Hans Nichols, of Axios.com, writes:
Administration officials are deeply concerned by Malpass’ failure to answer this week when asked if climate change was caused by humans.
Malpass is David Malpass, currently president of the World Bank.
I favor going beyond firing David Malpass; I favor abolishing the World Bank. But I also believe in telling the truth, and that’s a big difference I have with Hans Nichols.
You would think, based on Nichols’s statement above, that Malpass was asked whether climate change was caused by humans. He wasn’t. To find out the actual question, I had to go to Valerie Volcovici and Kate Abnett, “World Bank’s Malpass faces calls to resign after climate change doubts,” Reuters, September 22, 2022. Here’s what they write:
Malpass appeared at an event hosted by the New York Times at Climate Week in New York City on Tuesday and was asked whether he believes that the “manmade burning of fossil fuels is rapidly and dangerously warming the planet.” Malpass tried at first to dodge the question but later said: “I don’t even know. I’m not a scientist.”
You can believe that humans are causing global warming without believing that it is “rapidly and dangerously warming the planet.” Indeed, as Steven Koonin has noted, there’s little basis for this latter belief.
