Anthony Scaramucci, a member of Donald Trump’s Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, said the scientific community gets a lot of things wrong during a conversation about climate change.
“I know that the current president believes that human beings are affecting the climate,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Wednesday on “New Day.” “There are scientists that believe that that’s not happening.”
“There was overwhelming science that the earth was flat and there was an overwhelming science that we were the center of the world,” Scaramucci added. “We get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community.”
The vast majority of scientists have repeatedly concluded human activity has contributed to climate change. At least 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities,” according to NASA.
Scaramucci pointed out, “I am not a scientist.”
“I’m not suggesting that we’re not affecting the change. I honestly don’t know.”
“Whether you believe in climate change or not, we want clean air. We want clean water for the American people, but we also want energy independence,” he added.
Scaramucci said that Trump’s approach to environmental issues will be based on “common sense” not political ideology — even those based on scientific research.
“You’ve got a very common sense oriented president at the top of the chain now,” he said. “Some of the stuff you’re reading and some of the stuff I’m reading is very ideologically based about the climate. We don’t want it to be that way.”
Scaramucci said that the Trump team is on a “intellectual curiosity expedition” to see which Energy Department employees worked on climate change issues.
But the Obama Administration rejected that request.
“Our principle — this is a principle that presidents of both parties have long abided by — is that we should observe the protections that are in place that ensure that career civil servants are evaluated based on merit and not on politics,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
“I’m sure the President-elect used the same kind of criteria when choosing his new Department of Energy secretary as well,” he added, smiling. “Don’t you think?”