By Paul Homewood
Drill, bay, drill!!
Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary called net zero a “sinister goal” and was once censored by LinkedIn for posting a video of his views on climate policy.
Chris Wright, an oil executive and staunch defender of fossil fuels, is also known for drinking fracking fluid that includes bleach on camera to prove it is safe.
Mr Wright, the founder and chief executive of Denver-based Liberty Energy, is expected to spearhead Mr Trump’s “drill baby drill” plans to increase oil and gas production and seek new ways to boost energy.
A climate sceptic who has filed lawsuits opposing climate disclosure rules, Mr Wright has called climate activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism.
In 2019, he made headlines when he drank a fracking fluid cocktail containing a collection of chemicals, which he knocked back with colleagues after toasting the “long lives and healthier lives of billions of people all around the world from oil and gas”.
Last year, he was briefly censored by LinkedIn for posting a video in which he said: “There is no climate crisis and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”
‘Destructive deceptions’
During the 12-minute video, he said that the terms climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy and dirty energy are all “destructive deceptions” that cause children anxiety.
Mr Wright went on to say that “we have seen no increase in the frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods” as a result of climate change – a claim that is widely disputed.
The social media platform took the video down, claiming it violated its policy on spam and scams, before restoring it the next day, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Mr Wright, who does not have any political experience, has written extensively on the need for more fossil fuel production to lift people out of poverty.
He has stood out among oil and gas executives for his confrontational, freewheeling style.
In a keynote address to oil and gas industry figures earlier this year, Mr Wright has said “there’s no such thing as renewable energy”, adding that the target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is “sinister”.
“Net zero 2050: zero chance of this happening, but it’s actually a sinister goal because we spend an insane amount of money pretending we’re going to actually achieve this,” he said.
He added that the net result has been to “make energy more expensive, less reliable, and impoverish people”.