Bachelor’s of Mechanical Engineering โ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1982โ1985).1“Chris Wright,” LinkedIn. Accessed December 2024. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.
Wright’s LinkedIn account also lists his graduate work under education:2“Chris Wright,” LinkedIn. Accessed December 2024. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.
Wright founded Pinnacle Technologies in 1992, “whose innovations helped launch commercial shale gas production and created an industry in hydraulic fracture mapping,” according to his profile at Liberty Energy.4“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
He served as CEO of Pinnacle Technologies until 2006. He was also the chairman of Stroud Energy, a shale gas producer, before the company’s sale to Range Resources in 2006.5“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
In 2010, he founded and became executive chairman of Liberty Resources, “a Bakken-focused exploration and production company,” and of Liberty Midstream Solutions until 2024.6“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
His Liberty Energy profile also notes he is a director of Oklo Inc., a “small modular nuclear reactor company,” and EMX Royalty Corp. “a global mining royalties company.”7“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
In an interview with DeSmog, CO2 coalition executive director Gregory Wright commented, “The main thing that he [Wright] and I and the CO2 Coalition agree on is that increasing CO2 is a net benefit, itโs not the demon molecule, itโs the miracle molecule.โ12Geoff Dembicki. “Group That Calls CO2 โEssentialโ Praises Trump Energy Secretary Pick Chris Wright,” DeSmog, November 27, 2024.
Chris and Elizabeth Wright’s Political Contributions
The Wright family donated to Republican candidates and political action committees, including $228,390, to Trump’s joint fundraising committee in the summer of 2024.
Both Chris and his wife, Elizabeth Wright, have been significant donors. The below data is exported from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). View the attached spreadsheet for additional information on Chris and Elizabeth Wright’s political contributions (.xlsx).
[00:00:00] “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either. Humans and all complex life on Earth is simply impossible without carbon dioxide. Hence, the term ‘carbon pollution’ is outrageous. Carbon dioxide does indeed absorb infrared radiation, contributing to warming. But calling carbon dioxide pollution is like calling out water and oxygen, the other two irreplaceable molecules for life on Earth. [00:00:30]
[00:00:31] “There is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy. All energy sources have impacts on the world, both positive and negative. Energy enables all human activity, and is simply too important to cheapen the dialog by using these five deceptive alarmist marketing terms. We can do better than that. Credible, honest dialog is sadly lacking in today’s discourse. These five terms: climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy are not only deceptive, they are in fact destructive deceptions. Destructive because they drive centrist politicians and regulators to oppose life-critical infrastructure like building pipelines and natural gas export terminals. [00:01:23]
[00:01:24] “They cause huge anxiety in kids, squelching the optimism that is so critical to life success. And they deflect attention away from critical, solvable problems that currently lead to 10 million premature deaths each year. Language matters. Let me cover each one of these destructive deceptions briefly. [00:01:46]
[00:01:48] “Climate crisis. The globe is slowly warming, and sea levels are gradually rising, and have been for about 150 years. The second half of this time period since the end of World War Two, human burning of fossil fuels has increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 50%, which amplifies the warming and sea level rise that began in the late 1800s as the Little Ice Age ended. Since the end of World War two, global human life expectancy, wealth, health, and opportunity have surged like never before. Hence, any negative impacts from climate change were clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption.[00:02:34]
[00:02:36] “What about extreme weather, you ask? We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods, despite endless fear-mongering of the media, politicians and activists. This is not my opinion. This is the facts, as contained in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. [00:02:58]
[00:02:59] “Further, deaths from extreme weather have been plummeting for a century, from nearly 500,000 annual deaths in the 1920s, down to an average of just over 10,000 annual deaths today. This is a cause for celebration, not a crisis. Let’s make sure this trend continues. The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change. These policies have driven up energy prices, destabilized electrical grids, and displaced high-paying, energy-intensive jobs to other countries and states without these perverse energy policies. Know these policies have not meaningfully reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Simply moving emissions or jobs from the US or UK to China or Vietnam is not a reduction in emissions. [00:03:56]
