Donald Trump buried a report on climate change because "I do not believe it"



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"I do not believe it," Trump told the press on Monday, adding that he had read "some" of the report.

At one level, this should not be surprising. Trump's views on climate change at this stage are very, very well established.

A little over eight years ago, he tweeted this: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make US manufacturing uncompetitive." In 2014, he wrote this tweet: "It's late in July and it's very cold outside in New York.Where the hell is WORLD WARMING ??? We need something fast! It's now CLIMATE CHANGE."
So what, this last wednesday: "A prolonged cold blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – What about global warming?"
(It's still 20 times that Trump rejected the idea of ​​global warming and / or climate change.)
All this brings me to last Friday – 48 hours after Trump's climate change on climate change it's cold in half of the country, and the advanced publication of the new Fourth National Climate Assessment.

If you missed the publication of the study, well, that was the goal. It was originally scheduled to be released next month, but was suddenly released the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday, when the country shops, eats, hangs with family, and lends no money. pay attention to what is happening in politics. Aside from Christmas and Thanksgiving Day, there's no better day to announce the bad news you do not want people to see.

Because there are VERY few coincidences in politics, the decision to speed up the publication of the report in the aftermath of Thanksgiving – rather than, for example, today – was clearly incumbent on the administration. to conceal what she thought was bad news. Or better, news that calls into question Trump's baseless position that all these discussions about global warming and climate change are contradicted by, uh, the fact that it was cold in the northeast the day before Thanksgiving.

The report, the second of four such annual studies sponsored by Congress, concludes not only with rising temperatures worldwide, but also with the preponderance of evidence suggesting that human actions play a role. The report concludes that the changing climate "is transforming where and how we live and poses growing challenges to human health and the quality of life, the economy and the natural systems that support us". And that, if we do not change our practices and policies, it would result in "considerable damage to the economy, the environment, the health and well-being of people in the United States during the course of time. next decades ".

The report then goes on to detail the economic impact of climate change (hundreds of billions of dollars lost, farms being the hardest hit) and the physical consequences this could have on our collective health, as factors such as air, disease transmission by insects, food and water. will "threaten more and more the health and well-being of the American people".

It's frankly a terrifying read. Unless we start making major changes – and soon – we have the very real potential to break the point of no return with regard to global warming and the consequences that result.

Earlier, the White House had downplayed the importance of the report, claiming that it relied on extreme models chosen under the Obama regime.

It is important to note here: This is not a partisan document. As I mentioned earlier, it was produced by 13 Trump administration agencies – the result of the 1980s Congress – requiring that this type of report be submitted every four years as a reference for legislators and legislators.

And yet, Trump's chances of following the advice of this report, which has been achieved by his administration, are close to zero. Why? Because it was cold in many parts of the country during Thanksgiving, of course!

This kind of thought – anecdotes = data – is refuted many times by science. A warming planet does not mean that there will be no cold days. Or even cold weeks! Or months! This means that over the centuries, the planet becomes hotter and heavier. And that these climate changes produce wilder and more unpredictable weather events, such as tornadoes and fires.

Unfortunately, Trump's willingness to ignore the findings of the experts because it does not correspond to what he wants the truth to be is not isolated to climate alone. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the unanimous conclusion of the country's intelligence community that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election to help and hurt Hillary Clinton. And lately, he has chosen to ignore the CIA's finding that Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Trump's disdain for the idea of ​​climate change is also born from his broader suspicions about the United States being exploited by other countries. According to Trump's design, the United States is committed to reducing and maintaining its carbon footprint, while other competing countries are breaking the rules and forcing the United States to fight. on the world economic scene with a hand tied in the back.

Trump insisted that the United States is "the cleanest we have ever been," and said the other countries were not following.

"If we are clean, but all other places on the planet are dirty, it's not so good," he said. "So, I want clean air, I want clean water, it is very important."

What's really scary about all of this is that, unlike any guy on the street who chooses to ignore science about climate change, Donald Trump is able to make a huge impact on how which we address (or do not solve) the problem. problem. He has already withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. This makes the United States the only country in the world not to join the global attempt to fight climate change.

The decisions that Trump makes – or more likely not – on climate change are not the kind of things that are easily reversible. This latest report – you know, the one that the Trump administration sought to bury because its findings contradict the president's personal beliefs – suggests that it might not be reversible at all.

Kevin Liptak from CNN contributed to this report.

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