“It reminds me of the Soviet Union.”
And what reminds me most of the old "Soviet Union" is "groupthink" on American college campuses, the refusal to listen to an alternate point of view, professors who tow the party line or risk being ostracized and then fired, and the nurturing and coddling of only one point of view.
Sorry, were we talking abut climate change?
2
Republicans out in the Plains states are seeing money coming into their rural counties from wind farms. Farmers having trouble selling crops during Trump's trade wars are at least pulling in revenue from turbines if they have any leasing their land, and unlike fracking, it uses less land, no water, and won't spill.
Utilities in Republican-led states like Indiana are retiring coal plants early in favor of renewables and storage and it will save ratepayers money. Coal is too expensive to keep going pretty much everywhere in the US.
Of course, there are also battles about who has to pay for cleanup as coal ash ponds leak into groundwater or into rivers during these heavier floods we're going to increasingly have to live with. Often it's the taxpayer or electricity ratepayer picking up that bill, too, no matter if you voted Republican or not.
Miami's Republican mayor, tired of his state officials denying reality, got taxes raised half a billion to start adapting to the increasing sea levels. It's going to be a drop in the bucket over time, but you can be sure the longer we burn fossil, the higher sea levels and taxes will rise.
In the meantime, the national GOP leadership wants that dark money to keep flowing in, and McConnell will fund a whacko far-right primary challenger against anyone who breaks ranks and tries doing something to limit future damages from using the fuels that fund the GOP.
Wake up, Republicans. You're being had.
25
One of the nicest things that President and First Lady Obama did was the White House Science Fair. The attendees ranged in age from elementary school to college. The logistics of getting all of these science projects into the White House was a nightmare but the staff and the Secret Service handled it brilliantly. On the first day, the young people set everything up. Every hallway and room was full of science projects. There were even science displays outside. On the second day, the individuals and teams presented their work to the president, cabinet members, other members of the administration, military folk, etc. Imagine it if you will. The White House was humming with all of that young science energy. The young scientists were free to go where they wanted to. They studied the portraits. They looked at the books in the men's bathroom downstairs. They sat in the chairs in the Green Room.
25
And the moral of the story is???
2
Tobacco does not cause cancer. DDT is not dangerous and our government now says man's CO2 emmissions have nothing to do with global warming. Our Supreme Court says money is speech. But,no money is no speech. Unfortunately, it did not tell us that money is a megaphone for lies.
30
More of Trump's back to the 1950's policies to "Make America Great Again". If you could resurrect Eisenhower and bring him up to speed on today's challenges, he would likely say Trump's policy prescriptions were not applicable to the 1950s either, but possibly the 1850s.
13
The GOP is being destroyed by former Democrat and Hillary supporter, Kim lover DJT. Hillary Clinton was a friend of Donald's in the past to whom he made donations.
5
@Bob Guthrie - Trump made donations to everyone and was very clear about that. He also was (along with the three oldest kids) a signer of a full-page ad in the NY Times requesting, along with a lot of other businesses and business owners, that the government deal with climate change. Trump was also, depending on when you asked him, of Swedish descent or German descent. He also claimed his American-born father was born in Germany (once they stopped pretending granddad was from Sweden). He said he'd release his taxes and lots of other stuff - it's really just stream-of-subconscious with him.
But the Republican Party was already strenuously avoiding effective action on climate change - especially after John McCain's third attempt to get bipartisan legislation through in the Senate. Then McCain ran for the Presidency, lost, and the GOP went full-bore Inhofe-style loony on climate. So no, you can't pin that on Donald. Or Hillary, for that matter. She lost. Get over it.
11
What the administration seemingly can't understands is that the supposedly unrealistic "worst-case" scenarios are in reality projections in the current increases in energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions. The better case scenarios all assume that the world governments actually start taking actions to reduce their emissions.
12
Trump is trying to end the earth.
He is deliberately polluting the world.
How can this be stopped. Yes voting helps, but when that fails because of apathy what steps can we take to save our planet?
Don't normal people care? It seems like the only people who care enough to vote share Trumps vile beliefs.
If that is the case, well good by Earth.
8
@Bennett Cochran - please keep in mind that if you count votes only, Trump lost to Clinton. Also note that there are people who held their noses voting for Trump, because they disliked Clinton even more. Unfortunately, too many did that.
So what we need is for the 2020 Democrat candidate to be someone electable, and skilled enough to immediately start undoing the vandalism being carried out by the incumbent.
15
I used to have hope that humanity would innovate and grow past the foolishness of the past centuries. That we'd take the scientific knowledge so painstakingly accumulated and advance our civilization to the next phase. Simply put, I hoped for a future more like Star Trek than The Road Warrior.
And sadly, it seems we're doomed to destroy ourselves in service of the whims of petty despots and a grossly wealthy few. And yes, Virginia, Mr. Trump is the former and not the latter.
11
Please publish the names of the polluting companies, the names of the CEOs of the polluting companies and the names of the shareholders of the polluting companies. The action that Trump is taking and the companies who are going along with him surely warrants their actions as crimes against humanity (and all living things). It is hard to believe that these people might have children and grandchildren who are going to be so adversely effected by their greed.
22
Is this the most foolhardy administration we've ever endured, or is it consciously intent upon destroying the country and reducing the quality of life on Earth?
20
It seems that "business-as-usual" will be the death-knell for human civilization in the end, even if it's not canonized on a headstone somewhere.
8
Vote
No superPAC can make you vote for a party and people that are so clearly on the wrong side of truth and on the wrong side of many issues with respect to
With this wildly anti-climate stand and abortion (where we are debating the rights of women with severely disabled fetuses inside them, making poor women bury their fetuses at typical usurious cost, talking about limiting contraception), with the lack of any morality on the "Moral Majority" front, with constant financial misdeeds and talk with the Russians ..
I think the sides are pretty clear.
Make some appropriate commercials and then everyone needs to go out and vote. 50/60/70% of voters will win, even if the game is a bit rigged.
9
We insure our homes although there’s little risk of them burning up.
This rational approach to risk is completely missing when it comes to the environment as the renowned glaciologist Richard Alley notes below:
From a conversation held last year with Michael Mann and Alley.
“If we don’t change our ways we’re expecting something like 3 feet of sea level rise in the next century, and it could be 2 and it could be 4 and it could be 20.
The chance that we will cross thresholds that commit us to loss of big chunks of West Antarctica and huge sea level rise is real.
So when you start doing “Well you’re not sure,” but there’s a chance of really bad things and the uncertainties are mostly on the bad side, could be a little better or a little worse or a lot worse, but we’ll be breaking things.”
https://youtu.be/l2yclMcDroQ?t=47m4s
The same may be said about most impacts from global warming, could be a little better than we think, a little worse, or a lot worse.
There’s no a lot better.
12
If only Trump listened to anything but Faux News he might notice this in today's NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/tornadoes-usa.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage#commentsContainer
But don't you worry Red Staters and Trumpists! Your President assures us that climate change is a hoax, and there's nothing to worry about. And if you believe that, I've got some great beachfront property to sell you here in the Rockies!
You can deny that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but it won't convince the sun.
13
I read somewhere in NZ an article that said that Trumps daughter talked him out of signing the Paris climate change agreement.
This is a very good reason why family members of powerful people should not be allowed to work in government and influence government policies.
Don't forget that Trumps daughter has been granted many patents in China and those polluting factories will be producing her annual business profits.
3
@CK - the agreement was signed during the Obama Administration after they'd gotten China and India to agree for the first time to work on slowing then reducing emissions.
Since then, India has passed the United States as the second biggest market for solar (China is the biggest).
Yet here, despite the fact that it's now cheaper to build new renewable generation than to continue running existing coal plants, we have the unfortunate reality that to wealth of fossil companies flows very quickly into the Administration's PACs and campaign funds like it did to his inauguration.
His daughter may or may not have tried to get Trump to stay in the Paris agreement, but if so, she didn't write a big enough check at the same time.
6
Corporations and governments that are the planets 'fenemy or frienemy'. How does the rest of the world see the USA in all this I wonder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenemy
3
@CKOops! should read frenemy not fenemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/frenemy
MAGA - Make America Groan in Agony
Oh, and the rest of the world, too.
Doesn't he think about his children?
14
No, he obviously doesn’t.
7
The Republican organization is the most dangerous in human history.
Outrageous statement? Consider that they are uniquely dedicated to the destruction of organized human life (and much of our biodiversity).
15
The majority of Americans, and, I’d wager, all of the members of Congress, and most likely the President himself trust science when it comes to medicine. In fact, probably most would prefer to get medical advice from a doctor who is up to date in the latest research and treatments. Thousands of Americans walk and run and bike to raise money for medical research. Why is the science on climate change questioned by a significant portion of the population? No presidential candidate since Gore has made climate change a centerpiece of their campaign. It’s easy to say that’s because voters aren’t/weren’t interested. But I think it’s due to a failure of leadership. Republican politicians helped their base believe the lie about climate change and no democrat so far has been able to convince voters that it’s the climate, stupid. That nothing else will matter in the end, so we better get to work if we want our children and grandchildren to have a future.
9
@Galfrido - the sad thing is that as recently as 2007, Senator John McCain was working on a serious emissions plan with Joe Lieberman. So the Republican nominee for the 2008 presidential election was trying to work on climate change - even though many others like "Snowball" Inhofe were voting the straight petrochemical line.
Even McCain's 2008 running mate had taken action on dealing with climate change, when she was governor of Alaska. Then she hit the national stage and being exposed to higher temperatures and Fox money kinda, sorta melted her brain down.
Then Citizens United came in 2010 and the Supreme Court majority decided that secret bags of money donated to help candidates win elections had no sign of being a corrupting influence and things got rapidly worse. Any remaining Republican with a rational tendency saw they had to shut up if they didn't want to find some frothing far-right puppet go at them in a primary next time they were up for re-election.
Thanks, Roberts Court - some of this is directly on your hands.
7
Incredibly Repubs are willing to sacrifice their own children and grandchildren to add profits to themselves and their corrupt overlords. Unless enough educated people care & vote about this we're all are in danger.
12
The English King Canute is to have stood at the shore and forbade the tide to come in. He said it to demonstrate that even kings have limits to their powers.
So more than one thousand years later we have a new king that is trying to hold back the tide. However,,, he really thinks he can. He cannot. He just thinks he can. So sad.
7
Every academic with the ability to do so and the integrity to care should search for employment in a country other than America and transfer institutions.
I, personally, chose to accept a doctoral position in a Canadian university over higher-ranked American programs in large part because the American government - and a sizeable portion of the voting base - have no respect for science and truth.
The actions of the leaders is unconscionable and despicable. The ignorance of the people is no longer excusable.
19
@Observer - Sorry we didn't get you here. But I totally understand. Is that Canadian university hiring?
3
Anti-regulation pressure groups were pushing for a fake "debate" about the several hundred years of science that makes up current understanding about the global climate system even before the ethically-bereft Scott Pruitt was in EPA.
Yet the science (physics and chemistry even a Will Happer should be able to grasp) is clear. Greenhouse gases warm the planets where they're present, and here they've been increasing rapidly since our population, fossil fuel consumption and agriculture increased rapidly.
More greenhouse gas means hotter planet, as past events proved. More CO2 means ocean pH will change, too, which is yet another risk related directly to continued fossil fuel use.
But the GOP leadership has been captured by people who make lots of money selling fuels we now know are harmful even beyond the toxic pollution and toxic international politics they create.
So they're receptive to doing a showpiece where, instead of doing science (like the IPCC when they study thousands of current papers for their reports) these folks want to do a reality-TV style approach.
Oh these times we're in. While China and other nations take ownership of technologies that have a future, our government is largely in the hands of people who only want to prolong the past - at all of our expense. Another reason this independent is again going to defensively vote Democrat in 2020. The GOP is broken.
15
Trump isn't very good at knowing whom his friends are and has backed the wrong policies that are similar to Russia etc. Trump needs to remember actions speak louder than words and if USA is a superpower it needs to be aware of nations that want to see it's downfall and trump the USA superpower. (Nations such as China, Russia, Iran and probably Saudi Arabia as they said they want to be more like China in the future and not become a Democracy. (That young price who is the heir apparent in Saudi Arabia said he wants Saudi Arabia to become more like China and not a Democracy so you know whose side they're on. What that prince said is a contradiction in terms, as Saudi Arabia is a Religious theocracy so his logic and judgement isn't the brightest.)
4
The most interesting thing about this article and the comments, other than their ranting about Trump, is the complaint about having a red team - blue team debate over the validity of climate science. What are the alarmists afraid of? If climate science is strong, and the "pro" climate scientists can make their case, then what is there to fear?
And the authors and commentariat need to understand the difference between science and policy. Even if the science points to more rapid than usual warming (which it doesn't) then that doesn't mean all policy should immediately be shaped by the results of computer model projections. Let's say global warming is real. Everyone put on their Al Gore thinking caps. Is the best solution to immediately destroy our current economy? What good would that do given that we are 5% of the world's population. Not much as long as India and China keep their emissions growing. Is it better to destroy all the good that fossil fuels have created because of some assumption based computer model projections -- or build a few sea walls if the sea level gets high. Etc.
This alarmist hysteria is simply ridiculous. It's based on very little science but is fueled by progressive dreams of destroying big oil and growing government and fanned further by the presence of Trump and his audacity to challenge foundational elements of the progressive religion.
4
@Ralphie
Shall we also debate whether the Earth is flat?
14
@Erik Frederiksen that['s simply ridiculous. Everytime an alarmist responds with "earth is flat" or similar it simply demonstrates they can't debate the issue.
2
@Ralphie - the problem, Ralphie dear, is that this red/blue team foolishness IS policy. It isn't about science at all. It's a kangaroo court that ignores the fact that the science itself is made up of hundreds of thousands of papers over a couple of centuries now.
And alarmists hate that, they want to take the cheap way out of conclusions they don't like by inventing inapplicable, reality-TV style exercises or, like you just did, spout alarmist, undocumented things like "immediately destroy our current economy".
Coal power is more expensive now than renewables in pretty much the entire country. Keeping coal running is bad for the economy. Replacing it is good for the economy.
Alarmists also blather things like "destroy all the good that fossil fuels have created" and then lie about glaciers melting because, apparently, in your mind glaciers have been fooled by reading climate models.
By the way, check your facts. According to the Census Bureau, the US is 4.3% of the world's population.
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Yet we emitted 15% of global CO2 last year, twice that of India. And over the span of the fossil age, we've put out a bit over 25% of all CO2.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
No, Ralphie, your alarmist, hysterical argument in favor of this show trial is just another validation that it's simply a political, ideological, fact-free attempt to keep delaying policy. Science, it ain't.
1
This is terrible news of course. However, we are not powerless in the face of this greed and self inflicted doomsday machine. We can make choices in our daily lives and influence policy on a state level. Unfortunately even here in Masschusetts we have a governor (Republican) who thinks because there is money to be made we should have Biomass as an "alternative" energy. That is burning our forests creating tons of pollution and CO2 in the process! So we are fighting that now. We must also fight against the oil/gas/plastic greed waste pile that these corporations, billionaires and their proxy politicians are trying to make our earth into! We can fight back and make change happen!
59
@Elizabeth
I especially like the “self inflicted” bit!
3
The climate alarm is solely based on models that can't explain temperatures in the past and which have not accurately predicted what temperatures would do.
There is a good reason for this. The climate is chaotic, no one knows every variable of the climate, impact of solar changes, ocean cycles, clouds etc, all of which have impact on temperatures.
The models overstate the impact of CO2.
4
this statement is absurd. model predictions of global, ocean and atmospheric temperature - past and present - provide excellent explanatory power of the many contributing factors driving temperature fluctuations. greenhouse gases, incl. co2 as a chief driver. sun spots, not so much...
16
@Trofim Lysenko
(1) They do explain past temperatures, with margins of error. As you say, climate is variable and dependent on various factors, but this does not mean it is impossible to estimate general long-term climate trends.
(2) "The climate alarm is solely based on models that... have not accurately predicted what temperatures would do." This could not be further from the truth. A cursory google search will show that, by and large, estimates of global warming (global median temperatures) have been remarkably accurate.
[https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming]
In fact, ExxonMobil prepared a study in the 1970s that estimated global warming and, though it was buried by ExxonMobil in the following decades, that estimate has been pretty spot on.
[https://www.sciencealert.com/exxon-expertly-predicted-this-week-s-nightmare-co2-milestone-almost-40-years-ago]
You are advocating arguments that are scientifically inaccurate and factually incorrect. I urge you to read more on the issue before regurgitating debunked talking point
12
@Sam
You have to admit the further out in time the prediction get the less accurate the results, and the most dire predictions get the press.