[00:03:58] “Energy transition is another term that has been used to justify policies that deploy large government subsidies and mandates to enrich well-off and connected, while impoverishing everyone else. Yes, I am one of those needlessly enriched by these destructive policies, as increasing barriers to oil and gas production have predictably driven up prices and delivered record profitability in the oil and gas industry. But haven’t these trillions of dollars of subsidies over 20 or 30 years driven at least the start of a real energy transition? In short, no. World demand for oil, natural gas, and coal hit all-time records last year. The total percent of global energy supplied from fossil fuels has declined, but only from the mid-80% 30 years ago to the low 80s percentage today. At that rate, we have another 6 or 700 years left to finish that transition. That glacial rate of change does not qualify as a transition. Wind and solar today provide only about 3% of global primary energy, and that is only the low-hanging fruit in the electricity sector in the wealthy nations. This took trillions of dollars of subsidies and countless mandates, but those were not the only costs. We now have to suffer with more expensive electricity and less reliable service. See Europe and California as exhibits A and B, and this was the easy 3%. The low hanging fruit. Imagine the impacts of changing the harder, the remaining 80-plus percent of global energy supply. Truth be told, we don’t have viable technologies to replace our largest uses of hydrocarbon energy, which is in both the manufacturing sectors and the transportation sector. Manufacturing requires high-temperature process heat to fabricate materials and everything else we make. That high-temperature process heat only comes from hydrocarbons. In the transportation sector, truck, ship, and air transport require extremely high energy density. Today, only possible from hydrocarbons. The truth is there is no energy transition happening right now, no matter how much money, how many climate policies, activism, or hot air are thrown at the problem. Energy is hard. When political posturing collides with physics, physics wins every time. Progress will only come from honest, sober thinking and long-term time horizons. Not much of that is visible today. [00:06:47]
[00:06:49] “Carbon pollution is the most shameful marketing term that I’ve ever heard. I mentioned that atmospheric CO2 concentration has gone up by about 50% since pre-industrial times. If instead of rising by 50%, what would have happened if it fell by 50%? Photosynthesis would have stopped as atmospheric CO2 dropped below the threshold required, 150 parts per million for photosynthesis. This would prevent plants from growing or even surviving. All animals, including humans, would soon die of starvation. One could rightfully call that a crisis, even a climate crisis. Pollution or pollutants are substances that harm human health, like mercury, lead, or smog. We know what these are, and that they’re harmful, and that above certain thresholds, they’re deadly. The Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, named the six most harmful pollutants to human health. Particulate matter, carbon monoxide, very different from carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and ground level ozone. Fortunately, sensible regulation of these pollutants, combined with innovation, has driven down annual emissions by 86% from 1970 to today. Wealthy countries are dealing with pollution. Low and middle-income countries still have lots of room for improvement. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas. Confusing these two is frightening kids and deflecting much-needed attention from the huge pollution problems that still kill millions of people every year, mostly in lower-income countries from China to India to Africa. Just indoor air pollution arising from burning wood or dung for cooking and home heating causes over 3 million needless deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization. The solution is simple: clean cooking fuels in the form of a cook stove and refillable propane canisters. Over a billion people have made this simple transition. But one-third of humanity, 2.5 billion people, still lack access to clean cooking fuel. [00:09:11]
[00:09:13] “Clean energy and dirty energy are two other fact-free, shameless marketing labels. One need not visit their horrific cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the slave labor staffed coal powered polysilicon fabrication facilities in Xinjiang, China, or the toxic rare earth metals processing ponds in China to become shorn of the illusion that solar and wind energy are lily-white clean. There are no such things. Wind and solar energy require roughly ten times as much energy-intensive materials like cement, steel, poly, silicon, etc., per unit of energy produced compared to oil and gas. Land usage is even worse. Wind and solar require 100 times as much land for equivalent energy production as oil and gas. It would be hard to call wind or solar clean or low environmental impact with a straight face. Energy production is large-scale, highly physical endeavor, and it always and everywhere brings sizable impact. When people call solar