Trump continues to deny the reality of climate change. The White House is assembling a panel to undermine conclusions from Trump’s own intelligence officials that climate change poses a significant threat to our national security. In fact, Trump has actually embraced climate deniers who believe that more pollution is a good thing.

The White House is preparing a new panel to undermine the intelligence community’s consensus that climate change is a national security threat.

Washington Post:  “White House Prepares To Scrutinize Intelligence Agencies’ Finding That Climate Change Threatens National Security.”

Washington Post: “The initiative represents the Trump administration’s most recent attempt to question the findings of federal scientists and experts on climate change and comes less than three weeks after Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats delivered a worldwide threat assessment that identified it as a significant security risk.”

Trump’s climate panel is expected to be spearheaded by someone who is not a professionally trained climate scientist and who seriously said that “more CO2 is actually a benefit to the earth.”

Washington Post: “The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security, which would be established by executive order, is being spearheaded by William Happer, a National Security Council senior director. Happer, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, has said that carbon emissions linked to climate change should be viewed as an asset rather than a pollutant.”

Washington Post: “‘I like to call this the CO2 anti-defamation league,’ he said, gesturing to a slide, ‘because there is the CO2 molecule, and it has undergone decade after decade of abuse, for no reason.  ‘We’re doing our best to try and counter this myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant,’ he said. ‘It’s not a pollutant at all. . . . We should be telling the scientific truth, that more CO2 is actually a benefit to the earth.’”

Meanwhile, Trump’s EPA embraced recommendations from a toxicologist who actually believes low levels of pollution and radiation are good for you.

Los Angeles Times: “Scientist Says Some Pollution Is Good For You — A Disputed Claim Trump’s EPA Has Embraced.”

Los Angeles Times: “In early 2018, a deputy assistant administrator in the EPA, Clint Woods, reached out to a Massachusetts toxicologist best known for pushing a public health standard suggesting that low levels of toxic chemicals and radiation are good for people. ‘I wanted to check to see if you might have some time in the next couple of days for a quick call to discuss a couple items …,’ Woods wrote to Ed Calabrese. Less than two weeks later, Calabrese’s suggestions on how the EPA should assess toxic chemicals and radiation were introduced, nearly word for word, in the U.S. government’s official journal, the Federal Register.”