Mask Off: Energy Secretary Comes Out as Full Blown Climate Denier

Might as well come out on Fox News.
Totally wack take on the economics of producing more oil and gas, that he can’t possibly believe.

1993 called, they want their climate denial talking points back.

Emily Atkin in Heated:

During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Chris Wright put on a moderate face.

To support his bid to lead the Department of Energy, Wright—the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy—assured senators that he understands fossil fuels are the primary cause of climate change. He also said he takes the problem seriously. “Climate change is a global challenge that we need to solve,” he said.

The statements were apparently enough to earn Wright the votes of seven Democratswho campaigned on climate action: Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Ben Ray Luján, Martin Heinrich, and Ruben Gallego. “He believes in science,” Hickenlooper said in a statement explaining his vote.

But now that Wright’s secured the job, the mask is quickly slipping off.

In an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday, the new Energy Secretary said there are upsides to raising the Earth’s temperature to levels not witnessed since before the last ice age.

“Everything in life has trade-offs,” he began:

A warmer planet with more CO2 is better for growing plants. The world has been getting greener for decades—[there’s] 14 percent more greenery around the planet today than there was 40 years ago. And we have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat. 

So everything has a trade-off, but yeah. There’s pluses to global warming as well as negatives.

But in addition to being morally repugnant, Wright’s statements were just wrong. Let’s take each point one by one.

• “A warmer planet with more CO2 is better for growing plants.” Setting aside the complex dynamics of plant growth, in general, higher concentrations of CO2 are only better for plants if you maintain all other environmental factors, like soil nutrients, weather stability, and water availability. And guess what climate change is screwing up? Soil nutrients, weather stability, and water availability. (Read more here and here)
• “The world has been getting greener for decades—[there’s] 14 percent more greenery around the planet today than there was 40 years ago.” Yes, but“greener” in this definition does not mean “more biodiverse” or “more healthy” or even necessarily “better.” It literally just means the world has more of the color green, both on land and in the ocean. This can be good, but it can also be bad, depending on where the green is and why it’s there. Scientists think some greening might be because of CO2, but they’re not sure how much. They do know at least a third is because of intense tree-planting and agricultural policy in China and India. (Read more here).
• “We have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat.” That’s currently true, but climate change doesn’t just cause death by heat. It causes death by wildfire, floods, tropical storms, vector-borne disease, infectious disease, water-related illness, rising sea levels, malnutrition, and conflict. Also, peer-reviewed research published last month showed that without extreme mitigation and adaptation efforts, the rise in heat deaths will substantially outweigh the decrease in cold deaths over time. (Read more here)

Climate scientists I spoke to also agreed that Wright’s statements were misleading. “This is just a regurgitation of disinformative talking points,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s total antiscientific nonsense in service of a fossil fuel industry-driven administrative agenda.”

But for Wright, these three made-up “plus sides” were enough to dismiss the threat of climate change completely. “The bottom line is, it’s just nowhere near the world’s biggest problem today,” Wright said. “Not even close.”

Perhaps he’s right. Sure, there are downsides to the climate track we’re currently on: Nearly all the world’s coral reefs dying; widespread population displacement from extreme weather and rising seas; worldwide food production dropping by as much as half; and hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species facing extinction, to name just a few.

But hey, at least the ocean will look greener from space, and Chris Wright will be rich. Everything in life has trade-offs!

—

Readers will remember that after discovering some of Mr Wright’s more extravagant claims, that his opinions were backed by the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)- I called Jim Kossin, a recently retired NOAA scientist who was a lead author of the IPCC chapter Wright cited.
Hilarity ensued.

Desmog:

Wright told the ARC audience today that he wanted to “increase the supply of affordable, reliable energy” by lifting the pause on natural gas and scrapping regulations on nuclear energy. 

When asked about coal, oil and gas, he said: “Oh absolutely. The world today runs on coal oil and gas, and it’s been a tremendous success. I should have said number one [of his plan] is get out of the way of the production, export and enhancement of our volumes of coal, oil and gas.” 

The energy secretary also attacked the UK’s legally-binding target of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050.

“Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal”, he said. “It’s a terrible goal. It’s both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it – and you’re sitting in a country that has aggressively pursued this goal – has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous cost.”

He added: “This is not energy transition, this is lunacy. This is impoverishing your own citizens in a delusion that this is somehow gonna make the world a better place. It’s not.”

The world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has statedthat – without achieving net zero by 2050 and limiting warming to 1.5C – the world will struggle to contain the worst effects of climate change. These include droughts, flooding, poverty, and mass displacement. 

Wright went on to claim that “We’re scaring children all the time with stories of extreme weather” when “deaths from extreme weather have plummeted for 100 years”. 

Better forecasting and preparation have cut extreme weather deaths over this period, but the number and intensity of extreme weather events have increased, and they continue to be disproportionately fatal in the least developed countries. 

The energy secretary also claimed that “climate-obsessed people […] know very little about the climate data”, before alluding to the conspiracy theory that climate change is being used to impose a green tyranny.