Throughout her confirmation hearings this week, Judge Amy Coney Barrett has continually refused to answer even the most basic questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee by citing the possibility that related issues could come before the Supreme Court. On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) used the judge’s evasion to reveal her alarming views on the issue of climate change.
In an effort to find out whether Barrett would consider “scientific evidence” in her role as a justice, Harris asked her a series of uncontroversial questions including, “Do you accept that COVID-19 is infectious?” and “Do you accept that smoking causes cancer?” After Barrett answered affirmatively to both, Harris asked her, “Do you believe that climate change is happening and that it’s threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink?”
“I was wondering where you were going with that,” Barrett said before refusing to offer her opinion on what she called a “very contentious matter of public debate.” While there may be debate within the political realm, like the fact that COVID-19 is contagious and smoking causes cancer, there is no serious debate within the scientific community about the existence of climate change.
