Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by “leftist politicians.” Fossil fuels are the greenest energy sources. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be harmless.
These were some of the false claims made at a conference on Wednesday held by groups that reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. What might have seemed like a fringe event in years past this time boasted a prominent keynote speaker: Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and one of President Trump’s possible choices for the next attorney general.
“We aren’t just following blind obedience to whatever the dire, doom-and-gloom prediction of the day is,” Mr. Zeldin said at the conference, which drew around 220 attendees to the basement ballroom of a hotel in downtown Washington.
“We won’t sign up for the script that the world is imminently about to end,” Mr. Zeldin added, drawing applause from the crowd, which had given him a standing ovation before his speech.
The event made clear that climate change deniers are experiencing a triumphant resurgence in Mr. Trump’s Washington after years of feeling sidelined by the scientific and political establishments.
A vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is real and that it is caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They expect average global temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels within the next decade, unleashing dire impacts that include more deadly heat waves, coastal floods, water shortages and crop failures.
Earth has already warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution, scientific estimates suggest.
Mr. Trump, however, has derided the scientific consensus on global warming as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” And Mr. Zeldin has said that the E.P.A. is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion” by rolling back dozens of regulations that burdened the fossil fuel industry.
The conference on Wednesday brought together people with varying levels of skepticism of the scientific consensus. Some attendees flatly denied that the planet was warming, while others recognized the trend but argued that it was not an emergency and that the potential solutions were too costly.
The event was organized by the Heartland Institute, a research organization that says it promotes free-market solutions and that has attacked mainstream climate science for decades. Other sponsors included the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit group that claims falsely that planet-warming carbon dioxide is beneficial to humans.
The influence of both groups waned under the Biden administration, which embraced the science behind climate change and pushed policies designed to address it. Mr. Zeldin’s appearance at the conference underscored how the groups’ sway has grown in the Trump era.
Last month, the CO2 Coalition successfully nominated an eye doctor with no background in air pollution science to a committee that advises the E.P.A. on the latest air pollution research. On Wednesday, the group gave out tote bags, pamphlets, mints and blue-and-green stress balls that resembled miniature Earths to conference attendees. The white lettering on the stress balls read: “Don’t stress. There is no climate crisis.”
Next to the CO2 Coalition’s booth, a chemist and businessman from Wisconsin, Stephen Einhorn, was distributing copies of his own pamphlet, whose cover promised to reveal “what the climate activists don’t know or don’t want you to know.”
“I’m very happy that Trump appointed Zeldin,” Mr. Einhorn said in an interview. “I’m surprised at how much progress he’s made toward informing the American people what the actual science is, which is that we have a wonderful climate. We’re blessed. There’s nothing to worry about.”
The Heartland Institute does not disclose its funders. In the past, it has received financial support from oil and gas interests as well as the Mercer Family Foundation, an influential donor to conservative causes.
“Because we’re not as well-funded by industry as people think, we don’t have a fancy green room,” James M. Taylor, the president of the Heartland Institute, said in an interview outside the main ballroom.
The group receives around $4 million each year from foundations and individuals, Mr. Taylor said. If the Heartland Institute had recently received funding from the fossil fuel industry, he added, he wasn’t aware of it.
Pausing to reflect, Mr. Taylor said the second Trump administration had done more for the climate change denial movement than any other administration in history. He pointed to the E.P.A.’s extraordinary move in February to renounce the federal government’s legal authority to combat climate change.
“This is absolutely a moment of triumph,” Mr. Taylor said, adding, “It’s nice to be winning.”
In addition to Mr. Zeldin, the speakers at the conference included West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican who has built a career opposing federal climate regulations.
“I’m very hopeful that we’re going to keep the White House for a number of terms, but let’s take advantage of where we are now,” Mr. Morrisey said.
William Happer, a professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University who has argued that global warming is good for humanity, delivered the lunchtime address. He dismissed concerns about rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over a relatively carbon-intensive lunch of roasted chicken breast, cannellini bean ragù and ricotta cheesecake.
EDF Action, the political arm of the Environmental Defense Fund, put up posters outside the conference that protested the event and highlighted the effects of climate change nationwide.
“Climate denial won’t lower insurance costs,” one poster read, referring to high home insurance premiums in areas prone to wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters fueled by rising global temperatures.
The conference was set to continue on Thursday with a speech by John Clauser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning physicist who has claimed, falsely, that clouds have a net cooling effect on the planet.
Maxine Joselow covers climate change and the environment for The Times from Washington.
The post Climate Change Denial Sees a Resurgence in Trump’s Washington appeared first on New York Times.
