A Liar for Trump is Put in Charge of Denying Climate Change

Over the weekend, our climate science denier president quietly installed a climate science denier in a senior position (deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental observation and prediction) at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). We can expect that environmental observations and predictions will probably be much rosier than now. The Washington Post writes:

"The Trump administration has tapped David Legates, an academic who has long questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming, to help run the agency that produces much of the climate research funded by the U.S. government.

Legates, a University of Delaware professor who was forced out of his role as that state’s climatologist because of his controversial views, has taken a senior leadership role at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The agency, which oversees weather forecasting, climate research and fisheries, has until now continued its climate research and communications activities unfettered by political influence. For that, NOAA stands in stark contrast to the Environmental Protection Agency and science agencies at the Interior Department, where the Trump administration has dismissed and sidelined climate scientists or altered their work before publication.

Legates was formerly Delaware’s state climatologist, a position from which he he stepped down in 2011. He had come under pressure from then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D), because of his fossil fuel industry-funded research casting doubt on the science showing that burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels is the main factor behind heating the planet and would lead to dangerous effects such as sea level rise and extreme weather events. 

Legates is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank funded in part by the fossil fuel industry that supports research arguing that human-caused climate change is not a serious threat. 

“And we have the climate data. We’ve got years of data,” they wrote. “The data show the models don’t match reality,” they wrote, despite numerous peer-reviewed studies showing otherwise."

So once again, our corrupt, incompetent president has installed another crackpot liar in a senior position in government. His mission is to serve the president, not the people or the constitution. To do that he will deny science and lie, lie, lie.