or wind clean, they are either naive or they are instead referring to reduced greenhouse gas emissions versus fossil fuels. Wind and solar do indeed deliver reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but certainly not zero greenhouse gas emissions as typically claimed. Wind and solar farm construction requires copious amounts of energy, and specifically energy from fossil fuels, and raw materials from fossil fuels too. Wind turbines are highly-visible embodiments of hydrocarbons. The huge steel-reinforced concrete bases are made from coal and intense amounts of natural gas, as are the giant steel towers. While fabricating the fiberglass blades requires high process heat only possible from hydrocarbons. And the giant plastic resin blades themselves literally are hydrocarbons. Solar farm fabrication is even more energy-intensive than wind farms. Let’s just be honest. All energy production brings tradeoffs. The question is, which package of tradeoffs do you prefer? The high energy density, meaning lots of energy from a relatively small amount of land from oil and gas, has allowed wealthy countries to reclaim so much land for forests and wilderness that previously supplied wood for burning or that was required for farmland with less efficient agricultural practices without hydrocarbon fertilizers and mechanized farming. Is returning so much land to nature dirty? Of course not. [00:12:08]
[00:12:10] “The energy and climate dialog is fraught with so many challenges. Let’s not compound the problem by using destructively deceptive terms like climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy. These terms are nonsense. Let’s just be honest.” [00:12:10]
“The planet has warmed about one degree, probably dominantly from human greenhouse gas emissions over the last century, because burning fossil fuels have grown the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 50%. And we can do the that sort of radiation physics when we double greenhouse concentration of carbon dioxide, which probably happens before the end of this century. The simple math says that should cause maybe one and a half degrees of total warming. There’s feedback effects. It could be a little less than that. It could be more than that.
The economic analysis covers this range of scenarios. And let’s say the planet warms two degrees by the end of this century. That’s kind of; you extrapolate the current rate of warming, which is 0.14 degrees C per decade, we’ll hit two degrees of total warming a decade or two before the end of this century. The IPCC’s economic analysis of that is it’ll reduce per capita income somewhere between 0.2% and 2.0%. You heard me right. That’s meaningfully less than one more recession between now and 2080 or 2090. That’s real. Those are real dollars. There’s definitely tradeoffs here. But does that justify keeping millions of people or preventing millions of people from rising out of energy poverty?“
“Top sponsors of the Jan. 20 event listed on the invitation include the Domestic Producers Energy Alliance, a lobbying group that Mr. Hamm founded to aggressively fight climate change policies, and Unleash Energy, a conservative group that includes many advisers to Mr. Trump,” The New York Times wrote.38Lisa Friedman. “An Inauguration Watch Party Aimed at Celebrating Fossil Fuels,” The New York Times, January 13, 2025. Archived January 14, 2025. Archive URL: http://archive.today/CZzAS
“The Climate Ruleโs true purpose is to regulate climate change, not protect investors and or the public interest in maintaining the health of Americaโs capital markets. For that reason, among others, the Climate Rule is unlawful,” Wright claimed in the written copy of his testimony.41“Written Statement of Chris Wright, Founder, Chairman & CEO Liberty Energy Inc.” (PDF), retrieved from docs.house.gov. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
“Climate is changing, well it’s always changing because of natural forces, but human impacts today are definitely significant enough that they are additive. They are a meaningful force in and of themselves driving changes in the climate. So we should be concerned about it. We should be focused on it. We should be studying it.
“But to date, the changes are rather modest, rather slow moving. There’s almost as many positive changes. The planet’s getting greener and agricultural productivity is going up with more plant food in the air. There’s probably almost as many positive changes as there are negative changes. But that calculus probably changes with time. So it’s a very real issue dominantly caused by our industry. So real issue, yes. Is it a crisis? Is it the world’s greatest challenge or a big threat to the next generation? No.”
[…]
“Well, the last 100 plus years, the world’s warmed a little over one degree C. And again, to date, probably more positive than negative.”
During his talk, Wright claimed that, referring to the “mainstream narrative” on the climate crisis, that “None of it is true”:
“The mainstream narrative, or at least mainstream among the well-off in rich countries, is that the countries of the world are locked in arms, battling an ever-growing climate crisis. If we could get the denying retrogrades out of the way, we’d soon usher in an age of cleaner, cheaper, greener energy,” Wright said.