3
How can the religious right demand protection of individual “creation” (the unborn) and not demand protection of the CREATION?
24
They do not believe science is at all representative of truth because it is not from God’s revealed truth. They believe that if men obey God, God will save the world. If they don’t, God will destroy it. Pre-modern minds.
10
The summary of the nztv programme in this link shows you where the rest of the world is heading.
You need to make programmes like this to inform your citizens and make them aware of what's happening in your nation.
I watched an episode last evening and there's American immigrants who have immigrated to NZ because of our nations philosophy on the environment and they're building our future. I also read that there is an increase in people wanting to immigrate to NZ. They're probably frustrated with government policies in their own nations.
You need to lead by media to make citizens aware about consequences of deregulated and lawless plundering of the environment that only benefits the rich. Future generations will be left to clean up the mess left behind by the polluters and guess who pays? The taxpayer - not big businesses.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/what-next
7
I hate Trump. I hate his Republican appointees. I hate the do-nothing Republican Representatives and Senators.
Each day brings some vile news from D.C. Just when we think Trump cannot do something worse than the day before, he does.
Now, he's again overstepping Constitutional boundaries by taking Congress' job "To promote the Progress of Science", and in fact, jettisoning it.
Further, he wants to blackmail all countries who want to do business with the U.S. into saying they agree that fossil fuels pose no environmental dangers, if they want to do business with the U.S.
Americans need to boycott fossil fuels, take public transit, buy electric vehicles, install solar or wind energy generators on their roofs, use bicycles.
Democrats need to start making some noise. This is no time to be complacent and measured. Trump is destroying U.S. democracy, the environment and American health right before our eyes. Someone has to speak up.
Internationally, no country should do business with, or even welcome a visit from the blackmailing U.S.
27
It’s not just his paleolithic mindset that makes Trump pooh-pooh scientists’ facts-based warning on climate change. It’s also his determination to stay as president and flourish in business that makes him do it. To accomplish his the goals in both depends on his saying things and adopting policies that please his industrialist and evangelical friends who are climate-change-deniers.
Also, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton know that their survival in the Trump administration depends on their parroting their boss’s views on everything, including climate change. So, Bolton’s bringing physicist William Happer, who made the outlandish claim that “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” to serve on the NSC; and Pompeo’s seeing in the melting of arctic ice an opportunity to open up new shipping routes shouldn’t surprise anyone either. They are not bothered as long as their jobs are secure.
What is bothersome is that a one-time scientist on the faculty of the prestigious Princeton University should make a mockery of the dangers of carbon emission. And that he has no compunction in working as a foot soldier in President Trump's attack on science.
Mr. Happer, have you no shame in continuing to masquerade as a scientist? Will you be able to look at your former colleagues at Princeton and scientists elsewhere, who are appalled by your outlandish analogy between carbon emission and Jews' suffering under Hitler, with a straight face?
11
How tragic to assimilate the fact that the most serious threat to addressing climate change is the president of The United States.
22
This is absolute INSANITY. They are disputing literal facts and threatening the future of our entire PLANET.
17
What is it with the Mercers?!!
I think they are brainwashing a select few people a la The Manchurian Candidate. Probably Happer, definitely Lindsay Graham who is so confused he can barely string a coherent sentence together, and several others. (Probably not Bolton who I suspect was born a belligerent warmonger.)
But why?
Surely their billions are enough?
Let's investigate them! If three people can affect the future of our planet, we need to know more about them.
9
This is an original and important insight. Hey, NYT, can you follow up.
3
Trump's appointment record to the leadership positions of his departments and agencies is at best disastrous, bordering on criminality. His latest blessing is bestowed on Will Happer, an eminent physicist and emeritus professor at Princeton, who will head the proposes climate review panel. Happer is known for his contribution to adaptive optics, a technique that enhanced the performance of optical instruments such as astronomical telescopes. He also made valuable contributions to spectroscopy, atomic physics and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, Happer is neither a climate expert nor a biologist and has not been engaged in climate research nor has published anything on the topic in peer reviewed scientific journals. He has written books, articles and opinion pieces on the beneficial nature of added atmospheric CO2 to agriculture and humanity in general. His comments on climate, including those on the benefits of CO2, have been universally debunked by climate scientists and biologists, judgements that in Trump's eyes make Happer a prime candidate to head the Climate Review Panel, presumably staffed by like minded ignoramuses. It is analogous to appointing an Anti-Vaxxer to head the CDC.
12
@Rudy Ludeke
I suppose "everybody has their price" is Trump's main guideline for hiring talent, scientific or otherwise.
2
If Putin’s plan in puppeteering a President was to ultimately turn the worlds’ opinion against the United States, so that we would have no allies to turn to when the actual war begins, everything happening now makes perfect sense. Despite our huge nuclear triad, Putin is gambling that, rather than destroy the world to defend our turf, we will simply accept a new government that is beholden to him and his friends.
Presenting a clear and present danger, with saber rattling in Asia and the Middle East and South America, and, as the primary producer of greenhouse gas, it will not be difficult to sell the idea that America as it exists today is an experiment that has failed, and must be drastically reorganized or even destroyed to save the planet. Those Russians, actually a very nice bunch of folks, are by nature chess players, and the Chinese game is Go. They are long term thinkers, in other words, whereas Americans as a whole only pay attention to the 24 hour news cycle, when they can tear themselves away from the mindless distraction of social media. Trump is now talking about a coup, because it Did Happen, we just have not grasped the reality of where it started. Norquist, Bannon, Mcconnell, etc. themselves the compromised (Kompromatted?) tools of Putin’s of evil minions, are complicit. The coup has been in the works since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and played out in plain sight for the world to see. They have used our precious freedoms against us, and we let t happen.
10
I once wrote a short story about a man in a fictional country that worked as a state-employed torturer. He got up in the morning, took the bus to work and did some torturing.
He had lunch, discussed last nights game with colleagues and went back to work. He pulled out some nails and waterboarded someone with no name but number. For each confession he got a bonus.
Then he went home to his wife and kids, had dinner and played board games with the family.
The idea was: What about all those people who just do what they are told, completely ignoring their own moral compass. Maybe they felt bad in the beginning, but what happens to them as time goes by?
What does that story have to do with this article? Well, I am convinced that many around Trump know that they are doing something that is morally wrong, but they get used to it. Can we blame them? Can we forgive them? Should we? We know that power corrupts, that greed corrupts, but we have almost no mechanisms in place that disqualifies our politicians and officials if they lose their moral compass. If we had - who should be the judge and jury?. Dilemma. But seeing that the world is now at the mercy of a bunch of old men who live in an alternate reality...
Trump cannot do this without people supporting him and many cannot support him without ignoring values that we would expect people elected to manage our well-being to have. Maybe there should be some kind of Human Certificate, a certificate that can be revoked...
5
Just to be clear, most of the high ups in the GOP--including the President--DO "believe" in climate change--they know it is happening; but they are bought and paid for by big oil (Koch, et al)--who also know what is happening.
Do a little research about the internal documents at Exxon in the 1970s --they did their own scientific studies and could have done the right thing. Then they didn't. Suddenly there was a huge effort to sow uncertainty--"We need more data." "We don't really know." And so on. Stall. Rake in more money.
Even Trump has applied for a permit for a sea wall to protect his golf property in Ireland--*explicitly* from the effects of climate change.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.
The people with the money and power KNOW a dystopian future is coming as a result of climate change, environmental destruction, and human overpopulation. (Read: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/ayn-rand-and-the-cruel-heart-of-neoliberalism). Their plan is to hoard food, weapons, bottled water, etc. and let the masses kill each other while they protect themselves inside their fortified compounds with their small private armies of hired guards, mercenaries and high tech defenses.
7
It is articles like this one which shows that the NY Times has lost all objectivity and is now just a shadow if its former self. By continuing to promote climate hysteria in the face of failure of climate models to predict the climate, the former newspaper does a disservice to the public.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado, Boulder has done extensive statistical analysis showing the number of tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, floods and other adverse weather events have not increased, either in terms of absolute numbers or severity. The earth is 4.5 billion years old and the above weather events are common on this planet and will remain so. The good news is that we are much better at predicting them in real time, so the loss of life has plummeted dramatically during the last century.
To suggest that we should destroy our economy in the vain hope that we can change the climate is the height of folly and the Times owes us all an apology for contributing to this alarmism.
8
@Independent You can always give more tax cuts to the already rich. No problem for @GOP.
4
@Independent:
So, our climate models are wrong and our weather models are correct?
". . . the number of tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, floods and other adverse weather events have not increased, either in terms of absolute numbers or severity."
Re tropical cyclones, maybe not in frequency. . . In severity, absolutely.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/05/does-global-warming-make-tropical-cyclones-stronger/
5
@JC In terms of severity -- absolutely not. There are not more category 4 or 5 hurricanes now than in the past. There are severe hurricanes -- just not more statistically than in the past.
1
Every so often my wife asks me how can DT's base, who is usually hurt by him stay. I tell it's simple; they want to restrict women, have guns, pay no taxes.
One indicator of a person's sole is if they would plant a tree. Does anyone think Trump would plant an apple tree or an oak?
5
works for me. I will be dead by 2040 and I have no grandchildren so why should I care if the worst effects will occur after that time? Capitalism is all about greed and maximizing my interests. please do not ask me to compromise my faith in Capitalism for the sake of anyone else but me.
2
"Comments are moderated for civility." (Got it!) However, in the face of what Trump is saying and doing to destroy our earth, its atmosphere and its inhabitants, showing him civility is a tall order. Let me just say I would not exert much energy to save his life.
4
There are those who care about what happens after they are gone, those who don’t and just indifferently want to pass on problems.
Then there are those, like our president, who rage at the idea that anything will continue after they die. Trump actively strives to smash and destroy. Pretty much the Genghis Khan school of management.
2
As noted at RealClimate during Pruitt's reign,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/07/red-teamblue-team-day-1/
Trump seems bent on doing for climate policy what Season 8 did for Game Of Thrones
3
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm sea level rose 130 meters.
Currently we’re at 410ppm and on track for 800ppm this century. If sustained that would melt all the ice on the planet and severely reduce the habitable land areas.
16
We’re actually at 415ppm.
2
@Stephen Hocking
That’s a seasonal high.
1
...and, just think - just about the time that all we women are being forced to bear a new crop of hungry mouths, the crops will all fail and we will all be forced to starve!
Oh, those Republicans!
The gift that just keeps on giving!
17
And people wonder why millennals/GenZ are depressed, not saving for retirement, and lack respect for older people. Donald Trump, William Happer, and Mike Pompeo are all greedy old men stealing the future of my generation.
29
I really like this quote. Even The Onion can't do better.
“The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” said the physicist, William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council as the president’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies.
11
All I can say is - The Dems had better win!
16
Of course - Trump has a third grade science education (and a fifth grade economics diploma from Trump U probably - Penn wouldn't give him one I am sure). The more people that know the truth about anything, the more opposition Trump will have when he blurts out all those lies and "fake truths".
Don't you think it's about time that INTELLIGENT people who actually care about our country (you know, the America that USED to be great) were at its helm instead bob a bunch of greedy con men?
13
We are animals, subject to all of checks and limitations nature has to offer, including extinction. Humans may of course be the first species with the unique combination of power, greed, and utter stupidity to bring about our own extinction, or at least a substantial reduction. What will those fewer, future generations think of us who saw this coming and went full speed into the abyss?
10
@Fred Many species bring about their own extinctions, through catastrophic unintended mismanagement of resources, such as over-preying upon food sources at the wrong time. But animals have an excuse: THEY HAVE NO WAY TO KNOW BETTER.
Which makes humans who push for doing it to ourselves more unintelligent than "dumb" animals. More clever, perhaps, but ultimately, dangerously unintelligent.
3
Re this Happer joker, funny how "world class physicists" who we have actually heard of, like the late Stephen Hawking didn't seem to think they knew more about climate science than, well, climate scientists.
Yes, there is a lot of physics in climate science. But there are a tremendous number of interacting systems that this guy likely has little idea about how to properly model. Where is his "expert model" that is so blanking accurate, huh? Oh, nowhere? Wow, who knew?
9
@Bruce - great xkcd cartoon about the misplaced belief that physicists can just look at something new and figure it out better than the experts. https://www.xkcd.com/793/
And of course, Happer's chant is about trying to save poor old CO2 - he doesn't even say anything halfway detailed about climate - just repackages anti-policy talking points.
4
@Bruce This idiot, so-called scientist, is an embarrassment to the field. He should know that there is no way to rigorously test any theory that contradicts what 99.5% of climate scientists are saying. And when the consequences of being wrong can be irreversible global apocalypse, possibly irretrievably past the knee in the curve in 11 years, you don't have time to waste arguing about alternative facts.
If the climate scientists are wrong, well, some businesses make less profit for a while and there may be fewer billionaires in the world. The non-wealthy will have a tougher time, until economies have adjusted to the emphasis away from fossil fuels and beef beef beef beef beef, super-sized.
If the climate scientists are right, and we didn't do enough in time, millions of those non-wealthy will be dead or cannon fodder for wars started by the billionaires, who will be even fewer. Adjustment to that new world will be frighteningly more difficult, even for the rich.
Only the short-sightedly greedy don't get that. Unfortunately, they'd take us all down with them.
6
When Copernicus discovered the Sun did not revolve around the Earth he pretty much kept it to himself. He didn't want to follow in the footsteps of Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake. And Galileo was locked up in his house. The institutions of the Church were thoroughly vested in the Geocentric view of the universe. It took three hundred for Copernicus's view to win out. Even now their are still millions of people who believe the solar system is but 6000 years old. The vested interests today in denying climate change are as deep as those of the Church denying the Heliocentric view back in Copernicus's time. They are broad and deep. Unfortunately we don't have three hundred years to win mankind over. Trump is in many wells like the Popes of Copernicus's time. Ignorant, Power Hungry and Immoral. We had better get rid of him quickly by hook or crook. Or our children and grand children will hold us accountable.
13
@Oliver
Excellent comment, Oliver.
Here in Maine, I'm petitioning our congressional delegation (which includes Susan Collins) to speak out against this latest scorched earth action. I serve on a city climate change committee and the 3-part report we presented to city council used the 4th climate assessment as a baseline guide.
Trump and his minions are obscene.
5
First they came for the climate scientists, and I was not one, so I said nothing...
10
In other words, climate alarmists are panicked because they are about to be exposed.
5
@AZRandFan "Rand Fan" kind of lays out the validity of that in a nutshell...
2
@AZRandFan Yeah, we're so naive trusting scientists instead of political propagandists.
11
@AZRandFan In other words, time for denialist trolls to put out a whole lotta smoke to engage in serious whataboutism and conspiratorial hand-waving misdirection with mirrors and squirrels...?
3
Meanwhile, our DOD is preparing for the next wars resulting from climate change. What a dysfunctional government. 2020 elections and the removal of Trump cannot come soon enough.
12
It really isn't going to matter much. We are now living in the Great Die-Off, the 6th mass extinction event, and humanity will not survive it. The world will be better off without us.
9
Don't worry, folks, Trump will get us to doomsday far quicker than climate change, believe me.
6
The economics are against Trump and friends. Short of significant state subsidization of coal extraction and power generation, there is no way for coal be profitable. Mr. Trump has picked yet another another loser for the rest of us to bet on.
7
We've all cringed and rung our hands at Trump's pathetic lunacy. And that is no small thing, given the stakes of climate change.
But this William Happer character is, like Ted Cruz, a great example of the separation between intelligence and wisdom of any kind. Princeton-ians both, yet both subvert their intelligence to work at undermining evidence-based reality.
Hammer the "administration" and its minions at every turn, and drive voter registration and turnout now in anticipation of next year's election.
9
As mentioned in this article, pollution is known to be a detriment to people and environment and even the climate change deniers probably wouldn't deny that. So why not clean energy? Also, how much oil reserves are in the ground at this moment and how long will the last? Don't we have to start planning for this at some point? What motivates scientists to acknowledge carbon emission induced climate change and what motivates oil industries for debunking it? Just another inconvenient truth about how power works and who really calls the shots.
11
What Trump is doing to climate science and science and engineering in general is catastrophic for our country and the world. The rollback of many of US EPA's rules and regulations is not unlike the Soviet Union's approach to the Chernobyl atomic power plant explosion. The difference is that in America's stance it is politics and money that are fighting climate science and it's view of the future.
