Trump Transition Team Member Likens Climate Science To Flat Earth Theory

That U.S. President-elect Donald Trump does not believe in human-induced climate change is not news (“It’s called weather,” he said in an interview Sunday). His picks for his transition team as well as Cabinet posts have many people worried about how the incoming administration will affect the work being done to mitigate the pernicious effects of a warming planet, and climate scientists are making copies of federal scientific data in fear of the impending Trump presidency.

And in another attempt at debunking the science behind climate change studies, Anthony Scaramucci, a member of the president-elect’s transition team’s executive committee, told CNN’s “New Day” program Wednesday that the scientific community often got things wrong in the conversation on climate change, and compared the science with debunked theories from before the Middle Ages.

“I know that the current president believes that human beings are affecting the climate. There are scientists that believe that that's not happening,” Scaramucci said, adding: “There was overwhelming science that the earth was flat and there was an overwhelming science that we were the center of the world. We get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community.”

Scaramucci seems to have not noticed it was the development of science that led to those theories being scrapped in favor of others that better fit in with observable facts. He also seems to forget that progress in any field, including science, and accumulation of knowledge happens over time. The point was made by the show’s host Chris Cuomo.

“It’s called ignorance. You learn over time,” Cuomo said in response to Scaramucci’s flat Earth comment.

Scaramucci appeared to back down somewhat later when he said: “I’m not suggesting that we’re not affecting the change. I honestly don’t know, I’m not a scientist.”

It is ironic that Scaramucci, a Wall Street investor, is part of Trump’s transition team, since the president-elect during campaigning regularly assailed his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for having close ties to Wall Street.

Scaramucci’s comments also came on the same day that Trump met with a large number of industry leaders from the Silicon Valley. Some of those tech industry luminaries, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced a $20 billion climate fund Monday to support the development of green energy sources and clean technology. Also present at the meeting was Elon Musk, who has long pushed for green energy solutions with his companies Tesla Motors and SolarCity.

Trump has picked Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon — an oil company — as his secretary of state. He has nominated Rick Perry as his pick for secretary of the Department of Energy. Perry, a former Texas governor and climate change denier, has also said if he were president, he would eliminate the department he is now slated to head. Similarly, Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick for heading the Environmental Protection Agency, has often clashed with the same agency as the attorney general for the state of Oklahoma.