Trump’s mistrust of the intelligence community expands to the climate

Enlarge / William Happer, a retired Princeton physicist. (credit: Gage Skidmore)

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that it had obtained a document suggesting that the Trump administration is considering combining two areas where it has consistently dismissed expert conclusions: climate change and intelligence analysis. While the intelligence community has consistently accepted that climate change creates security risks for the United States, the document suggests that Trump will circumvent its advice by setting up an advisory committee in an effort headed by a retired professor noted for not accepting the conclusions of the scientific community.

The document is a National Security Council discussion paper, and it suggests using an executive order to set up a Presidential Committee on Climate Security. The committee would provide advice to Trump on the current climate and its future changes and how those affect the national security of the US.

Normally, these functions are provided by the scientific community and the intelligence community, respectively. But these parties have been giving Trump evidence that he's not interested in accepting.

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