The Trump administration is mulling the creation of an expert panel to assess whether climate change poses a risk to national security, but critics are denouncing the idea.
The White House may form the Presidential Committee on Climate Security to determine if global warming is a threat to national security, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The committee, which would be initiated under an executive order, would be led by National Security Council senior director William Happer.
While a growing number of Democratic politicians view climate change as an existential threat, the Trump administration has disregarded the issue as a major cause for concern.
The Presidential Committee on Climate Security would likely reach similar conclusions given that Happer has previously touted the benefits of carbon emissions and has sat on the board of two different advocacy groups that question the dangers of global warming: the CO2 Coalition and the George C. Marshall Institute.
“I like to call this the CO2 anti-defamation league because there is the CO2 molecule, and it has undergone decade after decade of abuse, for no reason,” Happer said of his CO2 Coalition group during a presentation in 2016.
“We’re doing our best to try and counter this myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant,” he continued. “It’s not a pollutant at all. … We should be telling the scientific truth, that more CO2 is actually a benefit to the earth.”
The panel is already drawing objections from environmental advocates. The co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, Francesco Femia, claims the committee will be used to undermine the scientific consensus that climate change will lead to dire consequences.
“This is the equivalent of setting up a committee on nuclear weapons proliferation and having someone lead it who doesn’t think nuclear weapons exist,” Femia said to The Washington Post. “It’s honestly a blunt force political tool designed to shut the national security community up on climate change.”
The White House has long drawn the ire from environmental advocates. Since the beginning of his administration, President Donald Trump has led an ambitious rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations in an effort to revitalize the country’s energy industry.
This “energy dominance” agenda has led to an enormous amount of environmentally oriented lawsuits against the administration. One green group alone has filed over 100 lawsuits against the White House.
Nevertheless, energy advocates that have long praised the White House’s energy agenda are hailing the new committee.
“It’s a great idea, spearheaded by a great guy,” Steve Milloy, a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, said of the Presidential Committee on Climate Security. “Sounds like the dishonest-know-nothing climate bedwetters in the national security apparatus — as well as those across the federal government — are about to get schooled in CO2 reality.”
Read more at Daily Caller
The Warmists draw a distinction between naturally occurring carbon dioxide and the carbon dioxide from using fossil fuels. They call the latter carbon pollution, a “crime” against nature. It’s not scientific at all, it’s a moral opinion. Same problem when they claim that warming is destructive. If that was true, then cooling would be beneficial. It’s a stupid claim.
Yes, climate Change is real, the Earth’s Climate always Changes and our Climate on Earth has been Warmer and Cooler caused by a number of MAJOR factors like Solar Variation. Tropical Fossils have actually been found close to the frozen North Pole! The Majority of North America used to be covered in 1.6 KM of ice, what caused that? What caused 1.6 KM of ice to melt? But these variations of our Climate occur NATURALLY, they are not caused by a CO2 variation of 1ppm on a Global Annual Average (Maybe) and CO2 is NOT driving the Climate of the Planet! The Earth is a dynamic, living, breathing organism. If and when the Earth’s Climate becomes constant, like a flat non-varying line, then that will be when the Earth is Dead! Thank God for Climate Change! Thank God for Trump’s influence on Sanity in Climate Leadership! A tax on CO2 does nothing but feed Government, what’s next, a tax on the Sun? Continental Drift? Planetary Orbit Decay? In 2019, in Reality, AGW = Al Gore’s Wrong! Keep Calm, emit on! Emit responsibly, as we are regulated to the best of our ability! We need ALL forms of energy, simply used the best one to suit the given need, And remember, we will never get to the effectiveness of the Jetsons, by relying solely on the energies of the Flintstones! Onward!
In addition to tropical fossils close to the frozen North Pole, there were forests in Antarctica that were growing close to the current latitude.
The Hockey Stick was Mann-made-up!!!
Question: Why do web sites (such as this one) always put photos of cooling towers spewing out steam with stories on CO2 emissions? CO2 is colorless. The white clouds in the photos are water vapor (steam).
We can assume that the MSM has heard this over and over, yet they continue to use cooling towers because they’re visibly emitting. The fact that it’s water is their little secret.
My opinion is that this is the wrong title for such a committee having the wrong purpose and as such is a further government waste of my tax dollars. The title implicitly admits that the problem of anthropogenic climate warming (or climate change) is real. It isn’t. So why consider any consequence of this imaginary problem. Instead, form a committee to investigate the waste of resources on the imaginary problem itself. Give full transparency to the real disagreement (i.e. the opposite of a consensus) that exists on this issue. Make the public aware that the entire theory of climate change is based on bad science. We can’t count on the MSM to do so. Perhaps a government sponsored committee, if you could keep the alarmists fraudsters off the committee, could present the science that defeats the hoax.
Good point, Glenn. I think that they’re avoiding “denialism” , and opting for ambivalence on a changing climate.
No matter. The Warmists are already condemning this exercise because it’s President Trump’s . He won’t sign the Paris Accord.
China can burn all the coal in the world because they did. China is making so much money off cheap energy, they can afford to build a modern military from scratch. There’s the real threat right there.
Yes the article gives us hope! Trump and Happer from now on will base policies on Reality and Common Sense and Real Science, not Anti Human Agenda from the UN/IPCC not bad climate models and not fear mongering like Obama!
It is true that the leftist and their media buddies automatically condemn anything if it comes from President Trump. However, a committee investigating anthropological climate change not dominated by the left gives them legitimate reason to be afraid. Such a committee will point out that the IPCC climate models, the sole support of the climate change theory, are failing miserably. It could point out the fraudulent data tampering by NOAA and NASA. It will certainly point out that a warmer world with more carbon dioxide would be a better place. I hope it points out all of the harm that has come from the climate change movement and the much greater harm that it will do if the leftists get their way.
I forgot to mention that consensus has no place in real science. Real science is made up of solid theories supported by solid data. What the climate change movement is about is politically motivated theories supported by altered data.