This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey has signed on as a senior adviser to Donald Trump — even though the two men’s views are oceans apart on an issue very close to Woolsey’s heart: climate change.
For years, the former CIA director has been an advocate for cleaner energy and has called for addressing global warming from a national security perspective. He argues that our current energy sources put us at “the whims of OPEC’s despots” and make us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. He wants the United States to shift from its reliance on coal and oil to renewables and natural gas. “There’s enough consensus that human-generated global warming gas emissions are beginning to have an effect,” he said in an interview in 2010. “Next year might be cooler than this year but that doesn’t mean the trend isn’t there.” (Indeed, the world keeps getting warmer.)
In 2013, Woolsey was one of dozens of national security experts who signed a statement declaring that c... Read more