Having worked in the environmental sector for most of my career and understanding the issues that combine applied physical sciences, health and the bio-environment in general one of the challenges of our time. I worked at the US EPA as an enforcement officer for 13 years was witness to the impacts of industry and even some environmental activities such as disposal of sewerage sludge, that had the potential and actual detrimental impacts to health of humans and animals. The current government has no real environmental and climate science expertise in Washington and by appointing a physicist, a former astronaut and a coal lobbyist to direct the future of environmental and climate science is a disaster that may not be reversible.
The congress needs to investigate this and clearly demonstrate that the environmental and climate impacts that are now occurring mainly affect the populist base of the current administration which is the poorest of Americans. In the future money and power will not protect even the richest population from the impending environmental and climate disasters.
24
The name for this crime is attempted geocide.
23
@A reader More than simple genocide certainly, but the planet will continue even if the biosphere (and all of its inhabitants) suffers a really big compromise as a consequence of humanity's accrued actions in converting geologically-sequestered carbon resources into atmospheric CO2 over the past few millennia (and especially the past few hundred years).
To be willing to destroy the global climate for short term monetary gain is monstrously unethical. History will judge these oil and gas billionaires - and their lackeys - harshly. Shame on them.
27
@Tapani
Hit them in court at every turn.
We're not going back to medieval times, where truth seekers are put on trial.
3
@Tapani
What history? If they succeed in destroying this planet, there will be no history because there will be no one to record it.
4
@Tapani What history there may be!
1
so, this time it's trump and his minions against the planet. let's hope the planet fights back. there will be a target on all of us in this country. trump could go down as the most destructive person in world history. seriously.
30
You can't fool with Mother Nature.
6
Ah, the backlash. Did LBJ realize when he pushed civil rights legislation that the dem's would lose the South? Did people realize when they elected a black President what would happen 8 years later? That everything he accomplished must be un-done?
1
Let's get this started REALLY FAST!! Don't let t appoint the committee. Have someone from MIT gather the study group. That way it will be impartial and closer to the truth.
3
Tell it to Oklahoma that climate change is a hoax.
6
This new, small ‘d’, democracy party is breaking away from and replacing what Christopher Hitchens, two decades ago, called, “The Democratic Party is not so much dead as actually, visibly, palpably rotting on the slab.”
Thank God for Bernie, AOC, the serious and principled left, and ‘we the people’ from the New Green Deal, and other anti-war and anti-Empire movements, finally firing a; loud, public, sustained, ‘in the streets’, but totally non-violent “Shout (not shot) heard round the world” to ignite an essential continuation and completion of the American “Revolution Against Empire” [Justin du Rivage] in 1776 to this new democracy party in 2020 of a people’s peaceful “Political/economic & social Revolution Against EMPIRE”.
This is what the Guardian writes about New Green Deals against environmental, social, economic, and/or nuclear death of our planet being caused by elitist global Empire looting and war against our only world:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/12/the-guardian-view-on-a-green-new-deal-we-need-it-now
My only demonstration, march, and protest sign simply reads on one side:
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
and ‘more importantly’ on the other side under an image of ‘our’ American flag:
“We can’t be an EMPIRE”
4
Forcible inducement of institutional myopia = idiocy, if not insanity -- sufficient grounds for treason IMHO against not only all American citizens but all other denizens of Planet Earth.
10
It’s small consolation to imagine a future “crimes against the planet and humanity” tribunal with Trump, cronies, and backers on the stand. And Greta Thunberg as judge.
5
"In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind ... it is not clear [though] that human intelligence has any long-term survival value.”
― Stephen Hawking
18
There is nothing this administration won't do to demean and de-legitimatize science and elevate quackery and religious dogma.
Follow the money (and donors and votes.)
13
"Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Science"
There, fixed it.
7
For around 40 million years the Earth has been in an ever deepening Ice Age, and the global CO2 level and average temperature, now, and throughout this Malenkovitch Cycle Inter Glacial Age, is the lowest it has been since the Permian Extinction 270 million years ago.
The world CO2 level at 400 ppm is dangerously low, contrary to popular propaganda, and is responsible in part for world wide forestry decline. Should it fall below 150 ppm all plant life will start to die from CO2 starvation, closely followed by all animal life dependent upon it.
One mature tree can transpire 150,000 litres of water per year, and when multiplied by several trillion trees, this causes significant cooling, worldwide.
The destruction of forests, both natural and by man, reduces this cooling, and in extremes produces hot desert.
Re-greening desert areas, will do far more to reduce any minor climate warming than tinkering with the tiny amount of human produced CO2.
Habitat destruction, combined with the reduced recovery level caused by low CO2 level, is the real reason for the present extinctions.
President Trump is therefore correct in his assessment that AGW is a scam, designed to destroy economies based on fossil fuels.
4
@niklar55 So why don't you go right out and "re-green" the deserts? Got a plan? Did we have acid rain and pollution killing flora and fauna caused by fossil fuel burning emissions back in the good old days of the dinosaurs? Were the conditions before the Ice Age conducive to modern human life, or more dangerous because of the kinds of weather and animals that weather produced??
1
@niklar55 You must then believe the rise of atmospheric CO2 in the historical record and from proxy data over the past few millennia (particularly the past few hundred years) is due to gremlins, leprechauns, maybe the Devil's tooth fairy, or even invisible aliens from Venus (or somewhere equally hellish) here to remake our fair planet more to their liking? No, it was just us clever and inventive humans, intent on survival in the short-run and then prospering in the somewhat longer-term, but never really thinking about the truly long-term consequences of our self-interested actions.
Your comment is the scam here, not the article's content that exposes the neofascist Administration's ongoing perfidy.
6
The truth is that what is required of us now to contend with climate change, and hopefully fend off the very worst devastation to ourselves and other species, accelerating consequences and scenario for our children and our future, is nothing less than a Marshall Plan, Manhattan, or Apollo Project scale effort on our part. We are five decades at least beyond when we began ignoring the known science. This is about, chemistry and physics; they are physical laws, not open to mindless R's & D's or Fox opinion political debate. WE are in big trouble already, and there is not one issue: e.g. economics, human suffering and migrations, devastating costs, food challenges, armed conflicts, political destabilization ... that will not be exacerbated outside our ability to respond, IF we, in our time NOW, do not Act with a response equal to the scale of the threat. ~ It's no 'hoax' and no joke. WE are up to it, or we are not ... and the challenge is our own ultimate extinction. Kind of sad for a short lived 250,000 year species, (who different from Dinosaurs who had a 250 million year reign), could see what was coming, understand it, are and have been capable of responding and changing to save ourselves. Read UP:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/books/review/david-wallace-wells-uninhabitable-earth-nathaniel-rich-losing-earth.html?fbclid=IwAR2EItW3sr4ENs0yNxMxCq3sjs0GIxWKf8tpkVNzesVuESZe_tarqChaWpA
4
You know if citizens of Utah want their state to have terrible air from coal and they vote then I guess that s their right. But those religious folks should be taking care of their planet and putting their money where their mouth is. The same goes for Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, etc. Mother Nature nor God cares what your politics are so as storms get worse then this is what folks get if they don't care and vote for people who allow pollution.
1
Still using the tried if not true propaganda method, if you repeat something enough people will believe it. Like “Trump is a Genius”.
7
@Indy1
Yo! And a "very stable genius" at that!
(What kind of man talks like that, anyways?)
7
@rosa
Trump's language perfectly expresses his odious personality. Why people cleave to it is harder to understand.
5
@rosa The most viable answer to your hypothetical question is: narcissistic self-promoters (a.k.a. "flim-flam" men) and grifting fraudsters.
2
Science is the enemy of the fossil fuel industry. That is why they pour billions into the GOP false propaganda machine.
12
So if it happens after we're dead it doesn't matter?
3
We have a government that’s led by people that are either evil or fools - or both.
11
Donald Trump vs Reality
I wonder who's going to win?
7
“The previous use of inaccurate modeling that focuses on worst-case emissions scenarios...does not reflect real-world scenarios..." according to Trump's EPA spokesperson James Hewitt.
This is another blatant lie by the Trump administration. The National Climate Assessment, which I doubt these people have even read, has a plethora of different scenarios, depending on which policies are enacted. If anything, climate assessments of the future (such as by the IPCC) DOWNPLAY the seriousness of the impacts because the authors are afraid of the political consequences. If climate predictions have been so woefully pessimistic, why is it that climate change continues to accelerate at pace beyond anything scientists forecast 20 or 30 years ago?
This action is the main reason to impeach Donald Trump (unless he starts a war with Iran to distract people from look at his finances). It is criminally irresponsible and puts our whole planet in jeopardy.
9
When we've seized power through elections from these retrogrades, we need to find a way to hold them publicly liable for the long term damage and costs their climate denial will visit in the generations to come.
8
@YMR
Yes. Exxon Mobil et al. need to pay for the damage they caused just like Big Tobacco had to pay for the damage they caused by lying about the health effects of smoking. Send all FEMA bills straight to Exxon.
4
In the future, the only nations the USA will be able to trade with and sell their agricultural products to will be third world nations that will eat anything and don't demand quality products that are GE free, and from nations that have signed reducing pollution pacts and agreements. (Or USA citizens will have to eat all your cancer causing foods full of chemicals etc.
You'll lose all your European markets if you are not careful as they're very fussy about where their food comes from and don't like genetically modified foods. Near as possible to organic, is what the rest of the world is wanting now, including your rival China.
Even China knows the value of having environmental regulations to get trade deals, and is doing more to improve their environment.
A backward step for the USA when you look at the government debt and want more export orders now and in the future.
USA is being left behind and was the only nation in the world that never signed the NATO treaty to reduce plastics etc.
You're turning into what China used to be and China is turning into the USA.
9
This all Pres. Obama's fault! If he had simply questioned the reality of man-made global warming his successor would have gone all-out to put an end to it. Our air would be clean by now, our water unpolluted, our automobiles electrified and out coal mines shut down for good. Thanks, Barack!
2
Utah voters overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
This is what they want in their state. Sad.
6
Reply to TheLeftIsRight-TheRightIsWrong: I made a button with this exact sentiment when George W was in office... sadly, it hasn't gone out of style. I'd send you one if I knew how to reach you!
2
When the Midwest and East Coasts have inundated themselves with more acid rain and and the combustion releases higher levels of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (PM), mercury, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health from their aging coal plants we will not welcome trump when he wants to relocate to the West Coast. Live with your dirty air and dirty water Donald.
4
I, like nearly everyone who voices their opinion, do not know all the “facts “....and we won’t get them unless they are allowed to be objectively studied, and broadly reported. That said, this issue is too important to the future of our children and grandchildren to be politicized, I.e., determined by monied interests. Let scientists study, and report their findings-and ignore uninformed proclamations by tweet....
3
Too many people. Without addressing that, everything else is small potatoes.
2
trump and the crooked GOP in the senate seem to think they and their families are immune to the destruction brought on by climate change.
They and their children and their grand children will suffer the consequences of dirty air and dirty water.
Maybe, when their children and grand children suffer from life threatening asthma attacks or when they get seriously sick from the dirty water then maybe, just maybe, they will wake up and do something constructive and clean up our planet.
Unfortunately, by then it may be too late.
4
WHY would Trump care, he's not going to be around when it happens? He's nothing more than the Pied Piper of Hamlin leading some down the yellow brick road of hyperbole. As long as he has followers, he'll continue to pontificate. He always does.
3
What distresses me, and this is in the light of the recent IPCC report and the UN's recent report on biodiversity, is that we don't have time. To engage in Trumpian farce squanders our efforts and our breath. Emma Thompson said in another part of this newspaper, "we are in a race, as you know, against consciousness and catastrophe.”
4
At this point in history the actions of the Republicans and Trump is nothing short of attempted murder, slow motion murder, manslaughter... take your pick. I would also argue that Trumps action are impeachable dereliction of duty/a violation of his oath of office.
But it's all good because the rich people are really really rich and having lots of fun at the expense of the rest of us, so we should be happy.
8
It's easy to see why oil or coal execs would dispute climate science, or even residents of WV.
Trump's a different story. His signature property, Mar-a-lago, is incredibly vulnerable to both rising seas and stronger hurricanes. His golf courses will cost more to maintain and draw fewer customers with bad weather and droughts. He would seem to have as much to lose as anyone, yet he's either too dense or ideologically hidebound to see it. Or maybe under the control of Russian oil and gas interests.
3
@Jomo Try to zoom out a bit. Those properties are just past-times for Trump. Chess pieces to move and play with on his bank loan applications and (admittedly) fraudulent tax returns. He makes his real money in the black market.
Besides all that- he will just collect on his flood insurance when the time comes.
We've seen enough of Trump to know his playbook inside and out. This "Stable Genius" is very predictable.
2
Who’s going to wait on and innovate for the hyper-wealthy after they’ve destroyed the world and are living in their underground bunkers?
Antibiotics don’t discover themselves.
3
“A single chlorofluorocarbon factory can produce gases with a climate forcing that exceeds the forcing due to Earth orbital perturbations.” James Hansen, 2011 http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110505_CaseForYoungPeople.pdf
These “orbital perturbations” caused huge changes in climate due to amplifying feedbacks like ice melt and release of CO2 from warming oceans and methane from permafrost.
From PNAS in 2014: “Using satellite measurements, this analysis directly quantifies how much the Arctic as viewed from space has darkened in response to the recent sea ice retreat. We find that this decline has caused 6.4 ± 0.9 W/m2 of radiative heating since 1979, considerably larger than expectations from models and recent less direct estimates. Averaged globally, this albedo change is equivalent to 25% of the direct forcing from CO2 during the past 30 y.” https://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3322
As the other half of the surface area of Arctic sea ice largely goes away by mid-century, that amplifying feedback will increase substantially. And the loss of seasonal snow cover in the North adds a similar amplifying feedback.
That polar amplification is going into the melting of the permafrost which locks up over twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere.
I’m not sure we have the brakes now to stop this ball from rolling where we don’t want it to.
5
I was an Air Force meteorologist for 22 years, with degrees from NYU and MIT. Global warming is occurring as a result of burning fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Age about 250 years ago. The damage that it will do is still uncertain. It is likely that our southern Bible Belt will be the first to suffer. Therefore, I support building a wall to keep residents of the former Confederacy in place.
14
@JSK - Ah....the economy the air conditioning built. Without it, all of the good times come to a screetching halt. If you ever want to see something silly, attend a civic club talk in a Southern town featuring someone from the local electric utility. Their threats are all too clear. "if you have any objections to burning fossil fuel, then you must be against prosperity".
2
I previously thought maybe Trump alone should be the
DUNNING-KRUGER Poster Person.
I now believe all the science deniers, who are otherwise likely normal people, just unwilling or unable to read and understand science facts, should be allowed to share that mantel. May they wear it well, though not proudly!
Meanwhile, this planet devolves into chaos, with unstoppable flooding, food shortages from overfishing and the inability to pollinate crops as chemicals poison bees, with livable land shrinking while human population explodes, and global corporations swap life for increased shareholder profits.
We are witnesses to the end to our planet.
5
98% of scientists, who spend their life's work studying the climate and its impact on earth and living things, agree that climate change is already here and is a serious problem for the future of the planet. US military reports concur.
Mr. Trump is a businessman (not a very successful one) and an entertainer. Where are Mr. Trump's credentials, evidence, data, and facts to dispute the scientists' credentials, evidence, data, and widely agreed-upon fact that climate change is real and already doing damage?
With wings of feathers and wax, Mr. Trump has a penchant for flying much too close to the sun. Do he, the GOP, and the dying fossil fuel industry care they are taking us and the earth with them in their folly and quest for gold?
In denying climate change and even actively working to make climate change worse, Trump and the GOP can no longer refer to themselves as "pro-life."
4
@PB
They never were or will be "pro-life." That is only a convenient culture war stance to cover for their sickening greed and lust for power over others.
4
We have three huge forces allied against our grandchildren’s future: our government, big business interests and the climate itself. At this moment, it seems overwhelming because government and big business and often big environmental groups are all “partners.”
We need a leader - and to get behind a leader - who is not half-hearted, not co-opted. We need someone with guts.
2
I used to think: well, history will judge these people so harshly. In between marching, signing petitions, and giving small sums - almost daily - to various resistance causes, there had been a sort of future Frontline documentary about this unbelievable nightmare regime playing in my head, from the safe perspective of hindsight. But now I doubt whether we will even make it to that point as a species.
5
@printer I feel you. With warming expected to accelerate around 2040 or 2050, it is likely that I will see some messed up things in my lifetime. At this point for me best case would be my children reading about this current era in school. Can't even speak of the worst case.