“This climate crisis is building, and it’s wreaking havoc everywhere, and the greatest victims of it are low income and disadvantaged people. That’s why no action is too bold, no action is too rushed. We have to save humanity. That’s the narrative today. That’s the narrative you hear in the media from politicians, even ESG movement in the corporate world. You saw it in the schools there and the kids protesting. It is everywhere. There’s only one problem. None of it is true.”
“Climate alarmism has been remarkably effective, remarkably effective at swinging public opinion and driving political action. In my industry, it’s driving a growing ESG movement driven by institutional investors, regulations, state and federal regulations about disclosure and ESG, that the biggest problem facing the world today is we need less energy, less fossil fuels. Nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
View the ad below via the Internet Archive’s save of the Western Energy Alliance’s press release:
The ad read as follows:
“Dear Presidential Candidates,
“It would be criminal not to produce the reliable, affordable energy that keeps people warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and gets them to school to learn and work to provide for their families. Without our energy, the lights go dark, and smartphones go silent. Medicines and medical devices cease to cure the sick and injured. Food cannot be grown and grocery store shelves go bare.
“We’re proud to provide the power and raw materials to manufacture the goods Americans use every day, from clothes and shoes to anything with a computer chip. Currently there are no alternatives that do everything that oil and natural gas do. We continue to innovate to produce more energy, reduce costs for consumers, and lessen environmental impacts.
“The clean-burning natural gas we produce helps improve air quality and lowers greenhouse gas emissions. Greater use of natural gas electricity is the number one reason the United States has reduced more greenhouse gas emissions than any other country. By exporting our clean, abundant natural gas, we can help lift out of poverty the one billion people worldwide without access to electricity.
“Were we to be prosecuted, as you promise, and forced to stop providing our life-sustaining products, 10.3 million jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars would be sent overseas to import the energy that Americans rely on. So we will continue to produce the environmentally responsible energy that powers America and enables a healthy, safe, and modern way of life.”
“For example, see the Mark-Udall-for-Senate campaignโs recent claim that Charles and David Koch want to ‘trap โฆ Colorado families in poverty.’ This comment echoes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidโs recent statement that the Kochs are ‘un-American.’ Such attacks are directed at everyone who supports the same causes as the Kochs, including the two of us.”55“We want to help the poor, as do the Koch brothers,” The Denver Post, April 26, 2016. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/2cVRN
They added, “Politicians in Colorado and bureaucrats in Washington are trying to curtail or shut down fracking altogether. Our industry now has to divert efforts away from improvements in fracking technology โ which will bring economic benefits to a larger number of people โ and toward government lobbying.”56“We want to help the poor, as do the Koch brothers,” The Denver Post, April 26, 2016. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/2cVRN
Liberty Midstream Solutions โ Founder and former executive chairman until its sale in 2024.61“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
Stroud Energy โ Former chairman (ending in 2006 with the company’s sale to Range Resources).66“Corporate Leadership,” Liberty Energy. Archived December 17, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YJHIU
Bettering Human Lives Foundation โ Founder and board member since January 2024.69“Chris Wright,” LinkedIn. Accessed December 2024. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.
Urban Solutions Group โ Board member since January 2017.70“Chris Wright,” LinkedIn. Accessed December 2024. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.
ACE Scholarships โ National advisory board member (2019-present), Colorado board of trustees member (2013-present), Montana board of trustees member (2012-present)71“Chris Wright,” LinkedIn. Accessed December 2024. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.
Jim Wright
Credentials
Wright graduated from Calallen High School in Corpus Christi."About Jim," Wright for Texas Railroad Commission. Archived August 20, 2021. Archive URL: https://archiv...
Karen B. Wright
Industry: Natural Gas/ManufacturingPrimary Company: Ariel CorporationAge: Born ~1956Lori Kurtzman. โCEO a quiet philanthropist for Mount Vernon,โ The Columbus Dispatch...
Aurea Foundation
Background
The Aurea Foundation was established by Melanie and the late Peter Munk (1927โ2018) in 2006 "to undertake initiatives and support qualified institutions and affil...
Chris Horner
Credentials
Juris Doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis.โChristopher C. Horner: Senior Fellow,โ Competitive Enterprise Institute. Archived November 3, 2017. Ar...
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