Over the weekend, the head of Donald Trump’s planned climate review panel had this to say about the climate crisis: “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.” It’s the sort of remark that would instantly result in dismissal in more reasonable times. Under Trump … it’s exactly where policy is going.
William Happer and his comparison of Jews to a polluting gas are just one aspect of a policy that’s focused not only on denying the climate crisis, but also on attacking science and scientific reasoning. As a physicist, Happer might be expected to have some deference toward his scientific colleagues, and some knowledge about the rigor and review that shape their work. But there are more important factors that shape Happer’s reasoning. Millions of them. As in the millions that have come from the fossil-fuel billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer to fund Happer and his anti-science pogrom.
According to The New York Times, the Mercers funded both Happer’s one-man “advocacy group” and a super PAC controlled by John Bolton. Then, when Trump brought Bolton into the Cabinet, it was Bolton who pulled in Happer to head up efforts to destroy the planet’s future. The Mercers have to be genuinely happy with their investments.
As a first step in destroying the nation’s faith in science and tamping down concerns about the already unfolding disasters brought on by global warming, the Trump regime has a simple answer: Don’t look. To that end, the new head of the United States Geological Survey has forbidden any analysis that looks beyond 2040. And the EPA, which produces a new climate assessment every four years, will simply drop the best, most accurate models from the next assessment in favor of only looking at the most favorable possible outcomes.
But closing their eyes and whistling a happy tune aren’t enough to make the climate crisis go away. Even though some White House staffers are concerned that opening up a “holy war” on science might be not such a good thing, Trump is determined to charge ahead for the simple reason that allowing people to respect any other voice, on any subject, is a threat to Trump’s authority.
Trump is moving ahead over objections from such notably incautious figures as Steve Bannon and taking steps that were once shot down by John Kelly. And his efforts aren’t aimed just at turning the debate away from ways to address the climate crisis, but also at embracing that crisis.
Happer’s language comparing attempts to fight global warming with the Holocaust is no accident. He’s not just unconcerned about carbon dioxide; he’s a promoter of it. The goal of his climate review panel isn’t just to deny that the climate crisis is underway, but also to proclaim the results of a warming world a good thing. Melting the polar ice caps will “open up new shipping routes.” Thawing out the poles will open up new areas for that most critical of purposes: producing even more fossil fuels.
Speaking to a meeting of the Arctic Council, an organization of nations that border the polar region and indigenous peoples who live there, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embraced the idea that the Arctic will soon be iceless. “This is America’s moment to stand up as an Arctic nation,” said Pompeo at the start of May. “The region has become an arena of global power and competition.” The new ice-free pole will be a place of “opportunity and abundance” with “untapped reserves of oil, gas, uranium, gold, fish, and rare earth minerals.” And the disappearance of the polar ice itself will only open up new shipping lanes.
At a meeting where the chief concern was how rapidly the north was warming, Pompeo’s message was one of hands-rubbing greed, his only concern who would win the “strategic engagement in the Arctic” and obtain “Arctic interests and its real estate.” Pompeo didn’t even talk about the climate crisis in terms of something that’s a concern; he talked about beating out Russia and China for the uncovered resources and shipping access. For bonus points, when the rest of the Arctic Council tried to issue a statement of concern that mentioned the Paris agreement, Pompeo shot that effort down.
The Trump regime isn’t undermining science and hiding data as a way to disguise the effects of the climate crisis. That’s just a step toward the actual goal of spreading the word that a warmer world is a better world. A richer world. A more American world. That’s its ultimate goal. Or, perhaps, its final solution.