1
The Times can rapidly settle the arguments discussed here. I suggest an examination into any correlation between the voting districts who solidly voted GOP and the areas that were hit with severe weather extremes since Nov 2016. I suspect there is indeed a correlation. These data should convince those most affected by floods, tornadoes, drought and wildfires that they only hurt themselves by supporting irrational climate change deniers...even more so if they believe in the wrath of the Almighty.
2
Instead of calling it "climate change" or "global warming" -- why not just call it for what it is? POLLUTION. Ask any climate-science denier why they think "pollution" is good for the country, the earth, the people? By calling it "pollution," they have less wiggle-room to cloud the discussion. Why do you think "pollution" is a good thing? Why do you think "pollution" is a partisan issue? Do they need a "consensus" of the scientific community to convince you that "pollution" is not good for you? On the eighth day did God provide us with pollution and say it was good?
7
@Alan thanks to Trump who labels everything and everyone that disagrees with him. For example he uses the word Democrat as though speaking of a disease. And people follow suit. I don't understand the minds of people when talking about Trump and their support of him.
So I guess an unusual what, maybe? 80 tornado's just this last week in the Mid West aka Trump country is normal and has no connection to global warming climate changes , Trump's scientific advisors would just say that their have always been tornado's.
3
That's why they call it "tornado alley"
You can say with certainty exactly 4 things that will happen with increased atmospheric CO2.
1 - The temperature of the atmosphere will increase (this is simple chemistry).
2 - The temperature of the oceans will increase (2nd Law of Thermodynamics)
3 - Due to (2), more water vapor evaporate from the oceans (Chemistry due to the 2nd Law).
4 - Total precipitation will increase (Simple equilibrium kinetics).
While one can say with certainty how much heat will be immediately trapped by increased CO2, one cannot say by how much because we have no clue as to the positive/negative feedbacks of the increased water vapor. Any atmospheric scientist will tell you this. All of the predictions, dire or otherwise, are no better than using an Ouija board. Indeed, we do not know and cannot know by how much human released CO2 has actually increased the temperature since we can never know what the temperature would have been in the absence of this CO2.
We know temperature will increase with higher level of co2, so a decrease would be good , eh?
Something else to ponder.
Descendants and descendants not yet born of climate deniers, will curse their ancestors upon learning that they didn’t do their part when alive, to assist in combating the assault for a cleaner planet earth, to alleviate the suffering that they will all endure due to their ancestors stubborn inaction when called upon to at least participate in robust debate for common ground. No clean air, water, or ability to sustain a viable food source for humans to survival. Sleep well on that!
1
A person/family w/ wealth in excess of a couple/few thousand millions (in other words billions), god forbid much more, could handily move a substantial entourage anywhere they chose, and thus ride out all the worst of climate change in relative comfort and security.
Add to that the GWB quote another poster recounted, to the effect of not being terribly worried about history, because he'd "be dead".
Finally, factor in the evangelical/"born again" crowd view that this life is all but an illusion - the real reality is their "after-life".
These 3 things: uber-extreme wealth (and the number attaining it accelerating); a lack of historic perspective or interest thereof (intellectual laziness-seeming to be growing); and a grounding in supernatural beliefs that minimize the import of the here and now (simultaneously embracing the pursuit of extreme wealth) could be the perfect storm leading to mankind's demise (the most religious of this crowd is already anxiously awaiting this demise as part of their belief system).
The human animal has got to evolve. If not, even if we can limp to a less awful climate future, this combo of ultra-extreme wealth, intellectual relativism/antagonism, and organized/politically driven religion will eventually be our undoing...
2
@Bigg Wigg
I would not have believed that such insane fanatics existed except for a central PA secretary I once had who predicated her loan repayment schedule based on arrival of The Rapture. In Trumpworld, they've been emboldened to do worse damage than that. And it's not just to their credit rating or a bank.
A lot of people have their "hair on fire" in these comments and I understand their alarm. However, at the State level a LOT of actions are being taken around clean energy that Trump cannot reverse. Also, many companies are moving to clean energy sources and environmentally cleaner production and policies. The end is not quite near yet. And, if Trump is kicked out by voters and a reasonable person replaces him a lot of this can be reset.
The other key point to keep in mind is that it is very important what India and China do on their development paths. Actions by the U.S. could be swamped if they move in the wrong direction. We need to help them make better choices if we can. Maybe that is the most important reason we need to clean up our side is to encourage them to follow suit.
6
@G. Harris
Agreed, and hair being 45% carbon, we don’t want to exacerbate the problem.
With regard to the up-and-comers though, China already makes more solar panels and wind turbines than any other country...so perhaps we can light a fire of a different sort here, to insist those technologies be invested in to greater degree than petrochemicals.
The current administration has far too many loyal fans in the petroleum industry however, and the oil barons will continue to pump money into anybody’s campaign war chest provided they continue to “stake their claims” on their benefactors behalf.
1
I have numerous in laws who claim that there is a "cyclical change" in our climate but it is not primarily caused by burning fossil fuels. The most outspoken member is a Phd from Princeton who is an expert on coal- fired furnaces. One can imagine what our cocktail parties are like...
5
@Kokopelli Boy, does that sound fun!
"It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, "
In Oct 2017 the world laughed at Trump when he spoke at the UN General Assembly. He said he was surprised by the reaction/laughter. The world is no longer laughing at the Trump-Kushner crime family & their abettors. Why ?
Trump has said:
1/ Global Warming is a hoax that China invented to bankrupt the USA.
2/ Mexico is going to pay for his tall wall, sea-t0-sea.
3/ I don`t know why it would have been Russia. (Helsinki re Russian cyber interference in the 2016 election).
4/ I will release my income taxes.
5/ I won the popular vote in 2016 except for the 3-5 million illegal votes.
6/ To the 1% , "I just made you more wealthy with the tax cut". To the unwashed , the wealthy(& me) are not going to benefit from the tax cut.
7/ The P5+1 Iran nuclear deal is the USA`s worst deal (ie. not good for Israel).
8/ Winning Trade Wars is easy.
9/ I will replace Obamacare with a better cheaper plan.
10/ I will balance the budget and begin paying down the debt.
11/ I didn`t pay hush money to 2 call-girls.
The world is turning away from the USA.
38
@Duncan Lennox Yes. Trump is undermining USA leadership to a point of no return and that -in the long run- will be good for the planet. He´s making a clear example of what a leader should not be.
2
@Duncan Lennox
Once again Trump and his cronies are out of touch. Twenty twenty can’t come soon enough. They should be sent to Chins for a week at at the height of a smog alert. How anyone in the right mind could have voted for Trump is beyond me.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget the Tarrifs. Let’s put the farmers who voted for Trump out of business. How about a war with Iran? Wars,pollution, tarrifs, racism, pulling out of The Iran Nuclear deal. Does it ever end? This bunch needs to go!
2
trump is a fool of the highest order
How can anyone not know that clean water and air are not debatable issues.
Experts have said climate change is not only real, but has accelerated beyond expectations.
39
@Stephen Wait until the methane positive feedback loop really kicks in. None of the current climate models account for increasing methane from the thawing permafrost. "accelerated beyond expectations" is going to seem like an understatement in ten years.
7
@daycd CO2 & CH4 are powerful GHG’s - N2O is also being released from thawing soils & it’s 300 X more potent as a GHG than CO2. The climate emergency is already experiencing those feedback loops you correctly highlighted.
3
@Daycd Especially as methane, unlike CO2, retains heat from sunlight at an "astronomically" higher rate. Methane in currently melting permafrost is just started to jet into the atmosphere. Methane is also released (not all captured) as a bi-product of fracking.
2
Trump bravely leading the USA back to 1950 with Coal as the fuel of the "future'. Trump constantly denies reality ,Russians didn't interfere in our 2016 elections and he and he alone using his winning charms will make foreign leaders see things his way and forget their national interests . Trump has managed to destroy the reputation of America in the world as he attacks our traditional allies while hugging the world's brutal dictators the type of leader he wants to be a hybrid of Kim and Putin. Trump re-elected will be the Trump dictatorship with AG Barr as his henchman crushing dissent.
22
When the people in the United States, chose Donald Trump, never imagined the impact of his decisions. and I refer to the climate consequences, not in the American union but in other countries like Colombia, South Africa or India. The American people can not imagine the power of its own country, and how it can affect million people around the globe. The fact that Donald Trump is the President of United States, samples that American voters have no idea about their country`s role in the world. It is not just the American prosperity, is the world survival.
22
Meanwhile back at the ranch as the EPA is being gutted, the CFPB is being dismantled, Dodd–Frank is being compromised, the deficit is going through the roof, huge chunks of public lands are being sold off, world free trade is being seriously assailed, the justice department is being revamped with a slew of GOP biased judicial appointees, and all while the FBI is being disemboweled.
43
@John Townsend
Remember when trump said "it is I alone that can fix these problems?" Or words to that affect.
Well he sure is "fixing" things.
4
@Pataman Yeah...he's fixing the game for himself and the rest of the global elites (a neofascist oligarchy if there ever was) and nobody else.
2
Further proof, Donald Trump and his flunkies, only care about exterminating the environment in place of greed and the almighty dollar. POTUS has even proclaimed on the record, that it doesn’t bother him because he won’t be here. Talk about ones inability to foresee the overall big picture. Hello, Mr. President, what about your own grandchildren and their generations need to survive a clean planet Earth?
To eliminate the critical data from timely government surveys needed to measure its destruction forces to every day living, does not make it all go away. Can we just please get rid of this dysfunctional administration now, before the damage they inflict is irreversible? To be the only nation to pull out of the Paris climate accords shows their irresponsibility to be a world leader on this issue. What utter ignorance they sow everyday!
15
@Woosa09 IT won't matter when everyone's dead from pulmonary disease, cancer, heat stroke, compicated black lung, etcetc.
@Woosa09
POTUS has even proclaimed on the record, that it doesn’t bother him because he won’t be here.
That is the ipitome of arrogance and extreme ego.
He cares nothing about anybody, including his children and grand children, but himself.
As Mark Twain said: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
I would like to change that to:
I wish trump dead and hope to read his obit very soon.
5
Why wasn't this problem solved by Bill?
@Bob
It would have been solved by Al.
6
@Bob
Before Bill.
This NYT article shows us how it almost happened. Or at least could have happened if not for St. Reagan.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
2
The leaders of the most scientifically and technologically advanced nation on earth are anti-science. Duh.
14
When Trump's Florida white house Mar a Lago, situated close to the ocean's surf line floats out to sea, as a result of the next and impending ocean's rise resulting from the impending break off of the Antartica's next major ice shelf break off, Trump will certainly get the global warming message.
6
@Windwolf I don't think he will; he'll just blame it on someone or something else.
Getting rid of this administration by voting them all out in 2020 is no longer simply a political question: Republican vs. Democrat.
This is a matter of life and death for our children and grandchildren and for the Earth itself.
31
@EMiller Rational v. Superstitious
Ironic that this comes when most of Trumplandia is being besieged by extreme weather, one of the harbingers of climate change. I only wish someone would start a rumor that this is God’s punishment for supporting the squatter in the White House and perhaps the fundamentalists among them will get the picture.
And, of course, as happens with the farmers, and the miners, and the corporations, we will all compensate the naysayers and trumpists by bailing them out with our tax dollars, never mind the commonweal...
9
The biggest mistake by those concerned about the effects of climate change is that they have exaggerated their concerns and then doubled down when their dire predictions failed to materialize. I wish we could keep politics out of science but it seems they will inevitably clash over policy. I expect some howls over this but I have not been impressed with the ability of the climate models to predict what has already happened and I think a short-term approach while we continue to study and improve the computer modeling makes good sense. The scare tactics, no matter how well founded, are hard to buy.
5
@PHG I don't know what your source of information is but it is very wrong. Maybe if you lived in Ohio you would be more "impressed" with what scientists have been predicting for the past 50 years = more EXTREME weather events. Dire climate predictions are coming true every day at a rate much faster than scientists anticipated decades ago. Water is pouring out of Greenland as the ice melts, and sea level has risen 8" since 1900, after remaining stable for 2,000 years. Furthermore the rate of sea level rise is increasing. In case you haven't noticed, Florida cities are now flooding at high tide. Arctic ice is receding and gigantic chunks of ice (the size of entire states) are breaking off Antarctica. Plant and animal species, aside from disappearing entirely, are moving north and up in altitude, to adapt to a warming climate. Weather events are getting more extreme (predicted at least 40 years ago), and the East cost of the US is getting wetter. For your information, climate models are developed - and constantly corrected - by matching predictions to actual outcomes. We don't have time for any more studying. We need to act.
15
To be taken seriously, opponents of climate change science must engage w the facts of the science (eg what predictions have the models failed at in regard to which specific outcomes?)
Otherwise it grounds itself on adjectives vs the weight of climate science, economics and concern for social welfare
2
@PHG
No, many observed impacts from global warming are occurring sooner and with greater amplitude than was projected just a few years ago.
3
Individual efforts alone will not be enough to change the outcome. Only global treaties to reduce greenhouses gasses will bend the curve. Support candidates for President who will do the hard work of negotiating treaties to slow pollution down, and support people for Congress who respect science and who are not afraid to stand up to polluters. Voting is the only way to make a difference.
13
@Sherry
Individual effort will not be enough on its own, but it will help, including psychologically. We have all had a hand in getting us here, so helping to solve it is empowering. Mindful living starts at home.
2
@D. Wagner
Helping psychologically is very important as despair does not enable us to take action. Hope - maybe another word for prayer to the non-religious - does.
1
Of course, Trump doesn't want to acknowledge climate change. If he were to give that legitimacy, he'd have to come up with a coherent infrastructure policy that takes into account landslides, flooding in coastal areas, water conservation in areas where snowfall has decreased, and extreme weather onslaughts.
Better to have a hissy fit and stomp out before anyone even mentions something as scarey as "coherent".
Since when has Trump been coherent.
16
@Jbugko
Meanwhile, smart and wealthy Switzerland is doing infrastructure based on expectations of serious climate change. We certainly are "exceptional"...
Despite what the misinformers would have people believe, science works.
Your smart phone is built from sand, oil and rocks. Sand for glass and chips, oil for the plastic and the right shiny rocks for copper, gold and rare earth minerals.
It has Einstein in it, without special and general relativity the nice lady who tells you where to go will get you lost.
It has quantum physics built into it. Science and some engineering, technology, marketing and design.
And still you have people pulling out their smart phones and sending out tweets and posting on internet threads that scientists don't know what they are talking about.
Try giving a bunch of congressmen some sand, oil and rocks and ask them to make a smart phone and monkeys would type Shakespeare before you got the phone.
You can break a smartphone with a hammer, but you can't build one with a hammer.
You can break climate systems with a hammer of 40,000 pounds of CO2 per person annually in the US, but we can't repair the jet stream or rebuild the ice sheets
29
Enough is enough. Trump has given us the road map on how to address this. If a Democrat is elected to the White House, I expect them to declare a national emergency to get the funding needed to address this issue. This is, after all, an actual emergency.
28
Up next on Trump's anti-science propaganda tour:
De-linking smoking from lung cancer and heart disease.
De-linking human population growth from the decline of
biodiversity and species extinctions.
De-linking lead contamination from mental disorders.
De-linking DDT from the thin eggshells of raptors.
De-linking thalidomide from birth defects.
Truly, this is going to be a very reactionary year for science.
16
@Stop and Think
Let's buy Trump an early bird discount ticket on Elon Musk's dream vacation. He's earned it.
This is the essential battle: Marketing vs Science.
Marketing is about separating fools from their money or votes--aiming at making the rich richer--in the short run--their life times. Persuasion is IT; truth, rational belief, knowledge are irrelevant. Marketing sells myth to sell product--or in some cases the myth is the product. "Trump is a very stable genius"--for example.
Science (and all academia) searches and re-searches for the best beliefs given the available evidence (rational belief; knowledge and ultimately the best beliefs given the best possible evidence. Saving the planet--atmosphere and biosphere--as a habitat for humanity is the goal. Amazing that this goal is incompatible with the rich getting richer.
The Dark Ages were essentially the triumph of myth marketing. The Renaissance and Enlightenment were a philosophical/ideological revolution--spawning the the US revolution.
Trump and Trumpies are the counter revolutionaries--aiming for the rebirth of "alternate facts" and a new aristocracy--rule of the moneylords, updating landlords.
The "haves" forget that their wealth and the subservience of the "have-nots" is a product of property tax and labor law--a creation of law, not a natural right.
