Energy Sec. Rick Perry recently said that he does not believe carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of global climate change.
Sec. Perry was interviewed on CNBC, and during the interview, he was asked if he believed that carbon emissions were the cause of global warming, to which he responded, “No”.
Perry said that the argument over global climate change should not be “Is the climate changing, is man having an effect on it?’ Yeah, we are. The question should be just how much, and what are the policy changes that we need to make to effect that?”
Perry is not the only member of the current administration to deny the scientific consensus on the role of carbon dioxide in global climate change, as when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt appeared on CNBC earlier this year, he also responded “No” to the same question.
The answers of Pruitt and Perry have frustrated many environmentalists, who argue that the evidence available on the issue of global climate change supports the claim that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing the temperature of the earth to rise. In fact, 97% of actual climate scientists concur. Perry rejected the idea that role of carbon dioxide emissions in global climate change is settled.
“This idea that the science is absolutely settled, and if you don’t believe it’s settled then you somehow are a neanderthal, that is so inappropriate from my perspective,” Perry said. “If you are going to be a wise, intellectually engaged person, being a skeptic about these issues is quite all right.”
Sec. Perry has also been a vocal about his skepticism around renewable energy sources, believing that they will make the energy grid less reliable. However, experts have also pushed back on this issue as well, arguing that there is no evidence renewable energy sources impact the reliability of the grid.
