The climate deniers in the Trump administration are at it again. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the president is silencing critical government research on climate change and creating a panel to question the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions cause warming. The ultimate goal, one former Trump adviser said, is to stop “silly alarmist predictions about the future.”

So, naturally, the president’s pick to lead the panel is a guy who has likened climate activists to Nazis.

“The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” William Happer, a 79-year-old physicist and member of Trump’s National Security Council, said in 2014. The quote has not gone unnoticed since then, as many media outlets have cited it over the years. But it has gotten renewed, and perhaps wider, attention since appearing in the Times’ story, as incredulous journalists and others on Twitter couldn’t believe anyone—let alone a political adviser in a presidential administration—would say something so egregious.

Absolutely insane: “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” said William Happer.



Happer is a member of Trump's National Security Council, advising on climate change and emerging technologies. pic.twitter.com/CBHjcyDjmt — Justice Democrats (@justicedems) May 28, 2019

In reality, though, Happer’s quote isn’t that much more extreme than a lot of climate-denier rhetoric. They, not climate scientists or activists, are the real alarmists: hyperbolic, fear-mongering, and completely divorced from scientific reality.

Let’s not forget that Trump himself once tweeted: