Meet the Carbon-Praising Physicist Behind Trump Climate Push

Feb. 22, 2019, 12:34 PM UTC

The man behind a White House proposal to re-evaluate the national security risks of climate change is a physicist who once compared the maligning of carbon dioxide to the “demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”

William Happer is a National Security Council technology adviser spearheading an initiative to create a presidential committee on climate. He has long drawn scrutiny for insisting that rising carbon dioxide emissions are a boon for the planet, not a danger.

Scientists see his proposal as part of a disturbing trend in which the Trump administration elevates ideological opponents of established scientific views.

William Happer
Photographer: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pool via Bloomberg

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