Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is not your average climate denier. Unlike President Donald Trump, he’s admitted that global warming is real and caused by humans. And unlike many Republicans in the House and Senate, he’s admitted that its effects will be dangerous if warming continues unabated.

But when it comes to admitting that swift, aggressive action is necessary to slow the dangers of climate change, Wheeler is just like most Republicans: He denies it. In an interview with “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday, the former coal industry lobbyist said that global warming is simply too vague and distant a threat to focus on.

“On the climate change issue, it is an important issue that we have to be addressing and we are addressing it,” Wheeler said. “But most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.” Instead of climate change, Wheeler argued that the EPA’s efforts would be better spent focusing on cleaning up water in other countries. “We have 1,000 children die every day worldwide because they don’t have safe drinking water,” he said. “That’s a crisis I think we can solve.”

If humans didn’t intend to keep living 50 to 75 years from now, Wheeler’s argument might be a good one. But we do, making his argument exceedingly bad—as Twitter was kind enough to point out.



New EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s feeling on the urgency of climate change?



Meh. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Why worry? The effects of climate change are still “50 To 75 Years Out”.



Wonder how the kids feel about that perspective. https://t.co/DcOCv6196z — Nick Knudsen 🇺🇸 (@DemWrite) March 20, 2019

Wheeler’s premise is also just plain wrong. “Most of the threats” from climate change are not far in the future; some really bad ones are happening right now.