If so, it’s quite a reversal for Trump, who spent years publicly bashing the idea of global warming as a ‘hoax.’<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 Does he or doesn\u2019 t he? Believe in climate change, that is.
You\u2019 d think that would be an easy enough question the day after President Trump announced he was pulling the U. S. out of the landmark global accord aimed at combatting global warming.
But don\u2019 t bother asking at the White House.
\u201cI have not had an opportunity to have that discussion\u201d with the president, responded press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday.
\u201cYou should ask him that, \u201d offered White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt dodged the question, too.
The president also ignored it during an unrelated bill-signing.
But his U. N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, answered the question in a new way this weekend.
\u201cPresident Trump believes the climate is changing, \u201d she said on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d \u201cAnd he believes pollutants are part of that equation. So that is the fact.\u201d
If so, it\u2019s quite a reversal for Trump, who spent years publicly bashing the idea of global warming as a \u201choax\u201d and \u201ctotal con job\u201d in books, interviews and tweets. He openly challenged the scientific consensus that the climate is changing and man-made carbon emissions are largely to blame.
\u201cGlobal warming is an expensive hoax!\u201d he tweeted in 2014.
But Trump has been largely silent on the issue since his election last fall. On Thursday, he made scarce mention of it in his lengthy remarks announcing America\u2019s exit from the Paris accord. Instead, he framed his decision as based on economics.
Here\u2019s what he\u2019s said before:
The president\u2019s twitter feed once was filled with references to \u201cso-called\u201d global warming being a \u201ctotal con job\u201d based on \u201cfaulty science and manipulated data.\u201d
An Associated Press search of his twitter archives revealed at least 90 instances in which he has referred to \u201cglobal warming\u201d and \u201cclimate change\u201d since 2011. In nearly every instance, he expressed skepticism or mockery.
\u201cThis very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bulls\u2014 has got to stop, \u201d he wrote in January 2014, spelling out the vulgarity.
Often the president has pointed to cold weather as evidence the climate scientists are wrong.
\u201cIt\u2019s 46 (really cold) and snowing in New York on Memorial Day \u2013 tell the so-called \u2018scientists\u2019 that we want global warming right now!\u201d he wrote in May 2013 \u2013 one of several instances in which he said that warming would be welcome.
\u201cWhere the hell is global warming when you need it?\u201d he asked in January 2015.
The same message was echoed in the president\u2019s books.
In \u201cGreat Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, \u201d Trump made a reference to \u201cthe mistaken belief that global climate change is being caused by carbon emissions.\u201d
\u201cIf you don\u2019 t buy that \u2013 and I don\u2019 t \u2013 then what we have is really just an expensive way of making the tree-huggers feel good about themselves, \u201d he wrote.
\u201cI\u2019 m not a believer in man-made global warming, \u201d Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in September 2015, after launching his bid for the White House. He bemoaned the fact that the U. S. was investing money and doing things \u201cto solve a problem that I don\u2019 t think in any major fashion exists.\u201d
\u201cI am not a believer, \u201d he said, \u201cUnless somebody can prove something to me\u2026 I am not a believer and we have much bigger problems.\u201d
By March 2016, the president appeared to allow that the climate was changing \u2013 but continued to doubt humans were to blame.
\u201cI think there\u2019s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I\u2019 m not a great believer, \u201d he told The Washington Post. \u201cThere is certainly a change in weather, \u201d he said.
Then-campaign manager, Conway explained Trump\u2019s view this way: \u201cHe believes that global warming is naturally occurring. That there are shifts naturally occurring.\u201d
In an interview with The New York Times in November, after the election, Trump was asked repeatedly whether he intended to leave the Paris accord and appeared to have a new open-mindedness. \u201cI\u2019 m looking at it very closely, \u201d he said.
Send questions\/comments to the editors.<\/p>\n

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