TEHRAN, July 07 - Unlike US President Donald Trump who believes climate change and global warming is a Chinese creation, incoming Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler believes climate change is real and that humans have played a role in climate change.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -“I do believe climate change is real. I do believe that people have an impact on the climate,” Wheeler told the Washington Post.”
Wheeler’s stance suggests a break with many top Trump administration officials, including his embattled predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who cast doubt on how influential humans are on climate change.
Environmentalists had labeled Pruitt a “climate denier” that openly stated he does not believe carbon dioxide is a “primary contributor” to climate change.
Like Donald Trump his boss, Pruitt’s position was in contradiction with the agency he ran, which concluded in 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations" because they cause warming.
Pruitt’s ambiguous resignation
Scott Pruitt was reported to be "devastated" on Thursday after he was forced to resign under heavy pressure over a series of ethics-related controversies, contradicting President Donald Trump's account that the decision "was very much up to" Pruitt himself.
Trump told reporters on Thursday that Pruitt had approached him and offered to resign as opposed to being pushed out. But White House Chief of Staff John Kelly later delivered a message from the president that it was time for the scandal-plagued administrator to leave, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Pruitt did not want to leave his post and was described as being devastated that he had to resign, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing a personnel matter.
Trump announced the resignation on Twitter. “Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this,” Trump wrote.
Pruitt was one of Trump’s most polarizing cabinet members, removing many regulations on the energy and manufacturing industries.
Pruitt, 50, previously served as attorney general of the state of Oklahoma. Before becoming EPA chief, he had sued the federal agency more than a dozen times on behalf of his oil-drilling state.
Last year, Pruitt signed a proposed rule to repeal the Clean Power Plan, a policy adopted by the administration of former President Barack Obama to cut carbon emissions from power plants.
Source: Press TV
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