Trump meets Princeton professor who disputes climate concerns

President-elect Donald Trump yesterday met William Happer, a Princeton professor of physics who had been a prominent voice in questioning the concern about human-caused climate change.

In 2015 Senate testimony, Happer argued that the ''benefits that more [carbon dioxide] brings from increased agricultural yields and modest warming far outweigh any harm.''

While he does not reject that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels warm the planet, he also stated that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would only cause between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees Celsius of planetary warming. However, according to the latest assessment of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the figure would much higher, at between 1.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees C.

''All trees, and many other plants, wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton, etc, are handicapped because, by historical standards, there currently is too little, not too much, CO2 in the atmosphere,'' read a slide contained in Happer's testimony.

''A dispassionate analysis of the science indicates that more CO2 will bring benefits, not harm to the world,'' he also said in the testimony.

E&E News, which was apparently first to report the meeting, noted, that it was ''unclear'' whether Happer might be under consideration for energy or science positions in the administration.