Trump’s new economics director is climate denier who thinks animals can ‘snuggle’ under pipelines

Larry Kudlow, a CNBC commentator, speaks about the economy during a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation on December 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

ThinkProgress

Larry Kudlow, a CNBC host, has a history of serious climate science denial.

Larry Kudlow, a CNBC commentator, speaks about the economy during a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation on December 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Larry Kudlow, a CNBC commentator, speaks about the economy during a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation on December 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has officially named CNBC host Larry Kudlow as the new director of the National Economic Council, adding yet another climate science denier to the White House.

Kudlow, who replaces Gary Cohn after the latter resigned over Trump’s steel tariffs, has for years used his position as a CNBC host to spread misinformation and cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change.

As director of the National Economic Council, Kudlow will have a sizable influence on U.S. economic policy, including issues related to energy as well as domestic and international climate policies.

Cohn, in his tenure as director, worked to keep the Trump administration from leaving the Paris climate agreement.

Kudlow, with his history of climate denial, is unlikely to be similarly concerned with climate action.

In 2008, in a column in opposition to the cap-and-trade bill that was then working its way through Congress, Kudlow suggested that “a bunch of scientists … don’t think we have a global-warming problem at all” and suggested that solar warming could be responsible for an increase in global temperatures.

And Kudlow’s climate misinformation is merely part of a larger trend within CNBC.

A 2013 study from Media Matters found that CNBC misrepresented climate science in more than half of its segments on the subject, including many segments that completely denied that manmade climate change was occurring.

In a 2013 segment on CNBC, Kudlow suggested that the controversial Keystone XL pipeline — which Trump has attempted to revive through executive order — would benefit animals because they could “snuggle” under the pipeline for warmth.

The Department of Interior, in its environmental review of the project, did not agree with Kudlow’s assessment, finding that the pipeline would cause“permanent threats to wildlife” including habitat fragmentation and species displacement.

Kudlow was also a vocal critic of the Paris climate agreement, which Trump announced the United States would be pulling out of in June of 2017. Kudlow applauded Trump’s decision, arguing that the agreement represented “a war on fossil fuels.”

In joining the administration, Kudlow will find ample support for his fringe views on climate — as president, Trump has made a habit of surrounding himself with climate deniers, both in high-level White House positions and within his cabinet.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has argued that human activity is not the primary contributor to climate change, while Secretary of Energy Rick Perry has cast doubt on whether carbon dioxide is “the primary control knob” for global temperature rise.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has repeatedly said that climate science isn’t settled, despite the fact that 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is both happening and a result of human activity.

And of course, Trump himself denies climate science, calling the phenomenon a hoax “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

In December, Trump used record-cold temperatures along the East Coast to suggest that climate change wasn’t real, tweeting “perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

Source: ThinkProgress. Reproduced with permission.

Comments

7 responses to “Trump’s new economics director is climate denier who thinks animals can ‘snuggle’ under pipelines”

  1. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Another drop kick joins the Trump’s ‘climate denier’ team. Make America Great Again..be a climate denier.

    1. Nick Kemp Avatar
      Nick Kemp

      perhaps smoking Joe can join trumps team when his gig leaning on the Australian taxpayer ends

      1. Joe Avatar
        Joe

        Well, we know Cigar Joe hates the Wind Turbines…he would be right at home behind a desk with the Trump

  2. Ken Dyer Avatar
    Ken Dyer

    America is a great democracy. The Constitution remains unchanged. Trump
    is making America great again.

    How? By politicising thousands of
    climate aware students that eventually will vote and their parents who do vote. By
    losing the Pennsylvania election and removing another moribund GOP
    senator. By appointing another old white man who last saw the light of political day under Reagan who is a walking advertisement for the profession of economics being its own best employer.

    Trump is like a strong enema when one is badly constipated.
    It is unpleasant to administer but eventually all the shit gets flushed.
    And that includes Trump.

    Great relief is thus attained.

    1. Nick Kemp Avatar
      Nick Kemp

      Can’t stop laughing

      I can just see trump with his puckered twisted face feeling the effects of the enema kicking in

  3. Mark Fowler Avatar
    Mark Fowler

    I like the line about RE being a war on fossil fuels. It’s like saying the car was a war on horses – we know how that turned out.

    Like the old statement “it’s the economy stupid”, with RE it is now economics that is driving the change as it did with the car (accidental pun). The need to push the link between alleviating climate change and the uptake of RE is now becoming unnecessary and climate change denialists can howl at the moon. It is now important that political and environmental attention be turned to other components of the fight against climate change, particularly the defossilisation of transport which seems to be moving in the right direction and land management – not doing so well.

  4. Lomax0506 Avatar
    Lomax0506

    I can’t decide what’s worse – a climate denier or a holocaust denier. Why do we have laws against one but not the other? Climate change deniers should all be thrown into prison.

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