Notorious UD Climate Change Denier Hired for Top NOAA Post
NPR is reporting that David LeGates, the University of Delaware geology geography professor who has made a career of denying that human activity has affected global climate, has been appointed to a top position at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by the Trump administration.
Excerpts from the From the NPR story (emphasis mine):
Legates has a long history of using his position as an academic scientist to publicly cast doubt on climate science. … In 2007, Legates was one of the authors of a paper that questioned previous findings about the role of climate change in destroying the habitat of polar bears. That research was partially funded by grants from Koch Industries, the lobbying group the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil, according to InsideClimate News.
Legates also appeared in a video pushing the discredited theory that the sun is the cause of global warming. In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2014, Legates argued that a climate science report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously stated that humans are causing global warming.
“He’s not just in left field, he’s not even near the ballpark,” says Jane Lubchenco, professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and head of NOAA under President Obama.
I highlighted that partial sentence above because I want everyone to see what their tax dollars are paying for. As the NPR story notes, LeGates’ job at UD lends authority to ideas that otherwise might fail to gain acceptance.
LeGates is hardly the only right-wing academic with fringe ideas who gained tenure at UD. The university still lists Linda Gottfredson, the education psychologist who took grant money from the eugenics-supporting Pioneer Fund and basically agrees with Charles Murray’s “The Bell Curve,” as a professor emeritus. In that case the university actually fought accepting the grant and lost, but you have to wonder how and why academics interested in such right-wing-fringe areas of research came to be hired in the first place.
David Legates represents a significantly uniformed, psychologically delusional group of pseudo-intellectuals who couldn’t hold down a job as a chicken catcher. Look for him to appear on the Rick Jensen show as the alt-view (read: wrong) opinion on climate change.
Representative Kowalko
He has been a guest on the Jensen show, but I don’t know when he was last on.
While we’re on the subject of ill-informed ego-massager’s. Here you go people. Chris Coons own words describing his inability or refusal to comprehend the threat to the American public that every piece of human excrement nominated/appointed by Trump presents. Hey Chris maybe you can gather up a group for a prayer-fest and in invite these grifter friends of yours to change their ways. Maybe you can pray for Legates to be stranded on a rapidly melting ice floe with a hungry polar bear or out enjoying some stories around the campfire in Oregon. Shame Coons, shame on you.
“After careful consideration, I’ve decided to support President Trump’s nomination of Alex Azar to serve as our next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I have known Mr. Azar for several decades and have always been impressed with his intellect and work ethic. Mr. Azar also brings a wealth of experience to this role, having served in a number of different senior roles at HHS and in the private sector.
“I personally met with Mr. Azar last month and pressed him on a number of key issues that he will impact as Secretary, including the Affordable Care Act, drug pricing, and continued progress on health care system delivery reform. There is plenty that we disagree on, but I was encouraged by his answers during our conversation and I believe he is committed to representing the interests of Delawareans and Americans everywhere. I disagree with most of the Trump Administration’s health policies, but HHS needs a competent leader. Mr. Azar is prepared to be that.”
VOTE SCARANE!
A picture is worth a thousand words, that picture says “I’m a big fucking douche-ass motherfucker” 167 times.
I think you mean Legates is a “geography” professor. That guy was a TA in some of my meteorology and climatology classes at the UD. Still seems like he holds the opinions of the guy he studied under… world renowned climate scientist, Dr. John R. Mather.
Thanks for the correction.
I think you should re-check the definition of “world renowned.”
Significantly, LeGates has never studied anywhere else — all his degrees are from UD.
“who has made a career of denying that human activity has affected global climate”
I would imagine that Legates doesn’t “deny” that human activity affects the climate. Like I said, he was a TA , and he was in the room when we were taught that deforestation and urban sprawl do affect aspects of the climate.
Read more closely:
In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2014, Legates argued that a climate science report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously stated that humans are causing global warming.
No dammit you’re wrong once again. (TA as in Total A**hole I presume) I’ve had dialogues with that smudge-pot of intelligence when he was Delaware’s State Climatologist. He has been, always was and always will be a Caesar Rodney Institute uneducated propagandist for the fossil fuel promoting conservative Republican agenda. Get your head out of your nether regions RSE you’re embarrassing yourself.
Representative John Kowalko
The hydrologic cycle isn’t the same thing as global climate change.
Hey I called that Legates appearance on the (Jensen/producer Randy), Fox mimicking, propaganda regurgitation “radio” show didn’t I? Sorry I missed it. I might have called in to debate that dimwitted pseudo-expert and his Caesar Rodney anti-clean energy/anti healthy air group of fossil fuel cultists. Thought Jensen would’ve called for an open ended/minded debate. Nah! just kidding that wouldn’t fit his profile of a pot-stirring agitator without any personal commitment or principals.
Representative John Kowalko
I’ve got 2 votes against Democratic incumbents here in Sussex at my house