Trump Administration hires 2 Alabama climate change skeptics for energy department

The U.S. Energy Department has hired two Alabama scientists who are well-known for their skepticism about human-influenced climate change.

The New York Times is reporting that John Christy, Alabama’s state climatologist since 2000, and Roy Spencer, a colleague at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, are listed in the Energy Department’s internal email system as current employees of the agency.

It is not immediately clear what the two scientists were working on or whether they are being paid.

Dr. Christy told the Times he is an “unpaid person who’s available to them if they need it.”

In addition to his position with the state, Dr. Christy is the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at UAH, and a fellow in the American Meteorological Society. He served with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, but was dismissed in 2021.

Dr. Spencer, a UAH research scientist, is a former NASA research scientist and a visiting fellow for two conservative organizations, the Heritage Foundation and the Heartland Institute.

Both Christy and Spencer have worked together on several climate projects. The two developed a global temperature data set from microwave data observed from satellites beginning in 1979. Together, they were awarded NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1991.

Earlier this year, the two collaborated with UAH researcher William Braswell on a study on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which explains why metropolitan areas are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas.

Their study, published this year, looked at temperatures in cities among six classes of population density and in 22 different historical periods between 1880 and 2020. One issue stemming from the data - how the rate of warming is calculated, accounting for the differences in population density.

Christy, while often called a climate change denier, says he acknowledges that the climate is warming and that human carbon emissions contribute to this warming, but argues that the impact is smaller than most other climate researchers contend. He disagrees with the use of the term “denier.”

Christy argues that reducing carbon emissions would have little impact on climate change and is a critic of efforts to mandate reduction of carbon emissions.

In 2016, Spencer wrote that “while the scientific consensus on climate change is a mile wide, it is only inches deep.”

“The most pertinent questions really are: (1) just how much warming is occurring? (not as much as predicted); (2) how much of that warming is being caused by humans? (we don’t really know); (3) is modest warming a bad thing? (maybe not); and (4) is there anything we can do about it anyway? (not without a new energy technology),” he wrote.

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