12
@Michael Kubara
Unfortunately, the interaction of marketing and science has introduced plenty of scientific bias into the system. The control of scientific bias is "peer review", usually quite effective in preventing or detecting bias. Unfortunately, there is no effective control of marketing except the common sense (sales resistance) of the consumer. And therein lies our present dilemma. See also "wishful thinking".
@Quite Contrary
"Peer" in peer review means equally knowledgeable/competent. Able to appreciate the state of the art/science; able to notice mistakes.
Obviously it's not peer as in (a) Brit peer or (b) equally wealthy or (c) the same social economic class or (d) the same party.
The wrong "peers" are all in conflict of interest--hardly impartial and disinterested.
"Bias" is like "partial"--a form of bad discrimination--a wrong "angle", point of view, perspective. The is no perception or conception without a POV. But some are better, apt, than others. The best ones are not "biases"--they let us see reality.
From harnessing atomic energy to landing on the moon to climate science denial. How far we've fallen.
15
Climate Change has been based on consensus, not science. It is the politicisation of scientific research by an elite that aims to control the world’s economy.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution…This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.” [Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015]
“In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” (Michael Crichton.)
Climate Change is a hoax.
5
@MariaMagdalena
Appropriate that you quote a science fiction author. Not all science fiction comes true.
For some reason, I doubt that scientists around the world got together over coffee and decided to create some kind of movement. "Hey! Let's call it Climate Change!"
Regarding changing the economic model, the Fossil Fuel Big Guys are already working on alternative energy models. They will figure out a way to make money, don't fret. Their problem is one of requiring immediate gratification, kind of like what a little kid expects. Yes, this will require hard work and sacrifice and a global commitment, but what good things don't?
“Climate change is a hoax,” says someone who cites a novelist as an authority on scientific epistemology. It’s almost funny.
5
Crichton is a writer and physician— not a scientist
2
Climate change seems like a great reason for Trump to demand local manufacturing. Less fossil fuels used in shipping. Some products are made of components that travel in total 100k mikes or more. What a waste.
3
I think people and companies should be able to buy products from wherever they feel best serves their needs at prices they can afford. Supersized tankers, standardized containers, and efficient loading/unloading equipment all keep long distance shipping costs low.
What is NOT properly factored into transportation costs is the extra expense that fossil fuels should bear for climate change and the overseas protection provided by our military industrial complex. Those costs are divorced from products and instead socialized on the backs of everyone or our descendants.
3
Here's a plan. The US population since the first Reagan amnesty has increased the US population by 38 million due to immigration. Multiply that number by the amount of energy that the American uses compared to where these immigrants emigrated from and we've added the equivalent of a third of a billion people to the world's population since then.
1
@Bob Uh, where's the plan, Bob?
3
Everybody needs to wake up to this issue and realize it is part and parcel of the overarching agenda of the wealthy in this world. They are no longer thinking long-term benefit for anybody but themselves. They are seeking to extract as much wealth as possible from the largest portion of the population as possible so they can fund their own escape from the consequences of their greed.
As nutty as it sounds, there's clear evidence that they are seeking ways to move their consciousness out of the biological realm in to the digital, giving themselves immortality so they are immune to things like climate change. They want to be free of the consequences of what they are perpetrating on the rest of us.
Elon Musk is planning to move to Mars, which may be an alternative that is slightly more sane, if not overly-optimistic. Terraforming Mars in the next couple of centuries is really not an option any more than building a Dyson Sphere would be.
Just as irrational as the fools who believe in flat earth, they are flailing about, seeking solutions that will mean they don't have to share the world's limited resources with "lesser" people than themselves. The ultra-wealthy would have to give up their 300 foot yachts, and that's just not acceptable to them. When someone spouts the word socialism, what they are really attacking instead is freedom and equality for all.
4
Part and parcel of fighting climate change is controlling human overpopulation. We already have more people than the planet can sustain, and yet we continue to add nearly 80 million to our numbers every year. Universal access to family planning, high quality education, and women's rights are essential measures.
To the extent religions want to truly benefit humankind, they'll have to change their religious dictates from 'be fruitful and multiply' to limit your family size using medical science, space your children, and delay childbearing. For believers, preserving the natural world for all god's creatures and ecosystems has to be as paramount as the golden rule and 'thou shall not kill.'
Well informed nonbelievers can buy in on the grounds of rationality.
7
Climate deniers can be likened to war criminals. While the latter inflict death with violence and weaponry, those who challenge climate science inflict a slow and silent death on many more millions of people. Those living in gold gilded towers, revel in extravagant golf courses, and use public money for selfish ends, want to alter authentic scientific reports and distort well proven scientific data to relax regulations to pander to the multi-million dollar donors to remain in power. They go unscathed from the impact of climate change. Their callous indifference and deliberate malpractice need to be called out and resisted. They must not be allowed to cause this intense suffering to the underprivileged not only in the US but around the world.
7
Wow, climate change as a leftist plot...every DEMOCRAT should turn off their air conditioner this summer to prove that they are serious about climate change - and thanks for letting me know that electricity also comes from fossil fuel, that has always been a knotty question for me!
Climate change is not a political problem, it is a survival problem. Attacking the science that supports it does not make it go away, it only deflects attention from the overwhelming evidence that supports it - from yearly flooding that meets the 100 year variety of old to tornados in droves to browning of rain forests in Guatemala, and on and on and on.
8
I get the feeling that Mother Nature, the planet’s God, is slapping the human race in our collective faces. The signals are intensifying, the trickle of deaths is rising steadily.
If you hear the siren bless yourself, move, if you don’t it’s NOT the siren’s fault you were not listening.
In as short a time as my lifetime Mother Nature’s God has pushed several alarms but the most insidious ones move least detected or researched. It is those effects that are are multiplicative, that have unanticipated effects on existing processes that can be rapidly catastrophic. These multipliers will accelerate moving smaller problems (those that are addressable) and quickly overwhelm both the science and the scientists.
How can this happen to modern man? We have learned so much ! Yet we know so little, and worse we are willing to ignore and even hide the facts and truths we understand. This is not a failure of our natural systems and protections, it is not a external flaw, it is deep in a terrified human soul, it’s fear they are out of control and incapable. Such is the center of Mr trump moral corruption. Incapable of leading, averse to learning, lost in pools of ignorance he cowers behind rules to deny and hide the truth so he can briefly rise to glup a breath of tainted air.
Beware the sledgehammer of Mother Earth’s God, we have not rebuffed the slaps, and the ever increasing sledgehammers weights will pound the non believer’s the first and most swiftly.
Mother Nature does not forgive.
4
Science is rarely settled. Progress requires that it not be. Making predictions based on modeling about future events and possibilities is reasonable but only if the accuracy of those past predictions is measured and future predictions are presented with mathematical probabilities about the likelihood of those predictions. Science should be presented to the general population with all the data and not just some of the data and it should be presented as it is conducted, without hysteria and without lack of concern for the facts as demonstrated. People predicting 12 years til the death of earth is a certainty are no more or less helpful than people believing everything will be fine no matter what. Science should never stop being debated but only on the basis of methodology so that more and better studies can be conducted. Finally, scientists who continually predict gloom and doom without the disasters occurring undermine their own findings. Science is dispassionate. Political solutions to potential problems identified by science should be demonstrated to be effective in treating the problem identified. Doing something ineffective is no different than doing nothing at all and could, in fact, be worse.
11
@Pops We most def know that if you increase the CO2 and methane content in air then the air retains more heat. It's simple and repeatable law of nature, like gravity.
Sure, there are thousands of other variables that affect climate, but that one key fact is 100 % completely settled, no?
25
@Pops Except that people aren't predicting the death of earth in 12 years, but passing a point of no return for preventing negative effects of heightened CO2 levels. And the disasters are, in fact occurring. Houston, for example, has just experienced its fourth "five hundred year flood" in four years.
28
@Mary Fischer Since you admit there are possibly hundreds of other variables why do you appear to be afraid to have scientists with differing opinions conduct research?
At this time many of the computer models have not produced the dire results they predicted. So, cutting back the prediction timeframe may help them hone in on the actual cause.
7
Scientist like William Happer and Freeman Dyson are really brilliant climate realists. Go on YouTube and watch some of their conversations or lectures on climate change, they are quite interesting.
What we a really arguing about here is computer modeling of what is being termed today wicked learning environments, where information is hidden and feedback may be delayed, infrequent or nonexistent. Much harder than teaching Deep Blue to play chess. The fragility of climate modeling and fudge factors that have gone into creating the models over the last fifty years are legendary, wicked!
The majority of scientist have embraced ideals and later discarded them throughout history, including recent history.
6
@E.
As predicted the Earth is warming rapidly, ice is melting and sea level rise is accelerating.
10
@Erik Frederiksen I measure these factors for a living and the data I've collected doesn't support your statement. However, after the raw data has been "adjusted" and "verified" all of a sudden weather stations that are increasingly closer to and more often located in cities and have higher temperatures due to the presence of so many heated buildings and other heat sources suddenly have corrections that drive the temperature upwards.
1
@E. - Thanks for the funny!
Why not have the 'brilliant' cold warrior Happer explain how all that melting ice globally has been tricked by climate models? Ditto for the plants, insects, birds. I didn't know they followed climate models closely, yet ice is melting, seas are rising, life forms are moving into new geographies.
The planet's reacting to a greenhouse boost as predicted by a couple hundred years of science and poor old Happer blathers the inane "CO2 is plant food" mantra and you find that interesting? I find it really sad.
4
At this point, when anyone who dares even to question the models is labeled a "denier", this coverage will now be treated as ideological and expected -- in other words, more of the same.
Extremists hijacked the climate change issue a while ago and have distorted it ever since. Now the pushback.
7
@AACNY
Never mind that people who argued that warming is not happening have for the last 20 years claimed that the world would soon cool--not happening.
Meanwhile James Hansen made a crude model in the 1980's that basically predicted the warming that we have seen today.
The evidence is sufficiently strong from models and observations that one needs to deny the facts to continue to claim that there is no human-induced climate change.
23
@Mitch Lyle
Never mind that the zealots have been claiming things like "In 12 years...".
You can cherrypick all you want, but rational Americans see the extremism and reject it. Talk about "denial."
5
@AACNY Yes, rational Americans see the extremism of terminating research on this topic. I hope they will reject it. Otherwise, we are in even deeper trouble than is currently predicted by any model.
6
The only response is truly simple: If we argue that global climate change is NOT happening and NOT a problem and take NO action, and we are correct, then things will likely turn out OK.
But, if we argue that global climate change is NOT happening and NOT a problem and take NO action, and we are wrong, the result may well be the end of humanity as we know it.
Therefore, addressing and acting upon global climate change is the only possible path to take. We act as the Earth's stewards, cleanup this planet and reap a double reward.
12
@Jack Shepherd I think your "doomsday" statement is what turns some people off. It's hard to believe. We had the same sort of cries about the hole in the ozone layer. Western countries and much of the world have drastically cut use of CFCs but China and other countries have continued using them and the we haven't died yet, as predicted. I'd say that the changes we need to make to meet 80 by 50 would result in mankind changing as we know it just as much as not taking action. I think a more prudent course would be to continue to study it and make gradual improvements. I find your hyperbole a bit too unbelievable.
1
@Jack Shepherd Exactly! If there is the slightest chance that we are destroying the only planet we have, isn't it better to err on the side of change?
Anyone getting the feeling that if Trump ever had to come up with a business plan he subcontracted its development out to a cut rate consultant? And then didn't read it.
I am reminded of a parental voice saying "Do you want to win the argument or do you want to get what you want?" We know Trump likes winning, so let's change the conversation from "who's right?" to "what can we do to get what we want?" Clean energy is the key to short circuiting endless debate on climate change.
Steve Bannon worries about a pre-election holy war on climate change. Why not change the conversation to propose economic stimulus/spur private investment in an industry the US is indisputably capable of leading?
If we were debating costs and methods to support invention and profit-making from leading the world in green energy technologies instead of politicizing scientific differences of opinion, we'd be a lot better off.
Several weeks ago, the Times published a report on how some venture capitalists and oil and gas companies were building and investing in wind farms and other clean energy technologies. Hydrokinetic energy is seldom mentioned, but also viable, and deserving of more R & D stimulus.
Political candidates would be smart to get a handle on our research investments in these areas and put forth a detailed plan to stimulate R & D and jobs training/growth in that sector. Oh, that's right, one already did - maybe it needs some discussion and serious consideration?
6
Do you think that Trump is defending fossil fuel use out of the goodness of his heart or the responsibility of a commander in Chief. Nothing could be further than the truth. Knowing his long history of white collar crime, my good guess is that each of the fossil fuel companies is paying him off in some fashion. All deposited in offshore numbered accounts. He is doing what his mentor Putin has been doing for years, receiving countless billions under the table from the Russian oliogarths, amounting to hundreds of billions. We all know that Trump never intended to stop doing business once he took office. Quite the contrary he thought it's a wonderful opportunity to do mega business.@Quite Contrary
1
I'm in favor of measures to curb greenhouse gasses, but I'm also in favor of a red team/blue team approach. Why? We need to build a consensus which includes the skeptics... and in the process rebrand climate change as a legit environmental issue, not an excuse to enact a collection of unrealistic and offensive leftist economic and social policies. Whether it's because of the Green New Deal, calls for abolishing capitalism, or plans to erect oppressive new govt regimes, climate change has become the poster child for leftist plots to centralize power, over-regulate, and tax heavily. Climate change is too important to be clouded by partisan politics. We need non-partisan ideas and support to address climate change.
3
@Chris-zzz
Climate change science is not partisan. It is the conservative consensus of climate scientists worldwide. They have looked at the data and they have been delivering the results to the policy makers for decades now. The only problem with IPCC consensus is -- they have been too conservative. That is, the observed effects of atmospheric pollution have been at or above their worst-case scenario predictions every five years. Because they are so conservative the catastrophic results will worse than they predict. The only people who have politicized science are fossil-fuel industrialists who took the science and twisted it beyond recognition and they have been spewing doubt about it on Fox News for a generation now, turning their viewers into ignorant skeptics. This business of red team blue team rehashing of the science, along with characterization of regulation of pollution as "leftist plots" is just more twisting of the truth by the Kochs etc who don't want clean energy technology to get ahead of coal, or to leave any fossil-fuel they own unburned. The shame of it all is how many people take the Kochs' side instead of the side of science and their own grandchildren. They are the true enemy they who have taken the bait and politicized science.
7
@Chris-zzz
yeah, good luck with that.
Bipartisanship? Non-partisanship? Ha!
"unrealistic"? You know what's completely unrealistic? (besides this non-partisanship you speak of") - curbing climate change in time and in any significant meaningful way without rapid regulation, and yes, shoved down people's throats. Its that or the disasters waiting right around the corner that will take care of the fossil-fuel problem for us - by killing off a significant percentage of the human race with storms, floods, famine, thirst, vector-borne and communicable disease, wildfires and the highly likely war(s) resulting from the population upheavals and scarcity of resources. Its already started.
5
@Chris-zzz
William Happer specialized in optics (eye-glasses, telescopes etc) and lacks the broad expertise and temperament necessary to conduct an objective review. If a serious investigation is to take place, it should not be under the auspices of Trump's circus.
2
The bleak, dystopian world that Trump described on the day of his disastrous inauguration is indeed coming to pass. We thought at the time he was referring to the present, but in fact he was painting a vivid picture of America's future. We are now living in that dark future; Trump's rolling back of environmental protections and relaxing curbs on greenhouse gas emissions are further proof that America is and will become much darker, dirtier and dreadful than any of us imagined. Can't anyone stop this monster before he destroys the entire world?
27
@H. Clark
Indeed.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
- George Orwell, 1984
2
Most comments blame Trump for climate change. However, I have not read any that say they are shutting off their air conditioning at home and at work this summer, that they are walking or biking to work, or that they will set their thermostats at home and at work to 55 degrees next fall and winter. Don’t complain if you just want someone else to make changes. A good start is for all Democrats in political office to turn off the air conditioning in their homes and offices this summer. If they won’t, why not? Electricity used for air conditioning is often obtained by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas.
4
@Robert Bosch "Electricity used for air conditioning is often obtained by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas."
Exactly, and that's the problem. Let's put some of our good ol' American ingenuity to work on alternate, renewable energy sources. Why is that so difficult for Republicans to understand?
13
@Robert Bosch
This Democrat has been wearing sweaters ever since Jimmy Carter encouraged us to save energy during the oil crisis. But the thing is Robert, individual efforts alone will not be enough to change the outcome, only global treaties to reduce greenhouses gasses will bend the curve. So the most helpful thing I've done is to only support candidates for President who will do the extremely hard work of negotiating such global treaties on pollution. It's the only thing anyone can do to make a real difference.
