Barrett says she doesn't have 'firm views' on climate change

During her confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, said she is neutral when it comes to climate change, holding no "firm views."

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) brought up climate change during his questioning, when he said to Barrett, "My colleagues think you're only qualified if you're dumb, if you have a blank slate. If you've never thought about the world. Have you thought about the world?"

Barrett said yes, she had, and Kennedy followed-up by asking if she has thought about "social problems," "economic problems," and "climate change." Barrett answered in the affirmative regarding social and economic problems, and told Kennedy regarding climate change, she's "read about" the subject, but is "certainly not a scientist. I mean, I've read things on climate change — I would not say I have firm views on it." Kennedy did not press Barrett further on the topic.

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Dr. Jennifer Marlon, a researcher with the Yale Program on Climate Communication, told Missouri news station KOMU earlier this month that Americans are increasingly seeing climate change as a major issue. In conservative Missouri, "a strong majority" of people are "convinced that climate change is happening, and that it is a serious risk that is going to cause harm to future generations, certainly to other plants and animals, that it's going to harm people in the United States." She added that climate change is "not an opinion. The climate is in fact changing. We have over 250,000 different pieces of evidence, indicators of how that climate is changing." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.