The actual first cause and patient zero of coronavirus may be unknown, but CNN climate correspondent Bill Weir on Thursday's New Day had another hypothesis: climate denialism and industrialization. The cable journalist went even farther, offering an upside to the brutal and painful virus wreaking havoc on the world.

While some on the left have touted the environmental benefits of economic shutdowns, Weir was worried they would not be enough, "satellite imagery shows how nitrogen dioxide pollution over North America's big cities is down by as much as 30%. But the blanket of heat trapping gases around our planet is still thicker than ever. There seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming."

It “helped” humanity and “bought” us some time? Over 180,000 people are dead worldwide and the economy is in ruins. Talk about mixed up priorities.

He then asked Dr. Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown, "What's wrong with that assumption?" Foley explained that, "We have to keep doing this even more and do it for the next 30 years to really begin to bend the curve on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

Weir then logically predicted that will be a spike in pollution when the economy gets going again after an extended shutdown, but strangely decided to blame President Trump, "Thanks to the current oil crash, when the lockdown is lifted we'll see the lowest gas prices in generations. And with Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency gutting dozens of regulations, experts say a spike in pollution seems inevitable."

After urging viewers to make every day Earth Day, Weir concluded by ignoring the entire history of plagues and the expert consensus on this particular plague and claimed, "Virologists tried to warn us that an invisible enemy would come out of the jungles if we kept cutting all of them down and they were right. So, if anything good can come of this, Aliysn [Camerota], maybe it is the understanding that the climatologists who warning about the invisible enemy in our sky and our seas, maybe we should take them seriously too."

Here is a transcript for the April 23 show: