One of the most frightening unknowns for the liberal media is how President Donald Trump plans to rein in the rampaging Environmental Protection Agency. The Trump administration recently banned the agency from using its social media accounts until further notice. This apparently spooked CBS Tuesday, because on Evening News they glorified the efforts of environmentalists who are trying desperately to save EPA’s research data out of an irrational fear Trump will lock it up.
“Environmental professors like Bethany Wiggin listened carefully to candidate Trump talk about climate change,” reported CBS’s Jim Axelrod as he played video of Trump calling climate change a hoax, “Which is why she, her colleagues and her students are now racing to back up on other server's information available on government websites.”
Axelrod said that clamping down on the agency’s use of social media “stoked their fears the administration will limit access to data as it rolls back environmental protections.” This comes from the ridiculous notion that conservatives want to let loss and destroy the planet with pollution.
“I'm really worried the facts might become more difficult to access, so there is a kind of vulnerability of internet materials already,” Wiggin told him, “They become more vulnerable still when controlled by an administration who finds them inconvenient.”
CBS continued to smear Trump’s nominee to lead the EPA, Scott Pruitt, by pointing out his views on climate change. “Just last May, Pruitt wrote, ‘Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged,’” Axelrod quoted.
The CBS reporter leaned on the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to attack Pruitt. “What we heard at the hearings was a dangerous new form of climate denial,” argued Rachel Cleetus, a member of the organization. “Cleetus says with data showing 2016 as the hottest year on record and sea levels rising at alarming rates that could trigger massive flooding by the end of the century, limiting regulations on energy production could be catastrophic,” Axelrod added.
What Axelrod failed to mention is the organization’s radical nature in trying to shut up and remove any debate about climate change from the public square. Scientists who disagree with them are labeled “contrarians” and smeared. According to the Media Research Center’s CNSNews, UCS has a long history dating back to the 1970s of entangling themselves in predominantly far left causes, even those that are not connected to scientific studies such as the deployment of a missile defense shield.
CBS’s hyping of such negative attitudes towards the Trump administration is exactly what Press Secretary Sean Spicer complained about on Monday. During a press conference, he said it was demoralizing to turn on the TV and see the constant negativity. Spicer is right, the liberal media automatically starts with the opinion that bad things are going to occur when it’s a Republican in power.
Transcript below:
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CBS Evening News
January 24, 2017
6:37:00 pm EasternSCOTT PELLEY: The Trump administration is also temporarily silencing the Environmental Protection Agency to align the EPA’s public statements with the president's. Here's Jim Axelrod.
[Cuts to video]
JIM AXELROD: At president Trump's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, environmental professors like Bethany Wiggin listened carefully to candidate Trump talk about climate change.
DONALD TRUMP: So, Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the that— A lot of it is a hoax.
AXELROD: Which is why she, her colleagues and her students are now racing to back up on other server's information available on government websites. Temporarily restrictions announced today that EPA employees can no longer post or blog from government accounts stoked their fears the administration will limit access to data as it rolls back environmental protections.
BETHANY WIGGIN: I'm really worried the facts might become more difficult to access, so there is a kind of vulnerability of internet materials already. They become more vulnerable still when controlled by an administration who finds them inconvenient.
AXELROD: Just today the Badlands National Park tweeted about climate change in defiance of the White House and then deleted them. And while the president's nominee to run the EPA, Scott Pruitt, disagreed with Mr. Trump in his hearings.
SENATOR: Do you agree that global warming is a hoax?
SCOTT PRUITT: I do now Senator.
AXELROD: Just last May, Pruitt wrote, "Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged.”
RACHEL CLEETUS: What we heard at the hearings was dangerous new form of climate denial.
AXELROD: Rachel Cleetus is with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
CLEETUS: This is a sort of climate denial that says, “Yes, it's real, but we don't know what is causing it.” And it's basically yet another way to kick the can down the road and not take any action.
AXELROD: Cleetus says with data showing 2016 as the hottest year on record and sea levels rising at alarming rates that could trigger massive flooding by the end of the century, limiting regulations on energy production could be catastrophic.
CLEETUS: This is false choice. We don't have to choose between a safe climate and economic growth. We can have both.
[Cuts back to live]
AXELROD: The Centers for Disease Control has now canceled the conference that would have explored the effects of climate change on public health. As for President Trump, after that meeting with auto executives today, he also said quote, "I am, to a large extent, an environmentalist. I believe in it."
PELLEY: Jim Axelrod for us tonight. Jim, thank you.
