head of the US environment agency is dismaying.
That’s three blatantly political opinion pieces in Nature in a week. (Others here and here).
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Paul, whether you agree or not, many people see Trump and his appointments as a threat to science. Do you think Nature should ignore that – that it shouldn’t write about such threats?
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You have a point Len. Tell me did nature also write about the fears of people who thought the current crop of climate scientists have orchestrated a debasement of science? Or that a lot of money has been frittered on renewables experimentation that the energy experts said was likely to be useless? Did they fret that Obama and many of his subordinates were exaggerating the science? I must have missed those articles. Perhaps you could provide links?
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Len
https://twitter.com/RogerAPielkeSr/status/809060526626050048
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/808855989722169344
See also this recent sequence of tweets from Jr.
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TinyCO2, if the views you describe are not widely held, you have your answer.
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Paul, note that Jr presupposes two conditions, the second of which makes a connection between facts and political affiliation. Clearly facts are independent of such affiliation, hence the rest of what he says is ill-founded.
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Wot? Read what he said again: “If public opinion on facts is in large degree a reflection of partisan affinity…”
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Len, keep telling yourself that.
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Len Martinez says: 14 Dec 16 at 3:04 pm
“Paul, whether you agree or not, many people see Trump and his appointments as a threat to science. Do you think Nature should ignore that – that it shouldn’t write about such threats?”
That would be fine if the name were changed to PoliticoPsudoNature! These folk have absolutely no science,they have not even a viable conjecture about atmospheric CO2!
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Len Martinez says: 14 Dec 16 at 4:28 pm
“Paul, note that Jr presupposes two conditions, the second of which makes a connection between facts and political affiliation. Clearly facts are independent of such affiliation, hence the rest of what he says is ill-founded.”
You have not even one fact that establishes that Increasing atmospheric CO2 level would affect surface temperature in any way! All you have is fantasy!
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and, if the academic community of experts who claim authority on facts are increasingly affiliated w/ & have affinity for the left …
Facts are facts. No one has authority over them and the affiliations of academics should be irrelevant.
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Should be Len but isn’t.
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Len Martinez says: 14 Dec 16 at 10:56 pm
(‘and, if the academic community of experts who claim authority on facts are increasingly affiliated w/ & have affinity for the left …’)
“Facts are facts. No one has authority over them and the affiliations of academics should be irrelevant.”
Can you state here, even one thing of atmospheric CO2 That is ‘fact’ rather than ‘fantasy’?
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Paul Matthews says: 14 Dec 16 at 4:05 pm
“Len, See also this recent sequence of tweets from Jr.”
In that The Donald has already expressed a useful position! Let NAS fund up to a 50% level on research already funded by commercial interests. This would allow the government, for the sake of the public, to limit any corruption of science by corporate interests.
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What sort of mechanism may be Len Martinez?
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“Should be Len but isn’t.”
Are you saying that US scientists treat AGW as fact because they are Democrats? Surely not!
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I think they blindly endorse CAGW because they’re sloppy, arrogant, with no concept of accountabilty or cost… are other Democrats like that?
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Again you are conflating science and policy. Can you really not separate them in your mind? Endorsing a scientific theory has absolutely no connection with accountability or cost.
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No, you’re conflating science with truth. Science is merely an attempt to determine the truth, not a guarantee it has found it. So in the real world you have to consider things like track record of success, trust worthiness, openess, record keeping, etc and balance it against other theories or truths, like cost.
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No, cost has no bearing on whether CO2 is a GHG or whether CO2 levels are increasing or whether sensitivity to CO2 doubling is 1C or 4C.
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Are you telling me that you expect the same amount of evidence no matter what the question is? Did you do the same amount of research when buying your home as buying your last phone?
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TinyCO2, the correctness of a theory doesn’t depend upon how expensive it will be if true.
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But we don’t know what is true do we? Any more than we know before hand which house will be perfect. Now some people hand their decision making to other people but we and I doubt you fall into that category. You’ve looked at the science and you’re happy to go along with… what? What warming do you expect to see? Because it really does matter how much warming we’ll see and how the planet will react to it. Will a few crap windmills do enough? Will we need a massive fleet of nuclear stations? Will we all have to reduce our luxurious lifestyles and live more like 1817 than 2017? Shouldn’t you have a picture in mind of what it would be like to act as well as what a warm world would be like?
But if you’re happy, you’re happy – get on with it. We aren’t and won’t.
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