One of the most telling moments in US Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barretts's cross examination by Senator Kamala Harris yesterday came when Ms. Harris asked a series of three questions about Judge Barrett's belief system.
The judge was clearly on her guard, and was convinced that the Democratic senator was trying to entrap her ("I'm not sure exactly where you're going with this"), and she probably thought herself quite equal to the task of evading an incriminating admission. But she fell into Senator Harris' trap anyway.
Ms. Harris asked Judge Barrett whether she agreed that the coronavirus is contagious, and that smoking caused lung cancer, and then that climate change "is happening and that it's threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink". Ms. Barrett warily agreed with the first two propositions, which she called self-evident, but balked at the third, warning that Harris was trying to get her to express her opinion on "a very contentious matter of public debate, and I will not do that".
Clearly, then, Judge Barrett does not believe that the science around climate change is settled (even though 97% of climate scientists agree on it), and that it is merely a subject on which there are differing opinions, and she is not willing to share her own personal opinion. Anyone who does believe that climate change has been scientifically demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt would not equivocate on such a question, so ... there we have our answer.The United States is about to have another climate change denier in a position of real influence and power.
Yes, it was politcal theatre, but, by the same token, the American public needs to know what they are having foisted on them.
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