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Sustainability November 11, 2016
As the rest of America (and the world) continues to grapple with the results of the 2016 election, many environmentalists are now also worried about the future of the ongoing battle against climate change. America’s President-elect, who has called human-caused climate change a “hoax,” tapped a well-known climate denier, Myron Ebell, to lead his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team.
Myron Ebell is the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute as well as the chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of nonprofit organizations that “question global warming alarmism and oppose energy-rationing policies.” He is one of the best-known climate skeptics and has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases “illegal.”
President Barack Obama has said that his effort to establish the United States as a global leader in climate policy is his proudest legacy. However, Trump’s choice to elect Ebell to spearhead the EPA transition indicates serious plans – especially the 2015 Paris agreement – to reshape the policies which the Obama administration has pursued in the last eight years.
READ MORE: The New Norm: Hotter than Hades
During his candidacy, Donald Trump vowed to “cancel” America’s participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, which is a 195-nation initiative seeking to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. According to Trump, the climate change deal is “bad for U.S. business.” And Ebell, his new EPA transition leader, has also said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty is “clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”
At this point, environmentalists, Democrats and climate-change proponents are considering the damage these new policies could cause. Although Myron Ebell cannot comment on the Trump transition, he has already called attention to “the campaign’s consistency on calling for increased fossil fuel development,” according to National Geographic.
“[Trump] has made several promises several times over, about energy and climate, and I think they’re pretty clear,” Ebell said. “It’s pretty black and white.”
READ MORE: Watching Clouds Will Change Because of Global Warming
In his work with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ebell has repeatedly argued that the Earth is not warming very quickly. “There has been a little bit of warming,” he said to Vanity Fair in 2007. “But it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Today, according to National Geographic, he still asserts that climate change isn’t going to be a problem until 100 to 200 years from now and the current goal should be to expand global access to all types of energy, fossil fuels and renewables alike.
This, however, could directly conflict with the endless evidence presented for climate change, including frequenting droughts and fires, decreasing amounts of freshwater available and rising sea temperatures. But as President-elect Donald Trump and the rest of his team prepare for the change of powers, political and environmental observers alike are closely watching the transition.
