It’s a battle of left vs. Wright.

The best news so far out of the Trump transition is the appointment of Colorado’s Chris Wright, chief executive of Denver-based Liberty Energy as U.S. secretary of energy. 

Wright is a visionary iconoclast, eagerly — and winsomely — making the case the “settled” conventional wisdom on climate change isn’t settled at all, which leaves the environmental left very unsettled. 

In fact, he argues, passionately and persuasively, these policies hurt the poorest countries and communities across the globe, while enriching the elite. And unlike his opponents, he fights with facts, not emotional platitudes and sweeping promises. 

Score a big win for POTUS 47. 

The weekend announcement of Wright’s appointment drew remarkably consistent coverage of his fact-centered climate skepticism and his aggressive advocacy for the benefits that fossil fuels provide to spark human flourishing — particularly in developing countries. 

One, from The New York Times, captured the general tenor of Wright as a fact-free industry mouthpiece.

Wright is a “media friendly evangelist for fossil fuels who promotes a feel-good message that oil and gas can lift people out of poverty.”

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This and other national legacy media outlets, still in recovery for their failed attempts to prop up Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat presidential candidate, spent a third of their articles snobbily restating how climate science is beyond dispute.

Having learned nothing from the recent self-inflicted shot to the institutional genitalia, the out-of-touch progressive elite will try to paint Chris Wright as just another vapid fat-cat climate denier who’s focused on getting rich while destroying the planet. 

Good luck with that. 

The secondary line of attack against Wright is he has “no government experience.” 

True. He was busy founding and building Liberty Energy, which is now valued at about $2.8 billion. But, no, he has not been swallowed by the go-along, get-along mentality that too often takes energetic ideas and hammers them down to the lowest common denominator.

The DC elite isn’t ready for this guy.  

Wright was one of the first prominent corporate chief executives to frontally challenge the fad of ESG governance. His focus is on the “E,” which evaluates how companies embrace liberal environmental priorities including climate change and sustainability. 

The question Wright asks, for which the environmental left has little substantive response, is specifically how climate warriors will create the utopian improvements they promise. He blows up their platitudes by showing, in detail, how their efforts have life-threatening effects around the globe, particularly in poor and developing countries.    

Wright, through Liberty Energy, publishes a massive report titled “Bettering Human Freedom.” The latest edition, released earlier this year, will become a must-read throughout the country — and particularly in Washington. 

It will drive the progressive environmentalists nuts. And Democrat U.S. senators will have a difficult time dismantling, dismissing and discrediting Wright’s arguments at his confirmation hearing. 

For example, Wright has focused on what he calls “energy poverty” and the 2 billion people around the globe who lack access to modern energy and clean cooking fuel — including 80% of Africans. Instead, for entire sections of the globe, the only available heating and cooking fuel is dung, charcoal, agricultural waste or wood. 

These sources, of course, have significant health and environmental risks.  

The solution, which — the Liberty Energy report shows in detail — are hydrocarbons, which help humans flourish and create a foundation to rise from poverty. 

The introduction of the report speaks to the “importance of oil and gas production in a global context, including its vital role in elevating people out of poverty and supplying essential ingredients for modern living.” 

Wright is such a great pick because he flips the script on the left, arguing that conservative energy policies help people at the bottom find a path upward. Far from a “feel good” message, it is proven way to lift up those at the margins — the very people progressives say they want to help, but seldom do.

Talk about “an inconvenient truth.”  

Chris Wright is going to Washington to show the constrained vision of the energy elites is out of touch with the urgent needs for affordable, accessible energy in America and abroad. He is a happy warrior armed with reams of facts that offer a vision of energy independence and  human possibilities — in sharp contrast with the sad, dark and cold view of those who will fight him. 

This is going to be fun to watch. 

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.