Although there is a history in skepticism of people being "skeptical" of climate change, modern skepticism understands that there is a broad consensus amongst scientists that climate change is both real and caused by humans.

Trump has announced that the USA will no longer be abiding by the Paris Agreement - which is an agreement where each country gets to choose its own targets for CO2 emissions, and where the targets are not enforced.

This is worrying because, rather than placing needed government investment in alternative energy sources, Trump has been championing coal mining in the USA.

Related to this decision are a couple of other news stories:

Firstly, the world heard from a Republican congressman (opens new window) that he accepts climate change is real, but he is not concerned about it because:

"as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I'm confident that, if there's a real problem, he can take care of it.""

Secondly, Trump is expected to pick (opens new window) Sam Clovis as the lead scientist for the Department of Agriculture. Sam is unfortunately not a scientist, but a professor of business. He's "skeptical" of climate change, and has said that he believes the USA should focus on "lightening regulations and increasing agricultural trade" instead of looking into the potential risks to agriculture from climate change.

However, to prove a point that we need to be skeptical of all beliefs, it turns out that a left leaning article (opens new window) published this week was not true (opens new window). The article said that Mr Clovis thinks scientists are dumb and dinosaur bones are a hoax:

"That's why I'm happy I'm not one of them. At the end of the day, scientists are nothing more than a bunch of dumb, regular people with limited vision who think dinosaurs actually existed and the earth is somehow getting warmer."

Much as this might sound like the kind of thing a conservative businessman might say, it's good to check your sources - even when it's something that you believe to be true. I always find that a good way to do this is to pick a phrase from a quote and search for it in google inside double quotes. This will ensure that the search only brings back pages where the exact phrase is used. If all you see are copies of the same article on different sites, and no independent reporting of the quote, it would pay to be skeptical of the source and refrain from spreading the article.