DOE Secy. Wright Wants More Coal Oil & Gas And Says So At Jordan Peterson's Climate Liars' Festival

[hatrack]

Donald Trump’s new energy secretary has today vowed to “get out of the way” of coal, oil and gas, and called the UK’s 2050 net zero target “a sinister goal” that would “impoverish” people. Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive appointed by U.S. President Trump, was speaking via video link at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, a right-wing forum run by fierce opponents of climate policies.

He also downplayed the threat from extreme weather, and suggested that climate action is part of a plot to “grow government power” and “shrink human freedom”. The ARC conference, taking place this week at the ExCel centre in east London, includes speeches by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, Republican Party Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and Canadian psychologist and ARC founder Jordan Peterson.

EDIT

Wright told the ARC audience today that he wanted to “increase the supply of affordable, reliable energy” by lifting the pause on natural gas and scrapping regulations on nuclear energy. When asked about coal, oil and gas, he said: “Oh absolutely. The world today runs on coal oil and gas, and it’s been a tremendous success. I should have said number one [of his plan] is get out of the way of the production, export and enhancement of our volumes of coal, oil and gas.”

The energy secretary also attacked the UK’s legally-binding target of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050. “Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal”, he said. “It’s a terrible goal. It’s both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it – and you’re sitting in a country that has aggressively pursued this goal – has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous cost.” He added: “This is not energy transition, this is lunacy. This is impoverishing your own citizens in a delusion that this is somehow gonna make the world a better place. It’s not.”

EDIT

https://www.desmog.com/2025/02/17/u-s-energy-secretary-chris-wright-backs-coal-and-attacks-sinister-climate-targets-at-arc-conference/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Secy Wright is as stupid as a boiled frog. Denialism does not defeat physics. . . . nt

[hatrack]

2. Easy to ignore reality when you do it by blindfolding yourself with stacks of $1,000 bills.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Until reality bites his ass. His grandchildren will hate him if they don't already. . . . nt

[NNadir]

4. One way to legitamize a lie is to wrap it around a truth.

My generation spent trillions of dollars to achieve so called "net zero," and it is true that those trillions were ineffective. At the same time as we spent those trillions we demonized the technology that might have worked at the exclusion of attacking fossil fuels, nuclear energy. I was not exception in my youth but once I understood the psychology of my unfortunate views, and in addition, the facts, I changed my mind.

Addressing extreme global heating is feasible, not likely, not cheap (although cheaper than destroying the planetary atmosphere) and not popular but, this said, we should not take too great a superior attitude to the liars in question here, as much as we are justified in despising them.

We, after all are liars too, even if we have only lied to ourselves.