In a LinkedIn post, Chris Wright has previously denied that there is a climate crisis.
The newly elected US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he has nominated Chris Wright for the post of US Energy Minister, reports TASR according to the AFP agency.
Wright, a fracking magnate and climate skeptic, has been tasked with “cutting red tape,” a move the new administration hopes will boost investment in fossil fuels.
“As Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader who will promote innovation, cut red tape and usher in a new ‘golden age of American prosperity and global peace,'” Trump said in a statement.
Wright is the founder of Liberty Energy, which serves energy companies that have massively increased U.S. fossil fuel production in recent years by extracting oil and gas from shale fields through fracking (the hydraulic fracturing of rock to extract gas).
In his LinkedIn post, Wright has previously denied that there is a climate crisis. “There is no climate crisis and we are not even in the middle of an energy transition,” he said, adding that the term carbon pollution is outrageous because all life on Earth depends on carbon dioxide.
“There is no such thing as clean or dirty energy, all energy sources have both positive and negative effects on the world,” he added.
Fracking is a mining method in which hydraulically compressed mixtures of chemicals and sand create fissures in rock layers. This is a controversial procedure for groundwater and air pollution and ground shaking.
