Trump’s EPA Head Said Climate Change Is Not a Top Threat Because It’s ‘50 to 75 Years Out’

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator says unsafe drinking water is “probably the biggest environmental threat” the world faces.

Andrew Wheeler told CBS News in an interview airing Wednesday that climate change is “an important issue,” but most of the threats it poses are “50 to 75 years out” and it’s “unreasonable” for the 2020 Democratic candidates to focus so much on it.

Climate scientists see the necessity for broad and immediate action to address global warming. The United Nations says “now is the defining moment to do something about it.”

Wheeler was nominated by President Donald Trump and was confirmed last month.

I’ll bet that’s what fossil fuel barons said in 1955 in response to the concerns about CO2 and climate change described in The World We Live In.

Yet for the past century, temperatures have shown an upward trend. This has been particularly true in the last four decades (since 1915- SK), during which glaciers have been in retreat all around the world. The reasons for this gradual warming of the Earth cannot be defined with certainty. Along with water vapor and ozone, carbon dioxide helps to trap the Earth’s heat within the greenhouse of the atmosphere and prevents it from radiating away into space. In the last half century, the carbon dioxide ratio in the atmosphere has increased by 10%, a phenomenon which some attribute to expanding industry, pointing out that six billion tons of carbon dioxide pour from factory chimneys every year. (Emphasis added)