EPA Chief, Scott Pruitt, has publicly come out against well-known established facts about global warming. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced that he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. This statement is in direct contradiction with statements released by both NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in January in which the two organizations clearly identified carbon dioxide as a key factor in global warming.
On Thursday, March 9th, Scott Pruitt spoke with CNBC. He was asked if he believed carbon dioxide to be a primary control knob in global warming. Pruitt said this in response, “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.” Pruitt made this statement despite widespread scientific consensus on the impact and direct link between human carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.
Pruitt was confirmed to his position with the EPA in January. Despite agreeing on the basic fact that climate change does exist, Pruitt is often called a climate change denier because he believes the human impact on climate change is up for debate. He, along with Trump, plan to overturn many of the Obama administration’s major climate regulations, including those that limit the production of carbon emissions.