Scott Pruitt’s Civilization-Threatening Lie
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by Justin Gillis,
From the day he walked into Congress as the nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has been trying to foist a colossal lie on the American public.
“Science tells us that the climate is changing, and human activity in some manner impacts that change,” he said that day, 14 months ago. “The human ability to measure with precision the extent of that impact is subject to continuing debate and dialogue, as well they should be.”
In other words: We do not know enough about the risks to take any action. Burn that coal, baby! Mr. Pruitt, confirmed by the Senate in a close vote, then proceeded to begin dismantling the modest regulations on climate change that the Obama administration had put in place.
This is not just any old white lie that Mr. Pruitt has been telling. This is a civilization-threatening lie, a lie that will kill people and destroy small nations, if not some large ones. Future generations will see him as a man guilty of a major historical crime, along with his enablers in Congress and their puppet masters in the fossil-fuel industry.
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