Myron Ebell, the climate skeptic who will lead the EPA transition

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency‘s mission statement reads “Our mission is to protect human health and the environment.” Myron Ebell is one of the most well-known climate skeptics, and President-elect Donald Trump is choosing him to lead the EPA transition. This means the climate policies that were set up under the Obama administration will drastically change.

Ebell is famous for his writings that question climate change “alarmism,” as he calls it. He’s the chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, which is a group of nonprofits that question climate change alarmism and oppose energy-rationing policies. It’s obvious that the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment will not be met, considering climate change is the greatest threat to every human’s health and it’s the greatest threat to our environment.

What’s even more disgusting is that Ebell is proud of being featured in Greenpeace’s Field Guide to Climate Criminals, and he considers being called a “misleader” of global warming by Rolling Stone an accomplishment. And don’t worry, it gets worse. Ebell has also called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal, saying Obama’s participation in the Paris Climate Agreement “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.” He admitted to Vanity Fair that there’s been a “little bit of warming…but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.” It’s no surprise that Trump is choosing climate skeptic Ebell, considering the President-elect himself has called global warming “bullsh*t,” and he has said he will “cancel” the Paris Climate Agreement, while happily undoing President Obama’s executive actions on climate change.

Other leaders are being lined up for the Energy Department and Interior Department teams, like republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna who will head the DOE team. Former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt will lead the effort for that agency. McKenna’s lobbying clients in 2016 include Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, Southern Company Services, Dow Chemical Co. and Competitive Power Ventures Inc.

So, as we mourned the loss of the environment on November 8, 2016, we admit that us environmentalists are very afraid that Trump has promised increased fossil fuel development, and that he will undo the Obama administration’s climate policies. And we’re disheartened that Trump’s stance on the environment is so black and white.