Indur M. Goklany is a science and technology policy advisor in the United States Department of the Interior. He was trained as an electrical engineer and, under the Trump administration in 2017, was named deputy secretary at the Department of the Interior, in charge of reviewing the department’s climate policies. He has published articles for many think-tanks, including the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, and Energy & Environment.
According to leaked budget documents, Goklany has received $1,000 a month from the Heartland Institute, an organization which pushes climate change denial, for his work on an independent project for the Institute. Goklany also has his own page on the Heartland Institute’s website.
Goklany on Climate Change
In 2021, Breitbart News published a misleading article based on information reported by Goklany. Among other statements, the article says that most extreme weather has not gotten more extreme and carbon dioxide does not hurt the human body.
In 2020, the New York Times released an article detailing how Goklany included “misleading language about climate change” into at least nine Department of the Interior climate change reports. In the same article, Goklany says that some studies show that the Earth might or might not be warming, and that carbon dioxide is beneficial to plant growth, instructing department scientists to include such language within their reports.
In 2001, Goklany also wrote a memo addressing the federal government, saying they should exclude words or phrases used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel in reference to climate change—”likely” and “very likely”—and replace them with words like “might,” “may” or “could.”
See Also:
Cato Institute
Energy & Environment
Climate of Denial