13
@Robert Bosch
It's a fact - very few people of either political camp will willingly suffer extreme personal discomfort on behalf of any abstraction, ever.
However, most of us could painlessly and conveniently choose a green energy provider for our home usage at little cost. Clean Choice Energy is one such. Look it up.
5
I would love for a Republican t explain why their party id so hellbent of discrediting this one branch of science.
Who are they representing in their opposition. Would their opposition be so intense if the KOCH boys hadn't invested so much in their political party.
Sorry the more they run the country the more America sees they are the party of wealthy and politically obedient special interest.
The GOP rank and File aren't even this anti climate change. Who are they really representing in their position. My guess a well positions fossil fuel industry.
15
@GUANNA Sadly, they are hellbent on discarding MANY branches of science. Their fascination with sex - from identity to procreation - is often fueled by preposterously inaccurate characterizations of human biology.
4
When Trump won the election I remembered thinking this means problems for the environment.
With all due respect for the other problems being visited on the USA by Trump nothing is comparable to his assault on the environment.
All the other changes instigated by Trump can be largely reversed by future Americans, but the climate cannot be brought back into equilibrium for hundreds if not thousands of years.
27
@Ian "That the climate can be brought back into equilibrium" (if, in fact, it was EVER in "equilibrium"),
is a THEORY, not fact. We THINK that stopping our fossil fuel (and plastic) pollution of the planet, even if we "turned them off" today, might bring down the climate's temperature enough to create new polar ice, restart glaciers, decrease the temperature of the planet's oceans, etc. But that is all theory. There is no evidence that will happen and, there is no evidence that the change we have caused can and will be affected by our halting pollution. There may be a hysteresis to the change we cannot predict. Does that mean we should do nothing? To the contrary, it means we should be doing EVERYTHING in our power to stop the change we've initiated, because we don't know what it will take to slow it.
1
What will it take before this administration and governments around the world take significant steps to end this crisis? Must Mar A Lago be swallowed by the sea before real action is taken?
7
Deniers aren't playing their cards terribly close to the chest. When you have Pompeo lauding the opportunities of a melting Arctic, it's clear that denial isn't a matter of disbelieving the science. It's just greed, the perpetuation of a manmade disaster so a select few can capitalize on it. Sabotaging and sowing doubt about the science is just a means to an end.
The whole thing is reprehensible and short-sighted, a callous resource grab done at the expense of the poor, the environment, and the future well-being of our entire species.
14
@Stephen hear, hear! always follow the money!
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure. As long as we have the worst politicians that money can buy there is no solution to this problem. I know people that believe that mankind cannot change nearest climate. However, when you point out the O-Zone hole in the atmosphere which is causing much more sun damage to the skin and sun cancer.Where we change the refrigeration gases so minimize the damage to the O-Zone layer they cannot make the same connection that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing a very detrimental effect through the earths biosphere.
5
@Robert
And it was Ronald Reagan, of all people, who listened to and respected the scientists who said we have to regulate ozone. This is not Reagan's Republican party; today's Republican Party is some twisted relic of what was once the party of prudence and responsibility and protecting us from harm and guardianship of fishable rivers and streams and breathable air. Now it is the party of mega-tornadoes and insufferable heat forever and ever. The transformation of the party is beyond comprehension.
6
A couple of years ago I heard a group of old ladies discussing climate change saying that it didn't worry them, with an air of bravado.
It's easy to be brave / selfish when the consequences wont affect you.
10
@Keith
I'm an old lady and I do not endorse their attitude, nor your comment.
Drill, baby, drill! After all, by the time the most disastrous consequences of global warming become obvious and inescapable, Donald Trump, the Koch brothers, Mitch McConnell et al will be dead. Who cares about anyone else?
The damage Trump and the Trumpublicans have done so far is incalculable, and possibly nowhere as much as in this area. We must defeat them in 2020.
28
One reader commenting here wrote as follows : «They have a real opportunity to build hopeful and exciting programs that aim toward leadership in solar, wind, more effective batteries, cleaner mining methods for essential materials, and so many more areas which we can't afford to abandon to China and other nations, if we want to continue economic leadership through the end of this century.» To that reader, I should like to point out that it's not a question of «leadership», but rather of cooperation ; what China and other nations do to combat the looming climate crisis benefits people in the United States, just as what is done to that end in that country benefits us all in the rest (96 %) of the world. Mr Trump claims that global warming was «created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive» (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en) ; the only reasonable way to confront this dangerous absurdity is not to engage in a so-called «leadership» contest, but rather to cooperate in order to preserve the existence of our species on this amazing planet....
Henri
7
Behold - the wealthy, self-deluded, self-interested villains who are working with clear intent to line their pockets ever more at the expense of everyone else, including their own descendents.
20
Ironic that one of the accompanying pictures is of our fake president walking towards a helicopter - a conveyance not possible without a broad foundation of scientific know-how.
9
@UH It's also a clear example of how the rich and privileged travel in very high carbon-emitting transportation modes that 99.9% of the people on the planet can't afford.
3
A big event in the climate debate will be the introduction of data from the IceSat2.
NASA has represented the data streams from two existing satellites to be accurate to within 50 millimeters.
Yet, when the two satellites were focused on the same patch of earth, the error was 200 millimeters.
This is satellite data that is being used to say that sea level rise is accelerating at 0.1 millimeters per year producing an "End of Times" biblical apocalypse by 2100.
Will NASA be transparent with ICESAT2 data? They not only covered up this error discovery between the two existing satellites, the incident revealed that they had an "edit" term in the height function and that "edit" function was a major source of the error between the two satellites. What in the world is that?
Will ICESAT2 have an "edit" function that concatenates its data with the first two satellites? What will be the nature of that edit function?
Clearly if there is a 200 millimeter difference between two satellites with identical equipment, there is going to be a much larger difference with a new satellite with completely new equipment.
ISO standards have specific procedures for dealing with situations like this. NASA is not conforming with ISO standards for measurement.
Been 6 months now since NASA first received ICESAT2 data.
4
@John Huppenthal Sounds like we should not be holding our collective breath for that "big event", if NASA is playing fast and loose with the data it already has.
Six months is a VERY long time not to have seen that data. Too long, in fact!
1
This is the face of intentional evil. Not ignorance, but active malevolence. Another six years of Trump's executive actions, unilateral surrenders, carbon gas glee, juridical malfeasance, and corporate collusion will change our planet and our grandchildren's lives forever.
18
Trump represents the mob of paleo-elites who don't care what happens to future generations. Money and power now is what matters. The only way to deal with them is to remove them from power by whatever means necessary, take their fortunes, and imprison them for their greed and carelessness. Humans aren't wired to care for much more than what might happen in the immediate future. If we keep expecting these elites to stop standing on the necks of those they regard as inferior, the entire
story of global warming and climate change will unfold.
7
It's already unfolding. Now it just remains to see how bad we will let it actually get, and how life will adapt and restructure itself (along with human civilization) as the centuries and millenia pass.
We live in an extremely fortunate period of relative climate continuity that has persisted for over 10,000 years and allowed our species to rise to dominance and proliferate all over the planet.
That is now coming to a close, and after this next evolutionary bottleneck, the environment of our planet, and maybe our species itself, will look quite different. It is quite clear now that the food chain is going to undergo a drastic restructuring, and how humans, and all other animals adapt to that will determine what our world will look like in the future.
The inability or unwillingness of humans to think on evolutionary or geologic timescales is what's killing us, because if you think on those levels, it becomes quite easy to see what we are doing to ourselves now.
1
I think that it is time to clarify just who is the enemy. It is not the Government. The Government which works for the Common Good and uses real Science has bee purchased by Corporate powers. It is not Government that is destroying the environment it is the Corporations that are making these ridiculous laws.
5
@Tom Carney -
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of America,
And to the Republicans for which it stands,
One Nation, Easily Divisible,
With Liberty and Justice for sale.
3
@Tom Carney
The U.S. military is the world’s largest single consumer of energy. Is not the military under government control?
https://www.tni.org/es/node/22587
@DD Of course and the government is under cooperate control.
“Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him. ”
This is scary. Momentous decisions are based on his prodigious gut. The effects of fast food are insidious.
7
Trump fiddled while the world burned.
Why is this not a Crime Against Humanity?
10
@Nathaniel Brown Perhaps because it's broader...a "crime against the biosphere and all its inhabitants", may not be so pithy but it is more accurate.
Don't worry, we have a Dem 2020 front runner who will fix this problem by going "middle ground".
3
@Har
In order to fix anything, you have to first stop breaking it.
1
@Quite Contrary
On the contrary, it's already broken!
Apparently, people who believe the findings of scientific research are supposed to "engage" with those who put short-term material gain ahead of longer term global environmental destruction with the future of our children and grandchildren.
What does one say to proudly profound idiocy mixed with the arrogance of greed? Maybe David Brooks has a good idea about this.
8
I don't understand Trump, the Kochs, the Mercers,.. who will have grandchildren, great grandchildren that will suffer the consequences of climate change denial. And of course let's not forget the billions of people who will also suffer the consequences. It's like selling an item that you know causes harm and doing away with the regulations that prevents you from selling the item in order to make lots of $. That's evil.
6
@Robert Haberman -
Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren will not suffer anymore than their 0.1% parents suffer today.
There will be $2.1M pills/shots that take care of any of their problems.
@Robert Haberman Let me help you understand: they don't care about them.
3
@Robert Haberman
Don’t worry, the Mercer progeny will be safe in some missile silos somewhere, getting some weird human urine cryogenic treatment or something. I mean, after all, according to them, a little nuclear radiation is good for us! So surely they can survive climate disaster.
2
You can evade reality, but you cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.
Trump and the GOP are trading many human lives in order for a few humans to bank more dollars.
Nature will run it's course and many, many humans will pay the price for some really greedy, loathsome people.
6
It's funny (and kind of alarming) to look at the comments section and see how so many Americans (albeit some of "them" no doubt are bot's or Russian trolls) take so much pride in an American government that rejects science and scientists. They, apparently, really do prefer government that invents the "facts" that best justify the policies it was going to implement anyway so as to make the already mega-rich that much richer.
They'll get what's coming to them. It's just too bad that they're so determined to take down everybody else with them.
6
"Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science."
Viz., deplorable.
6
It is unbelievable that one completely ignorant person can undo the decades of scientific progress and the reputation of the US as the epitome of scientific rigor.
Oh, wait a minute, where are the Republican "representatives" in all this? Oh, right, they are falling all over themselves to kiss trumps feet, too scared to object to his destruction of the scientific establishment.
Repubs once again show themselves to be cowards when the future of the country is at stake. Over and over they hide their cowardly faces and try to pretend everything is ok.
ANYONE voting for a Republican for ANYTHING is responsible for the destruction of our society. Nothing less.
11
This is not about Trump. Trump has no particular opinion about climate science. Trump cares only about three things: he's President and not you; money is the only measure of quality and it doesn't matter how he made it, and; Obama was not born in his grandparents' state of Hawaii.
The only goals Trump has have been thrust on him by his advisors who are anti-regulation Republicans. And how did these Republicans in the White House and in Congress come to reject climate scientists' conclusions that we must stop polluting the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses? How did Republicans become so reckless and irresponsible? Because they watch the Ministry of Misinformation, aka Fox News, who gave nearly 70% of its airtime on climate change to deniers.
Flail at Trump all you want but the true enemy of the people and destroyers of our future are Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan, and the idiotic and gullible Republicans who trust Fox News.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/23/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
6
Dear God, when will we force the 25th amendment on this lunatic President? His greed knows no boundaries.
Is he incapable of projecting ahead as to what kind of world his grandchildren will have to deal with? Is he so ignorant that he cannot see that he will go down in history as the worst President of all time?
Pelosi is right. His family needs to do an intervention before it is too late!
11
Unfortunately, the wealthy are those least likely to feel the sting of climate change. That is, unless the less fortunate become so outraged they stage something akin to the French Revolution. Then heads may roll.
1
If Trump and the administration really believe that climate change is a hoax, let them promise no funds for new levies and flood preparation in the Midwest. And, of course, Trump should withdraw the permit request for a larger sea wall at Mar a Lago (climate change was mentioned in permit application).
14
Please don't forget VP Pence's hand in all this. His ties to the Koch Industries are well documented. The Kochs have spent millions of dollars to fund anti-climate change politicians and organizations. Just getting rid of Trump will not help our efforts to save our planet. My view is that the only way to really start to heal the planet is for the US to have both congress and the presidency in the hands of Democrats. Perhaps if Republicans are denied office, they will understand the depth of their betrayal of the American public and of future generations.
13
Until the climate crisis hits more influential people, not much is likely to really happen to slow it because it’s too inconvenient. GORE WAS RIGHT!
14
A recent NYT op-ed opined that it would be best for Earth if humans become extinct. We, as a species, have caused so much destruction and death (over 1 million species lost) that it will take quite some time for the planet to recover. Added to that our hyper intelligence that can conceive of and concoct evil, it is best that we are doomed. If other sentient beings ever wrote of our historical demise they could say, "Humans had a good run, not as long as the dinosaurs, but more prolific and with far-reaching consequences."
7
Buried in this article is an important fact -- the Mercer family is funding anti-climate change research and propaganda. What is not mentioned is that the Mercer family is similarly funding scientists who believe that nuclear destruction is not detrimental because new wildlife grows afterward. (Read Jane Mayer's Dark Money for further information.) Americans need to know who and what they are really dealing with.
9
Of course they do. Their cowboy economy of mass production and rapid consumption depends on it. In fantasy land this is the "greatest economy ever".
In a truth based science, the ecology cannot sustain their scorched earth policies.
4
"have funded efforts to debunk climate science."
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the term "debunk" imply that the thing that is being debunked is false? Wouldn't' "have funded efforts to ignore(or deny or de-legitimize) climate science be more accurate?
7
@Patrick Technically, a relevant and appropriate term might be "hyperbunk" because of the prodigious volume of false 'bunkery' spouted by denialists which those funds support and enable to have a voice.
The scientific evidence of climate change approaches certainty. And the great benefit of reducing emissions is pretty much beyond debate. But there remains a legitimate question. Can enough of the world’s developed and developing countries be successfully marshaled to do what needs to be done?
The fact that reduction of carbon emissions is the rational alternative does not assure that it will be adopted worldwide. History is full of examples of self-defeating policies. Denmark is a model for change. But its successes hardly mean that its policies will be widely adopted.
Trump is wasting time and diverting attention from the real issue. The science is well-established. But the politics of climate change is not well understood.
The issue that should be front and center is whether the will to reduce emissions worldwide is sufficient. And if it is not is the answer to do what we can or will maximum efforts by some countries and no efforts by others have politically disastrous results? There is a real debate over policy that remains. And it is well past time that we address the issue head on.
2
@michjas...."The fact that reduction of carbon emissions is the rational alternative does not assure that it will be adopted worldwide."......Tom and Harry are out in a boat when it develops a leak. Tom starts to bail but notices that Harry is just sitting there. Tom asks Harry, "Why aren't you bailing?" Harry responds, "Why should I bail when it's your end of the boat that is sinking?"
3
Is coal is beautiful and clean, how come there isn't a coal-fired power plant on every Trump golf course and resort?
6
We can fight back against Humpty-Drumpty’s pseudo-science.
Besides letters to our Representatives and Senators, we can donate to the universities where the real climate scientists work. We can also buy their books or borrow them from our local libraries.
5
Trump’s advisors are like the courtiers of King Canute, but Trump is no Canute.
2
Geoengineering schemes to mitigate global warming should be developed and tested and perfected now, rather than waiting until the climate becomes a real calamity. It's unfeasible to sequester all the gigatons of CO2 that have been released over the past few centuries, we need to understand & accept that and work on mitigating the situation. Even if we ended combustion of fossil fuels today, global warming will continue to become a larger and larger problem.
Looking at the Coal fired plant in the photo, I found it ironic that the plant wastes much water after the turbines instead of recovering all heat energy and recirculating it, and also, the hazardous appearance that the rising steam is combining with the sulfur emissions from the stacks to create sulfuric acid and later acid rain. That power plant is an expletive design.
1
Agriculture in the age of global climate change
Carbon dioxide nutrients water = harvest
2x Carbon dioxide nutrients water = more growth, maybe more harvest
2x Carbon dioxide nutrients water drought = no harvest
2x Carbon dioxide nutrients water flooding = no harvest
2x Carbon dioxide nutrients water heat wave = no harvest
2x Carbon dioxide nutrients water freezing = no harvest
Conclusion: world agricultural yields will decrease with global climate change
6
As a chemical engineer, I have lived with regulation, really since 1988, when the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) began investigating accidents in the chemical/refinery industry. We in the industry find this "intrusion" very helpful. Recently, the CSB was throttled as a part of Trump's destruction of regulators; it actually started under the Obama administration in 2015.
