EPA chief claims climate change might not necessarily be 'a bad thing'
President Trump's Environmental Protection Agency has come down hard on rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change, even silencing a report by the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program last fall that detailed how climate change is affecting everything from precipitation to air and water temperatures. Now the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has gone as far as to suggest that climate change might not "necessarily" be "a bad thing."
Pruitt appeared on Nevada's KSNV on Tuesday, where he rhetorically wondered, "Is [climate change] an existential threat?" He added: "We know that humans have flourished during times of … warming trends," and said it was merely "assumptions" that "because the climate is warming that that necessarily is a bad thing."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Pruitt has a long history of frustrating the scientific community with his comments about climate change, such as expressing doubt over whether carbon dioxide from human activity is a driving factor behind the environmental changes being recorded. Last fall, The Lancet reported that there were more than 9 million premature deaths from pollution in 2015, and that if not addressed, pollution "threatens the continuing survival of human societies." Jeva Lange
-
Grok in the crosshairs as EU launches deepfake porn probeIN THE SPOTLIGHT The European Union has officially begun investigating Elon Musk’s proprietary AI, as regulators zero in on Grok’s porn problem and its impact continent-wide
-
‘But being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why have homicide rates reportedly plummeted in the last year?Today’s Big Question There could be more to the issue than politics
-
The world is entering an ‘era of water bankruptcy’The explainer Water might soon be more valuable than gold
-
Climate change could lead to a reptile ‘sexpocalypse’Under the radar The gender gap has hit the animal kingdom
-
The former largest iceberg is turning blue. It’s a bad sign.Under the radar It is quickly melting away
-
How drones detected a deadly threat to Arctic whalesUnder the radar Monitoring the sea in the air
-
‘Jumping genes’: how polar bears are rewiring their DNA to survive the warming ArcticUnder the radar The species is adapting to warmer temperatures
-
Environment breakthroughs of 2025In Depth Progress was made this year on carbon dioxide tracking, food waste upcycling, sodium batteries, microplastic monitoring and green concrete
-
Crest falling: Mount Rainier and 4 other mountains are losing heightUnder the radar Its peak elevation is approximately 20 feet lower than it once was
-
Death toll from Southeast Asia storms tops 1,000speed read Catastrophic floods and landslides have struck Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia
