Listen to this article

The White House has created a panel to examine that very question and is set to put a climate change skeptic at its helm. The Washington Post has indicated that the Trump administration intends to use an executive order to create a panel tasked with assessing the potential harm of climate change. The New York Times reported the committee, citing a memo dated February 14. The NYT called the Presidential Committee on Climate Security and it will consist of 12 individuals, including William Happer as head of the team. He was appointed to the National Security Council as the senior director for emerging technologies. It is noteworthy that the Princeton physicist is a known climate change denier.

The New York Times reported that Happer made news in 2015 after undercover members of the environmental campaign group Greenpeace posed as oil company representatives and persuaded him to write a scientific paper. He also assured them it would be unpaid labor of love. Happer informed the Greenpeace members, “More CO2 will benefit the world. The only way to limit CO2 would be to stop using fossil fuels, which I think would be a profoundly immoral and irrational policy”. The director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats published an assessment warning that climate change posed a security risk earlier this month.

The Pentagon said in 2014 that it had started to boost its “resilience” to stem the “immediate risks” it raised. The formation of the committee has sparked concern among climate change experts. Georgia Athletic Association distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences and geography, Marshall Shepherd informed Newsweek. Shepherd said, “Study after study from the military, bipartisan and nonpartisan organizations and the National Academy of Sciences have confirmed that climate change is a threat to national security. I actually served on one of the National Academy studies commissioned by the U.S Navy, and the findings were crystal clear. To form such a committee smells of confirmation bias and contradicts military generals and admirals that have spoken clearly on this topic”.