The selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as President-elect Trump’s EPA head is appalling.
As a clear climate change doubter, if not denier, Pruitt is clearly unqualified for this position. He holds his science-dismissive views despite an overwhelming verdict within the scientific community that climate change is real, measurable and poses significant threats to our planet’s future.
We know, and have known for decades, that the burning of fossil fuels, with its resulting increase in CO2 emissions, causes increased heat to be trapped within the atmosphere. This increase in temperatures wreaks havoc on life below.
The coral reefs know it; they are dying off as is the life that depends on them due to this increase. Our birds certainly know the climate is warming and are moving north to climes more suitable for their survival. But Pruitt insists that the legitimacy of climate change is still open to debate, notwithstanding all the evidence increasingly available and the consensus within the scientific community.
Instead, Pruitt opposes President Obama’s clean power initiatives, maintains strong ties to and support of oil and gas CO2 polluters, and wishes to bring to an end much of the work of the EPA. Does this sound like a legitimate candidate to run an agency designed to protect our air, our water and ultimately our health and the health of all life in our world? I think not.
ALAN SHULMAN
New London