Don’t worry world! Donald Trump says he has this climate stuff handled.
Trump told the Associated Press that he has a “natural instinct for science” that informs his understanding of climate change and allows him to see through the political bias that he accused some scientists of holding.
In his interview, Trump reiterated his belief that the climate is changing but argued that the climate “goes back and forth, back and forth.” He claimed that scientists are divided on whether climate change is the result of human activity, even though the vast majority of climate scientists believe that it is.
His own governmental agencies, including NASA, put evidence of man-made climate change on their websites.
“The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.”
Still, Trump says he knows best.
“You have scientists on both sides of it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years, Dr. John Trump,” the president said. “And I didn’t talk to him about this particular subject, but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture.”
It appears that Trump’s claim to scientific competence rests on his belief that science is a matter of instinct, and this instinct is passed on genetically, as evidenced by his uncle.
Ponder that.
Trump’s comments came in response to remarks he made in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” in which Trump admitted that climate change is not a hoax, but also said he believes that it may not be “man-made.”
In 2014, he tweeted that climate change was a hoax.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report saying that the planet will reach 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels as soon as 2030, which could increase the risk for extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.
Still, Trump argued that he is “an environmentalist” advocating for things like “clean coal.”
The Trump administration has been busy rolling back environmental regulations, including those that makes it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere.