The rumored frontrunner for the same position for the Trump administration is William Happer, a physicist from Princeton. Happer’s academic science credentials are solid, but he’s earned a reputation as a climate-change skeptic, with good reason. He recently told the Guardian, “There’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult. It’s like Hare Krishna or something like that. They’re glassy-eyed and they chant. It will potentially harm the image of all science.”
The Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Broadly, Happer isn’t a climate denialist per se, rather he’s a climate change enthusiast, firmly believing that further elevated CO2 levels would be beneficial for humanity. He also professes to care deeply about the scientific method. So, in this spirit, I’ll challenge these assumptions with a mind open to his viewpoint.
Happer told ProPublica earlier this month that historical predictions had overestimated the climate change that we observe today: “What’s not only shaky but almost certainly wrong is the predicted warming,” he said. “In 1988, you could look at the predictions of warming that we would have today and we’re way below anything Hansen predicted at that time.”
