"Rick Perry Denies Climate Change Role of CO2"

"The U.S. energy secretary acknowledged humans do have an effect on the changing climate. But he says ocean waters and the environment most likely control climate."

"Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday he does not believe carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver of the earth's record-setting warming, a core finding of climate science. Instead, Perry said, the driver is most likely 'the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.'

Perry became the second of President Donald Trump's cabinet members to go on television to publicly dismiss the importance of CO2 in global warming, ignoring the scientific evidence. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected its role in answer to essentially the same question in March, also on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

But Perry went further in his response to CNBC host Joe Kernen—who has expressed his own skepticism about climate science in the past—when asked whether he viewed carbon dioxide as the main "control knob" for climate."

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News June 19, 2017.