Scientist who thinks more CO₂ is great joins National Security Council

Enlarge (credit: Gage Skidmore)

For the many months preceding the appointment of Kelvin Droegemeir to finally fulfill the role of White House Science Advisor, there was a bit of a “will they/won’t they” storyline with retired Princeton physicist William Happer. Happer—who also served at the Department of Energy during the George H.W. Bush administration—is better known these days as a climate contrarian willing to publicly claim that CO₂ emissions are a boon rather than an existential threat.

In the end, Happer was not tapped as Science Advisor by the Trump administration, but E&E News reported Tuesday that he is now a member of the National Security Council.

Happer was previously listed as the director of a group called the “CO₂ Coalition,” which has a website that claims that CO₂ released from fossil fuels is just good news for global plant growth while having no real effect on Earth’s climate. (These claims are false.) He has also taken to referring to the field of climate science as a “cult movement.”