Lee Zeldin, the man currently dismantling the legal framework for every major federal climate regulation in the country, would really appreciate it if you stopped calling climate skeptics 'science deniers.' It's unfair, he says. It's divisive. And honestly, have you considered just... hearing them out?
A Very Nuanced Position From a Very Busy Man
Speaking at the Great American State Fair on Thursday, Fox News reports that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued climate projections should be understood as a 'range of possible outcomes' rather than certainties, and that disagreeing with long-term forecasts shouldn't automatically get someone labeled a science denier.
'I don't think it's a good idea that if someone disagrees with someone else's prediction of exactly what the temperature's gonna be in the year 2100, that all of a sudden that person is just automatically some science denier,' Zeldin told Fox News Digital. 'Hear them out. Maybe they have an opinion on some other study.'
This is the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The man whose entire job is to protect the environment. He is at a state fair, doing a media hit, asking you to hear out climate skeptics.
The 'Range of Outcomes' Argument Is Doing a Lot of Work Here
To be extremely fair to Zeldin for one paragraph: he is not technically wrong that climate projections involve ranges. Scientists do model multiple scenarios. Emissions trajectories vary. Future temperature estimates depend on policy choices humans haven't made yet. This is all true.
But here's the thing. The scientific consensus on whether human-caused climate change is real, whether it's already happening, and whether it's dangerous is not a 'range.' It is not a 'prediction' in the same sense as a weather forecast. The question of whether climate change is real has a settled answer backed by every major scientific body on the planet. What Zeldin is doing is taking the genuine uncertainty in long-range projections and using it to cast doubt on the entire enterprise.
That is a classic move. It has a name. The name is 'manufactured doubt,' and it's the same playbook the tobacco industry ran for decades.
What He Wasn't Asked, and What He Didn't Say
Fox News reports that Zeldin was actually asked which specific Biden-era climate predictions he believes new evidence has disproven. Instead of answering, he pivoted to the philosophical argument about projections and ranges. He did not name a single prediction. He did not cite a single study. He said 'relying on present day facts rather than bad assumptions from the past is incredibly important' and then offered no present-day facts.
That is a non-answer wrapped in the language of empiricism. It sounds like someone who respects science. It contains no science.
Meanwhile, Back at the Agency He Runs
While Zeldin was at the fair making the case for epistemic humility, Fox News notes that his EPA has been busy revisiting the agency's 2009 Endangerment Finding, which is the legal bedrock for virtually every federal greenhouse gas regulation ever written. He has also been rolling back climate rules adopted under previous Democratic administrations across the board.
Let's be precise about what the Endangerment Finding is. It is the formal determination, upheld by the Supreme Court, that greenhouse gases threaten public health. It is the reason the EPA has legal authority to regulate carbon emissions at all. Zeldin is not tweaking the margins here. He is pulling the load-bearing wall out of the building and then giving interviews about the importance of structural nuance.
This is the context in which he is asking us not to be so quick to judge the skeptics.
The 'Science Denier' Label Problem Nobody Asked About
The framing of Zeldin's argument is instructive. His concern is not that climate change is being addressed too slowly or that regulations are imperfect. His stated concern is that people who dispute climate science are being called mean names.
This is the rhetorical judo move that has defined the American right's approach to science for twenty years. Don't argue the data. Argue about the tone of people who cite the data. Make the story about civility and open-mindedness and the arrogance of experts. It's much easier than explaining why you're gutting the EPA while claiming you care about the environment.
For what it's worth, Zeldin did not push back on the substance of climate science during his Fox News interview. He didn't say climate change isn't real. He said projections have ranges and that skeptics deserve a fair hearing. These are things that sound moderate and produce the same policy outcomes as flat-out denial.
The Dingo Take
Lee Zeldin has found a very comfortable middle ground between calling himself a science denier and actually accepting science. It's a rhetorical position that requires almost no intellectual commitment and allows him to gut environmental regulation while maintaining that he's just asking questions. It's the political equivalent of saying 'I'm not saying the house is on fire, I'm just saying fire projections have historically involved a range of temperatures.'
The 'range of outcomes' argument would be a legitimate contribution to a good-faith policy debate. It is not being made in a good-faith policy debate. It is being made by the administrator of the EPA as he systematically dismantles the legal and regulatory architecture built to address climate change. The fair-mindedness is performance. The rollbacks are real.
If Zeldin wants people to stop calling climate skeptics science deniers, here's a thought: stop governing like one. Stop rolling back the Endangerment Finding. Stop revisiting regulations whose entire purpose is reducing the greenhouse gas emissions cooking the planet. Do that, and we'll talk about tone. Until then, a state fair is a pretty fitting venue for what he's selling.