We've watched the Republicans, and some conservative Democrats, like Obama and Clinton sabotage environmental laws, cut inspections and trade policy for political gain. George Bush, in 2006, degraded the temperature measurement equipment on NASA's satellite then claim there is no proof of global warming.
It is only through articles like these that we can let the politicians know that they are being watched.
8
Among the many concerns I have about a possible Joe Biden nomination is that he's simply the candidate least equipped to deal with a party whose leader engages in this kind of instrumentalist bad-faith cynicism. As Trump and the complicit GOP continues to push the Overton window so far to the right they are literally coming out and admitting they want to reconfigure science agencies so they produce reports more aligned with the GOP's preferred outcomes, a guy who still (at least publicly) still thinks everyone in Washington is basically decent and wants what's best for America is simply not up to the task.
These are bad people, y'all.
Evil people.
They are perfectly willing to destroy the world if they can pocket a few bucks. It's indecent. It's the opposite of any definition of conservative that makes sense. We need to call them out on it, often and explicitly.
7
The article quotes James Reilly, the Trump Administration’s head of the US Geological Survey: “We’re looking for answers ... and to get statistical significance from what we understand.” I’m a scientist, and this strikes me as a meaningless jumble of technical jargon.
5
The science is settled, clear and a stark warning about the probable future of a bleak biosphere.
The truth will out.
Unfortunately, this administration seems determined to seal the fate of much of the life on this planet within a century from now - all to continue business as usual for old white men who own, control and destroy this beautiful world.
The biosphere that supports life, including our life, is in hospice.
Carbon-free or Collapse.
Willful ignorance will not overwhelm fact.
5
Any individual who limits their knowledge acts irresponsibly.
Any individual who limits the knowledge of others on an issue with life-or-death consequences acts recklessly, against everyone else.
We need a sober driver steering this country again.
6
There is a prevalent tendency to discount Twitter Trump’s antics as mostly crude political chicanery and artless flimflam — cover for grievously muddled and deeply ineffective presidential governance suggestive of the antics of a bizarre, gothic version of the Keystone Cops.
Make no mistake, the reality is monumentally pernicious and intensely dangerous to the security of the nation, the rule of law, and the survival of any semblance of a viable democratic society.
Among the most pronounced and significant aspects of Trump’s war on reason and the value and validity of science is the unflinching and brazen effort to deny the reality of human choices and activity in directly and wantonly causing massive and possibly irreversible global climate change fundamentally destructive to the survival of the human species.
3
Ghana's president just announced an integration of climate change into the country's development agenda. Meanwhile in the first world United States, there is denial and attacks on climate science. It pains me to say this, the US is retrogressing in many ways-women's rights, education and science. As someone said, these will go to the courts and will be left to the states. Eventually, there will be two different united states in one. A progressive and moderate bastion and an ideological theocracy.
11
Township, city and county governments will be the ones who have to deal with the direct consequences of climate change risks (e.g., drought, deluge, heat/cold extremes, economic disruption and related social unrest). The will have little choice but to curtail basic public services to pay for the results of climate crises in their communities. Organizations that represent these local governments - National League of Cities, etc. - need to stop sitting on their hands, stand up and rise to this challenge and use every legal means possible to stop this white house/republican assault on the health and safety of our country and citizens.
17
Although there are many areas where this administration will leave lasting detrimental impacts on our country, the undercutting and cancellation of policies by the very agencies tasked with the job of climate change mitigation will leave the most damaging effects. To ignore, worse, aggravate the conditions that enhance climate change is to deny future generations of their health, prosperity and freedoms. That's the legacy this administration intends to pass along.
26
@richard wiesner Hopefully, all of this will be reset to normal in two years
2
It's over. We're not going to get rid of the planes, the cars or the trucks. We're not going to get rid of air conditioning. We're not going to rebuild our cities. We're not getting rid of hamburgers...
AOC is still flying to Puerto Rico to see her abuela.
The game is up.
Trump believes in climate change. He also believes the planet is dying and there is little to be done about it.
I'm pretty sure the NYT editorial staff thinks the game is up as well.
Plan accordingly!
4
This is not a game so it can't be over. There will inevitably be severe environmental and societal damage and immense suffering among the most vulnerable. But to give up is to accept the the worse case scenarios and that doesn't have to happen. Yet.
5
@P&L
Your somewhat sarcastic comment has a grain of truth to it. It might be over. It might be too late, but then as you say, we should plan accordingly. Trump is neither trying to mitigate climate change nor plan for its inevitable effects.
1
Marge said "If there is a single, crucial, life threatening reason or justification to vote this monster out of office, this is it." That's been my mantra. This is it. No other issues matter if what is happening continues and intensifies because of human indifference and greed. We won't have a world of troubles because there will be no world. We really need to educate and urge people to see this before the election.
18
Trump is waging war against the health and welfare of the American people; against mother earth. Impeached? He should be arrested and put in prison not only for this crime, but as a warning to others who think they can continue his ignorant, evil ways.
17
Willful negligence on the part of the Trump administration? No, it can’t be! I’m happy knowing that in the long run, Trump’s short tenure as POTUS will go down in history as an outlier of stupidity and inaction with regards to climate change, his dismissal of data and the scientific process, and just about everything else for that matter. Our founding fathers, who were enlightened about science, are rolling in their graves.
9
Next, Trump will likely attempt to withhold funding to climatologists at universities and institutions engaged in real scientific studies, rather than crackpot ideas, claiming that Carbon Dioxide is persecuted on the same level as Jews in fascist Europe. The cynical dirty energy billionaires and ilk like the Mercers will applaud, either because they figure they will be dead after 2040, when the worst of climate change impacts occur, or because they actively seek the end times, hoping to bring about the Rapture.
7
The administration doesn't care about climate change or the destruction of the planet. They will all be dead by then, and in the meantime they can emjoy the good life with all that money the polluters puts in their pockets.
10
Trump could very well be the con artist harbinger of the decline and fall of enlightened western democracy. This disgrace was aided and abetted by Russia, Holier than thou Evangelicals, The greedy, and the gullible.
"We the People" soundly rejected his con job, as witnessed by the 2016 election, in which "We The People" out-voted this pathological liar by nearly 3,000,000* ballots.
A line of 3,000,000 folks stretches in length for over a thousand miles.
Only taking into account the candidates Trump and Mrs. Clinton. If you lined the folks up who voted in that election, put them side by side, the line voting for Mrs. Clinton would be over a thousand miles longer than the line voting for the con artist. Yet partisan republicans within the electoral college, in the most disgusting, party over country betrayal of the American people, appointed and installed their lying con artist into the oval office. (*Counting other candidates, Trump was rejected by 10,000,000 ballots)
9
Trump swore, in his oath of office, to uphold the U.S. Constitution. He lied. Now, he is again usurping the role of Congress, which the Constitution says is "To promote the Progress of Science". Congress hasn't blinked at this power grab.
Science in America is dictated by fossil fuel and chemical interests, and wealthy donors. The oil-rich Hoch brothers block creation of electric transport, in towns across the U.S., with door-to-door teams who tell people that electric transport will make their taxes rise. It's a lie. They're protecting their revenue.
Dow just gave Trump $1 million and asked him to ignore studies on Nazi nerve-gas based chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion, pesticides harmful to humans.
Trumps rollbacks of environmental protections are never put to a vote in Congress. No one introduces legislation to re-establish clean air and water protections. Why? Because Mitch McConnell and the Senate will sit on the legislation and it will never see the light of day.
In the meantime, 2 more years of Trump will destroy the U.S. The economy and full employment are cited as proof he's doing a good job. Not said is that real wages have not increased since 1960, people are scraping by, full employment means people are working 2 part-time jobs or that only 62% of able-bodied people, who want to work, have found jobs.
Trump and the Republicans are crushing U.S. democracy as we've known it, and killing Americans in the process. They don't care. They have power.
8
Criminals, the ignorant, the hateful and angry elected Trump who then purged the honest from government and brought into his orbit the wealthy and corrupt to piillage the nation and profit. The Republican party is a Racketeering and influence corrupt organization. This is even too big for the F.B.I.
7
The President is a simple man, an autocrat at heart. He's won a lot of power, wants to make sure people understand it. He will push it to the limit to make sure people understand it. He doesn't have a grand strategy beyond his very basic sensibilities, gut feels, or more a basic vengefulness which could have been grown thru a personal experience, animosity against an individual, need to even scores. He has won over a large base of fans who liken this to their own inclinations. His party knows this. Witness Lindsey Graham, and now even Liz Cheney, who seems to have forgotten all the slights and insults directed at her late father.
Mr. Trump is dangerous for our environment, our kids futures, an unending list of excesses, not because he is intentionally so, it's his short sightedness and need to score small victories to preserve his vulnerable ego, that makes it so. His destructive legacy towards environment and climate will surely be remembered by generations in the future.
9
As reprehensible as Trump's policies and rhetoric are, name one major country that is on pace to meet their agreed upon Paris goals. None are even close and most are failing as badly as we are out of the media's glare.
Germany changing from nuclear to coal, Norway's continuing oil based economy, China and India doing nothing, etc. etc.
We need to take the lead and will not unless this administration, their corrupt lying backers and the Republican party are swept away in 2020.
7
@Lou Good
Not true. China has aggressively installed renewables and other countries you haven't mentioned have had days of just renewable energy used. Granted a lot more could be done! And I agree the US should take the lead with this and yes please let us purge all Republicans in 2020!
3
There is a strong desire in all animals to get something for nothing. That is: getting something based on the work of someone or something else is strongly rewarded in natural selection for reasons too obvious to state.
Conservatism is this desire manifested in law:
- inheritance
- nationalism
- white pride
- male dominence
- carbon-based fuel usage and its waste products
- limited liability (the foundation of corporations)
etc, all have one thing in common: the beneficiary gets something they did not earn themselves but rather were born with, inherited, or took without paying for.
The conservative mind has already been demonstrated to be more sensitive to fear-stimulus (that's what makes them conservative), it's possible--likely in my opinion--that the thing they fear most is actually being required to pay for what they get.
8
These planet-destructive actions along with slashing taxes for the super-wealthy, dismantling health care, etc, are all part of the Republican plan to deconstruct our government and return our nation to 19th Century bare knuckle Capitalism to line the pockets of the Republican owners. Chaos and death will be the result. Trump is the messenger of doom!
4
At some point our only alternative to make this administration to acknowledge the reality and act accordingly is for millions of us to peacefully take to the streets to shut down business as usual
5
@dolbash
Agreed! It is time to "peacefully take to the streets to shut down business as usual."
If we wait much longer, the protest will not be peaceful. As someone else said, "Nature bats last."
I sense a home run or two are on the way.
But who will lead the protest? I'm way too old to lead, but I'll sure march along with the others. Will one of the Democratic presidential candidates fire us up?
There was no word for "science" in Newspeak either.
3
This is what a pro-business agenda looks like ..
8
For all those who believe a frog will not jump out of a slowly warming pot of water, please read below:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#Experiments_and_analysis
So let’s be at least as smart as a frog!
4
@Andrew Wohl It's the same with crabs -- I learned that lesson more than a half-century ago.
Look at any survey on public opinions on the environment and climate change. Then look at election results. There are millions of people who are convinced that manmade climate change is real and important and yet they vote for Trump. They hold their nose and say things like: Hilary is dishonest, or, the Democrats are socialist, or the economy does better under republicans. Even if those excuses were true, this is tantamount to saying: I know the environment matters but I won’t bare even a small cost to help it. It’s the college-educated suburban trump voter whose knowing indifference and selfishness makes all this possible. I can’t be too angry with a coal miner who votes for trump. Trump made the coal miners feel good again. He mainly lied to them, but I can understand why they were desperate to help themselves. But the suburban accountant who votes for trump has very little to personally gain or loose and yet votes for this destruction all the same. That’s the problem in a nutshell. Trump counts on their indifference every day in office and they deliver over and over.
The same argument applies to every college educated white woman who votes for trump. They don’t like sexual assault. They don’t want their daughters to be assisted or groped. But they don’t dislike sexual assault that much that they’d vote for a different party when the GOP nominates a world-famous misogynist and self-confessed predatory creep.
5
Well Trump is on the right track. If we wanted to fix the climate problem we would need to stop being so darn industrious. No new stuff equals no jobs. Think you can live off a plot of land growing potatoes and milking a goat? Somebody could but not you. You’re used to the easy life you take from the fully stocked shelf. Just like me. I’ve read all the books about it and follow the articles in the paper and now know that the only thing that could change our future is a pandemic. The anti-vaccers will stupidly further this scenario and save us some.
1
Who are the contributors to the emissions that cause global warming? All Nations and all of we individuals are contributors. However the numbers of individual countries are revealing.
UK-470 Million tons of CO2
Indochina 490 M
Canada 590 Mnemonic
South Korea 610 M
Germany 810 M
Japan 1.24 Billion tons
Russia 1.8 B
India 1.97 B
China 2.78 B
USA 5.42 Billion tons! We produce as much as India and China together.
Each of us contributes about 40,000 lbs. of CO2 each year. 1 lb. per mile we drive our car. The suns radiation is reflected back to space normally. The simple molecules in the air don't stop the infrared heat and radiation. However, a more complex molecule like CO2 does.
6
Americans who intend to vote for Donald Trump in the next presidential election should not watch the nightly weather reports on the national news every day. They may begin to realize that Donald Trump is a consummate liar.
4
They have been propagandised to believe there is no connection. It won't make a difference until Fox and Friends tells them to think differently.
1
@Jim
Let's hope that people are smarter than you or I think!
My sense is that the decisions being or have been made on climate crisis (new title) have little to do with the merits of the case being put forward by the President.
The independent evidence is extensive, proven and increasingly visible around the globe.
Yet the President (who is not known for his studying habits and listening to impartial experts) continues to reverse almost any and all initiatives in place or being considered to date.
My sense in this case is that deliberately, or through ignorance, he is the prime mover on these wrong-footed decisions and, thereby should be held accountable in front of all stakeholders for this series of leadership decisions.
Lives are being lost, commerce is being disrupted, tracts of the globe will for ever be uninhabitable now of in the foreseeable future and much more.
If the Leader and his (mostly silent) decision makers aren't held to account (like any regular person would), they will continue this path to ruin with emboldened and with impunity.
The evidence of this disregard for the norms, science and even the Constitution is growing by leaps and bounds.
Isn't it time to bring this to a halt before it is too late?
6
I spoke with two climatologists. It's done they thought. We have already passed no return. Their only positive thought was, local areas, such as cities, can improve the quality of air adhering to pollution controls. But as for the planet...done. Extraordinary amounts of moisture is evaporated from the oceans. Get your head around that! When it falls back to earth, it's oceans worth of evaporation. The Midwest is feeling that effect right now. In winter more blizzards. No mystery.
Wake up, or maybe too late.
9
@jaco, We may not be alive to see who is correct. But then, for us, it won’t matter.
3
re Jaco; were the climate scientists you spoke to that assured you that climate change is fine and dandy tenured professors at Trump University?
Seriously though, one of the most puzzling aspects to me about climate change deniers is their certainty that their opponents are anxious to make sacrifices and make their own lives less comfortable and more difficult.
I can't speak for anyone but myself. I would be delighted if there was a significantly-sized group of credible scientists who came down on your side. But, there just isn't. Does that mean the overwhelming majority of scientists are right and the tiny minority are wrong? No, but it does mean that if your tiny minority isn't right, start hoping for the rapture.
2
@ACH, I’m with you. The mass of plant life has increased with the direct proportion of CO2 gas produced by fossil fuel emissions. Plants take in CO2 and give off oxygen, but since we, as a species are cutting down the rain forests of the world at a greater rate than we could possibly replace, we are at a point where more carbon dioxide is being produced. This was briefly covered at post-doctoral at Trump University.
2
I used this as a response to another comment, however I think it deserves it's own space. Bottom line, this attack on science (read: reason) won't stop with Trump. This is how the GOP does business, and how nothing will change on climate as long as we keep electing GOPers to office:
The GOP has never really been about free markets, much less a strong economy. Long-term sustainability in any area is the last thing they care about. Their loyalties are always to their donors - period.
The GOP bases it's entire strategy on willful ignorance on purpose. They are on the wrong side of EVERY policy issue (be it climate, abortion, guns, god, LGBTQ rights, etc), and they cynically use misinformation and appeal to the ignorance of their base as tools for getting campaign money and votes. The formula works.
