This is Scott Pruitt, the man President Trump appointed to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. On Tuesday, he said the agency was working to host a public climate change debate, which could potentially air on TV.

Pruitt revealed the debate plan in an interview with Reuters. He said the idea was inspired by a pair of articles he read, including one in the Wall Street Journal that suggested a "red team/blue" team approach to debating climate science.

The debate envisioned by Pruitt would involve a group of scientists who would have "a robust discussion for all the world to see." He also suggested it could be televised, adding that "the American people would be very interested in consuming that."

The EPA did not respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment on Tuesday, and Pruitt did not tell Reuters when the debate might take place or who might participate.

But climate scientists contacted on Tuesday by BuzzFeed News said Pruitt's debate proposal was a terrible idea.

Peter Gleick, a scientist who cofounded the Pacific Institute, an environmental think tank, called Pruitt's proposed debate "bullshit." In an email, Gleick said that climate change has already been reviewed and assessed by "every national academy of sciences on the planet," and is already debated "every day by the very process of science itself."

"The effort by Pruitt and Trump's EPA to pretend to put together a 'debate' is no more than another attempt to open the door to the voices of climate denial, delay, and confusion that have already postponed international action almost to the point of disaster," Gleick added.

Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at Penn State University, said that a debate is already going on and "it's called science." He also said the debate amounts to a "bad faith effort."

"What Pruitt and his ilk really want is to stack the deck against mainstream science by giving cronies and industry lobbyists an undeserved place at the science table," Mann said.

Linda Duguay, who directs multiple environmental programs at the University of Southern California, said that "there is not much to debate" regarding the scientific consensus on climate change. Duguay also expressed skepticism that Pruitt and his team "would put together an honest forum on the subject."

"The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community and the great majority of nations around the world that signed the [Paris climate agreement] accept it as a reality," she said.

John Seinfeld, a professor at the California Institute of Technology who studies the atmosphere, said that "there’s nothing to debate," unless the discussion focused on "remediation measures."



"Climate change is a done deal," he added.

And Philip Mote, who studies climate change at Oregon State University, said that debating "settled" scientific topics such as climate change "is silly, counterproductive, and perpetuates a false sense of what’s true and what’s not."