Physicist William Happer arrives for a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City on Jan. 13. (Albin Lohr-Jones/European Pressphoto Agency/Pool).
Trump met with crank physicist William Happer, the climate change denier’s climate change denier. Happer sings the wonders of carbon dioxide, extolling its virtues at every opportunity. He doesn’t get every little thing wrong, but he denies the big picture, human responsibility, and the rather serious question of balance, and what happens when instead of balance, you have a tipping point. What we have here is yet another omen of our impending doom.
…In a 2011 essay in the journal First Things, Happer further argued that “the ‘climate crusade’ is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types — even children’s crusades — all based on contested science and dubious claims.”
The essay triggered an in-depth rebuttal from Michael MacCracken, a climate scientist who formerly directed the U.S. Global Change Research Program in the Bill Clinton administration, and who characterized it as “so misleading that, in my view, it merits a paragraph-by-paragraph response.”
The meeting may be most noteworthy as an example of how Trump plans to get scientific advice — through meetings with people whose views are not necessarily part of the mainstream. It’s not a model that most scientists will approve of.
Trump has met individually not only with Happer, but also with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose views on the safety of vaccines have been rejected by scientific authorities. The meeting has caused alarm in the medical community.
The president-elect has not yet named a presidential science adviser.
This story is covered by The Washington Post, Gizmodo, and Raw Story.
