Could there be anything more troubling than a mentally deficient president taking the world to the brink of nuclear disaster to satisfy his unquenchable lust for power? No, quite frankly, there is not, but a close second is the current head of the EPA being the keynote speaker at a conference put together by the Heartland Institute, a no-think tank that once put up billboards comparing climate advocates to the Unabomber. Lee Zeldin, by Gage Skidmore (CC BY SA 2.0 license) An adjunct of the larger Kochtocracy — which includes the Heritage Foundation — it is funded largely by fossil fuel companies and special interests. It has been attacking the notion that human activity has anything to do with the rise in average global temperartures for decades. Lee Zeldin, the current EPA administrator, is a former minor Repubnican congressperson from New York who attached himself to The Donald in a cynical move to promote his flagging political career. Here is some of what he said to wild cheers from the audience. “No longer are we going to rely on bad, flawed assumptions instead of accurate, present day facts, without apology or regret.” He poked fun at the media for calling him “controversial” because he does not practice “blind obedience to whatever the dire, doom and gloom position of the day is from John Kerry or Al Gore or AOC.” “It’s controversial that we won’t sign up for the script that the world is imminently about to end,” he said. Then he went on to deride previous administrations for paying attention to warnings by climate scientists about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, and for ignoring “what’s good and necessary about carbon dioxide for the life of the planet. “What happened for years and decades in this country is that the elite, the ruling class, the people who would run the agencies, the people who have decided that they are in charge of the science, the politicians, the biggest grifters: there would be a cabal that would decide exactly which model is the chosen model, which methodology is the higher methodology. And if all of you in this room, if any of you in this room dare to challenge any of that, well shame on you.” “What we are doing in the last 14 months is no surprise,” Zeldin said in his speech. “It is what I pledged during my confirmation hearing, and it is what the American public voted for when they put Donald J Trump back in office. And thank God they did.” Preaching The Gospel You can clearly see how this is a distillation of the gospel according to Tramp, a tired rehash of the so-called president’s unending complaints about the “green new scam.” It also fully embraces the constant refrain by the Moron of Mar-A-Loco about “the swamp” — a reference to the entire federal bureaucracy and the scientists and public servants who devote their lives to serving the people of the United States. Tramp loathes educated people because they expose him for the transactional, know-nothing buffoon he is. That is the reason science has been severely devalued by the current administration, a move that will leave the US falling further behind in its quest to catch up with scientists and engineers in China, India, and the EU. The signature achievement for Zeldin so far is his decision to revoke the “endangerment finding” that has been the basis of most climate regulations since 2011. It basically says that too much carbon dioxide can be a detriment to the environment and human health. The climate crazies at the Heartland Institute have fought that policy vigorously since it was announced. Zeldin told the group of his “admiration” for its implacable opposition that began even before the endangerment finding went into force. “Carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth and happens to result from every single bit of human and animal activity on the planet, is not a pollutant and never was,” Anthony Watts, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute said in February. He is correct, of course. The carbon cycle is intrinsic to all life.” We would point out that water is also essential to human life, but as the passengers on the Titanic found out, you can have too much of a good thing. James Taylor, the president of the Heartland Institute, told the conference, “Restoring CO2 and restoring warmth to our world is … a restoration to more ideal conditions. The truth is clear: there is no climate crisis,” he said, and called Zeldin “the greatest EPA administrator ever.” Critics Are Outraged Joe Bonfiglio, the director of the Environmental Defense Fund in the US, was incensed by Zeldin’s remarks. Accordon to KARE News, he claimed “The Heartland Institute is not a serious scientific organization. It’s a disinformation factory. Having the EPA administrator serve as their opening act isn’t just embarrassing, it’s a signal of how completely the Trump administration has abandoned its obligation to protect the public from pollution.” He added that it was “surreal” for the head of the EPA to appear before a “fringe of the conservative right,” and called the speech tone-deaf and even insulting to Americans, given the rising costs of gasoline and other energy and more frequent occurrences of extreme weather such as a gigantic heat dome that baked the Southwest last month and smashed March heat records in 14 states. The Heartland Institute and its supporters “don’t want you to look out the window,” Bonfiglio said in an interview. “They actually need you to not look out the window in order to defend their positions. A core to their belief is that climate change is not a threat.” Carolyn Horan, a spokesperson for the EPA, bristled at the criticism by Bonfiglio and others, saying “the era of EPA as a vehicle for radical ideology is over.” She added that Zeldin speaks to a “wide variety of ideologically different groups and individuals to promote the agenda of the Trump EPA.” Zeldin has returned the agency’s focus to fulfill its statutory obligations to protect human health and the environment, “backed by gold standard science, not doomsday models designed to scare the public into compliance,” she said in an email. If the unprecedented rains, extended droughts, a sharp increase in wildfires, more powerful hurricanes, and more days with temperatures well into the 100 degree (F) range in many population centers around the world don’t make you sit up and take notice that the climate is changing and not for the better, perhaps an electroencephalogram in in order to determine whether these people have any measurable brain activity at all. Magical thinking and bushels of greenbacks shoveled their way by fossil fuel apologists will not atone for their cruel and heartless disregard for the Earth and every living thing on it. What a legacy to leave to his heirs. Update: As this story was being written, Emily Atkin of HEATED published a story with this subtitle: “America’s oil executives have pocketed $1.4 billion selling stock during the Iran war, a new investigation shows.” If you thought this war was about enriched uranium, you are simply not paying attention. It is about enriching a select few — such as the supporters of the Heartland Institute — at your expense. We don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, people!