Don't expect logic (apart from applying it for political gain) to be a driving force with this group. The sorting that has taken place over the 25 years since Gingrich has made the GOP the party of unabashed willful ignorance and is entirely now composed of voters that are not critically thinking people.
The divide is now officially about those that care about facts, logic, reason, science, education, and intelligence, and those that have contempt for these things. All of those with such contempt need to be stopped.
11
Trump and many others believe in climate change and climate science. They also know, little at this point can be done about it. They are under the assumption it is a fait accompli.
It's over.
The planet is dying so plan accordingly. It's been a good ride.
We've all read the stories about climate change in the NYT and have listened to AOC. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading the NYT reporting on the issue.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
3
I just keep asking myself, “What is Trump and his cronies endgame?” “What is their GOAL?” They must have a bigger plan. Is it to destroy the planet and all life on it? What does that get them? When there are no more fish in the sea, when everywhere is too hot to survive, where do you go and what do you do with your billions of dollars?
6
@C. Pierson, how selfish are the trumps, not to care for their children and grandchildren. When the ocean rises and swallows Mar a lago, will moving be their only inconvenience?
What the planet does with us has nothing to do with status or wealth.
I know it is difficult to get your head around mass extinction, but since it has happened several times before, wake up.
I hope the trump library will be built at some magnificent coastal property and the first to sink beneath the rising waters, erased for all time.
1
@C. Pierson Their goal is to reestablish a New Gilded Age (one with strongly American characteristics), and it's been a goal of the big money behind all of the politically-involved crony-capitalist toadies (including the Grifter-in-Chief) for a long, long time.
1
@C. Pierson
Maybe Musk already figured this out.
1
Why do this? Climate change, Global warming, whatever it’s named it’s real. Voters need to understand that the weather changes like severity of storms, ozone action days, floods, hurricanes are all a result of increased human activity. Mother nature doesn’t care about democrats or republicans.
8
It astounds me that I've heard more than a few legislators dismiss the threat of global warming by cavalierly claiming that by the time anything really drastic happens, "I'll be dead anyway." Don't these people have children? Grandchildren? Trump's action is just another demonstration of why he's not just a political problem; he's an existential threat to all of us and to generations to come.
5
What we need is a real scientific debate and not name calling to those of us who do not believe the climate is tipping over in 12 years. It seems to me there is scientific confusion about pollution, which we can do something about, and climate change that also occurs naturally. To believe humans are the ONLY cause of climate change is to deny that climate has ever changed when in fact it has changed over millions of years and will continue to do so when we are all gone. But the climate alarmists rather tell us that anyone who does not believe thinks the earth is flat and is plain dumb. Spending BILLIONS of dollars on sequestering carbon dioxide is a waste of money that should be used to shore up water supplies and energy to poor people who are starving, for example.
3
@Weatherguy The point is that previous changes occurred over millenia, not decades. Taking new action to find solutions, like clean technology, creates wealth and jobs. China, for example, is leading the way in solar technology, and will be the 'winner' in that race. There is no doubt that finding ways to increase the percentage of potable water *currently 2%, on the surface of the earth, will be a life saver.
2
The debate had been had and it's over. If you are uncertain about why virtually every climatologist agrees that man-made warming is real and a dire threat to all life forms on the planet - including humans - you have only yourself to blame. The research is available to you with very little effort. Cease your willful ignorance.
1
Although "climate scientists" want to claim that it is a settled scientific fact that the climate is changing catastrophically and that it is being caused by human activity, it by no means is universally agreed to within the scientific community. The Liberal media of course chimes in and repeats the same lies over and over because they want the solution to be greater government control over every facet of our lives.
That the solution begins by destroying the American economy as we know it, and taxing Americans to a super high degree to "solve" it, ought to be the red flag that it is. This is the same group that a few decades ago tried to stop all nuclear power plant construction to "save the planet". Now they've reversed course and want nuclear power to "save the planet". This is an agenda...... not a logical and effective plan of action.
2
@Rocky
Not picking on you in particular, just want to sort out what your actual viewpoint is.
Do you not believe that the climate is changing enough to have a significant impact on Americans?
Or do you accept that, but not believe that human activity is a significant factor in that change?
Or, do you believe that the climate is indeed changing dramatically, and that we could mitigate it, but that the cost to Americans to counteract that change is simply too high? That the cost/benefit analysis doesn't work to our advantage?
1
Then don’t ask for my hard earned tax dollars to rebuild your home every time it is flooded or blown down. How much does that cost? Is it more than the cost of transitioning to renewable energy? Doubt it.
1
In the first application, Trump cited "global warming and its effects," including rising sea levels and water erosion, as reasons for the wall, Politico reported, despite his statements calling global warming and climate change "a total hoax." Global warming was not listed as a reason in this application.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-12-22/trump-resort-in-ireland-will-build-seawalls-to-protect-against-climate-change?context=amp
1
Thanks for using the phrase, “rapidly warming planet.”
That’s something we all experience, as opposed to the phrase, “climate change,” which is what scientists study. Hence, we can relate to it.
Is there a better reason to never vote for a Republican? Information that enters the brain first goes to the amygdala which processes our fears. The information never reaches the cortex, the rational thinking part, but is immediately rejected if the information is deemed a "threat". The threat in this case is government. The most common symptom of paranoia is the sense that everyone is out to get you and government is clearly one of many things out to get Republicans isn't it? The Amygdala is considered evolutionary extinct, useful during the first 50,000 generations of humans, but not the last 500. This process perfectly describes how the Republican brain can ignore 30 years of being clobbered over the head every month with new knowledge that clearly points to C02 in the air as the root cause of what is happening to our climate. Totally irrational.
3
Geez, enemies of everybody it would seem, except their rich donors. Mother Earth will have her say. One more reason to vote 'em out folks. 2020 can't come too soon.
2
I’m a grandmother of seven, littles, adorable, healthy bright children. My grandchildren and YOUR grandchildren will one day ask where were you when we were on the precipice of Global Disaster?!
PLEASE folks, we must get everyone out to VOTE! We must vote OUT of office every Republican denier! Our very lives depend on YOUR VOTE!
14
I'm so tired of the willful ignorance and outright hostility exhibited by the GOP and current President towards sensitivity to our environmental impact on this Earth. Perhaps we don't know for sure if climate change is a total hoax or an inconvenient truth, but frankly, I don't care.
My family and I aren't waiting around for these fossils to wake up to the program. We're just gonna do it ourselves: exercise personal restraint in our purchase and consumption patterns (trust me: we're not "suffering"); minimize discretionary travel or be as efficient as we can when doing it; plant bee- and bird- and butterfly-friendly plants and trees and flowers in our yard; diligently maintain our existing cars; bike or walk whenever possible; buy local produce; resist use of pesticides; keep our thermostat a little higher in the summer, and a little lower in the winter; reduce, reuse, recycle; etc..
Being a thoughtful, restrained member of my local community is a reward in itself. Sorry not sorry for being a "drag" on the economy.
10
@Jeff. Sadly, the problem is that our individual choices on reducing carbon footprints will be but a pittance compared to the massive changes in our energy sector that are needed to head off the worst climate catastrophes. Those changes need the coordination and support of national governments. Thus, we need to encourage like-minded persons to exercise their vote to change the current President in 2020. This, I would suggest, is the most effective individual action we can take on this issue.
5
I think the important question the skeptics should be asking is “what if I am wrong?” and what the consequences of being wrong (catastrophic) as opposed to right (we would not fall into despair if we took what ended up being unnecessary action) would be. I have come to terms with the fact that the government will not acknowledge climate change in a meaningful way until we are so far down a hole that we cannot see the light. At that point, we will not be able to save ourselves/the planet.
4
We often hear is: if China is not doing anything about reducing CO2 emissions, why should we do anything. Well for those that don't read, China is a Communist Country where it is not allowed to protest, but more importantly, China is number 1 in the production of solar panels and electric cars. Trump is trying hard to trade places with China and I am sure the Chinese who think in terms of 50 year plans welcome America's race to become the worlds number one carbon based economy while their scientists lead the world out of the mess we are in.
5
The only surprise in the Trump Administration's new effort to suppress climate science is that it took so long. The President and his enablers are a throwback to the time of Galileo whose heliocentric theories were suppressed by the Catholic Church. It is obvious that the President is motivated to defer action on mitigating climate change to allow his private sector cronies to continue to profit from their fossil fuel reserves a while longer. Tragically, this misconceived policy further delays, perhaps irretrievably, our ability to prevent the worst future impacts of climate change. This issue alone compels a momentous effort to defeat Trump's reelection in 2020.
3
Those who cheer the administration's rollback actions and , please ask yourself what you plan to tell your grandchildren when they find much of the land mass uninhabitable and have to grapple with increasingly severe feedback loops. Rolling back rules and knee-capping climate science will not reverse our accountability on climate. Claiming other countries are not acting (they are) does not absolve our stewardship as Americans who have an out-sized carbon footprint almost by virtue of living here.
This is the defining issue of our time. How will we respond?Were the short-term economic gains today worth it? How will we treat our fellow men who will increasingly become climate refugees? If you are religious, remember that God said in Genesis 2:15, that man is also commanded to take care of the earth, not just till it and have dominion. You and I have a responsibility to join those who understand this truth as we work together to understand and mitigate the damage.
4
Maybe we need to talk and write in simplistic terms that Trump and his followers can understand. Like Mother Nature. Forget science. It is not good or wise to fool with Mother Nature. She will come back to bite us big time. She is even as I type. When have we ever had such storms and such floods? Whole towns are considering moving. But where to?
Here in North Dakota where Republicans and the profit motive rule, we still flare off 20% of the natural gas we stir up in drilling/fracking for oil. And we love our coal. Who sez there is an effect on the climate, even though those who live down wind from coal plants, in the plume, have higher cancer rates? Forget science, hard data, lost lives, full speed ahead toward profits.
3
If burning fossil fuel is safe, why to they build the smoke stacks so high?
1
May 28, 2018
Okay Trump does this thing and rejects climate change reality as if mother nature is his dice rolling opposition competitor that is only to be ignored and have his thugs deny and put a wall to block his medical fortress all in the name of Tyrant ruler of the universe. Where ruling women is just what a great man is to achieve a true victory. Trump knows the arts of political science for winning but not about ruling the principles and practices of gain order and serving the normative cultural laws for practice and advancing - all in about service to the oath of his job. Not much of a job when always right to have the right people serve the whatever, wherever, truths and greatness eternal.
1
It is hard to understand the reason to deny climate change and continue down the road where humans don't live here anymore. Is is just about making money on fossil fuels until we run out or make the planet unlivable for humans? Why? Just to undo Obama's legacy because Trump is jealous of Obama's successes and the love of the American people who find Trump to be nothing but an embarrassment? Is it just that our congress has been bought and paid for by fossil fuel companies? Future generations will have trouble understanding why we knew what we had to do but refused to do it because.... I DON"T KNOW.
4
Quixotic as it may seem, it is time to begin crimes against humanity charges against the Trump regime. The concerted efforts to hide, suppress, silence, manipulate data regarding the climate crisis affects all of us adversely. Perhaps at the moment for those of us so privileged, the effects are minimal, but they will grow with forced migrations, political upheavals, food shortages. Daily news is suffused with human-caused extinctions or threats of extinction. Trump and his regime have no right to act against the well-being of other species and whole ecologies.
2
When did conserve come to mean the exact opposite? When did conserve (as in conservative) come to mean destroy?
I've concluded that "Conservative" is a PC term for destroying for a profit and cruelly punishing the weaker. So-called conservatives should stop using a friendly coded euphemism for what they are and come out for what they are: profiteering oppressors where expediency is the only principle.
2
Monumental war crimes,international financial malfeasance,rising infant mortality, decreasing longevity, epidemic obesity, declining education levels,mass imprisonment,medieval child care,international embarrassment,archaic infrastructure,blind energy policies,decaying transport systems, insatiable greed, toxic national debt, collapsing health and wellness.
Who cares about climate change?This land is our land and we've got the biggest guns, bombs, missiles, fraudsters,and bellicose bumblers to prove it.
1
Delusional in all aspects, especially concerning the environment. 2020 can not arrive soon enough - we need to get him out of office before it's too late for our planet and ourselves. Money is his God, not planet earth or the animals, plants and people who need clean air, water and food to survive.
1
Mr. Happer sounds like William Gray (Grey?) at Colorado State University. An extremely respected scientist, specifically forecasted hurricanes, so an expert on oceans did not believe in human caused climate change or climate change (I forget the details). It was mystifying. I don't know if anyone followed the money but isn't that usually the case.
2
The Republican party should realize this is the one issue that will get older white male grandfathers out to vote for a democrat no matter their previous party affiliation.
3
The Guardian in the UK has updated the language it uses to talk about the crisis we are in. It describes our current situation as a climate crisis, rather than the more benign 'climate change'. It describes the crisis as 'global heating', rather than the inaccurate 'global warming' which sounds like a vacation. The NYT should consider doing this too.
We can propagandize and pretend all we want. But the facts are that the oceans are acidifying, coral reefs are dying, whale pods are washing up dead with heavy metals in their blood streams. Rivers are polluted with toxins and antibiotics, vast forests are burning and heat waves and hurricanes are becoming more ferocious and frequent. Wildlife is disappearing and CO2 levels are rising. These are the facts of our current situation. It is a crisis and we should start calling it that.
79
While this sounds dire, your assessment in largely untrue and give deniers ammo to dispute climate change.
1
Here you go jaco: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification Wikipedia is your friend.
3
Here ya go.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/
Course, it IS them egghead commies at National Geographic, with they facts and reason and knowledge and stuff.
5
Leaders are essential like never before but We the People should do what it takes to bring back humanity, empathy, rule of law and most of all, the huge gravity of what's starring in our faces Climate Change is coming fast and it's outright overwhelming.
Now it's not the time for smugness and laxity, our REAL LEADERS are fighting, some of them are 70-89 yrs old...we can't allow ourselves to be distressed, not now.
Everything what matters for humanity is at stake. For god sake our children and grandchildren deserve a normal future.
Just think of rapid devastating Climate Change.
16
Trump and his backers profit on volatility. Whether (or weather) it is the stock market, food production, oil, government, war, or climate, they will personally profit more because of it.
These aging oligarchs won’t live long enough to personally experience the calamity they cause, and their wealth will insulate their descendants for another generation or so.
But eventually they will need to pay a private army of folks to protect them. And how do you guarantee that they will be protected, how do you buy loyalty at that scale?...
12
Trump sits in his office, surrounded by his enablers, having no idea what is going on in the world around him. When he ventures outside, it's to golf on beautifully groomed, over-watered, stunningly green golf courses, which to him, prove that all is well with the world. His supporters tell him that there is no such thing as climate change as they hand him money to extend his tenure, and he responds by rolling back climate change regulations - a gift to his wealthy friends.
This is the same man who refuses to exercise because he believes the human body is like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depletes. He's the same man who believes that raking the forests is the key to preventing wildfires.
Trump's ignorance would be laughable except that it will cost lives - not his, because he will be long dead by the time the real devastation begins - but the lives of our children and grandchildren. Is THIS what some think makes America "great"?
28
Trump is correct in pulling back the end of century predictions and curtailing poorly So far all the long range (and short range) predictions have been wrong - according to the predictors New York City was supposed to be underwater several years ago, we should be in a massive draught, and the Paris Accords was a scam (all they wanted was US money). If CO2 is the problem why has the government mandated that catalytic converters be installed on vehicles - their output is CO2 and water. Stop believing the emotional politicians and deal with science.
5
@Bob
Where do you get this stuff. Nobody said NYCity would be underwater by now. Though you might remember Hurricane Sandy!
Uncertainty is not your friend. The error has been on the low end; in fact reality has exceeded in many cases the worst-case predictions.
5
Your characterization that catalytic converters create CO2 and H2O, while correct is seriously misleading. They eliminate the unburned hydrocarbons that create smog and make the air safer to breath.
2
@Bob In fact, most of the climate projections for both temperature and precipitation, as well as storm intensity, are spot on. And if you understand the Paris agreement, there was no requirement for "US money". And while you argue for science, it is in fact the world's scientific establishment that is identifying climate change. Ya just couldn't come up with a conspiracy this big.
3
This is when top officials in the Trump administration need to start resigning.
Those that choose to remain and support this increasingly dangerous policy will be judged as those that stood by and watched while our planet is destroyed and millions are killed.
8
@NYLAkid
The top officials in the administration don't care. They are as rich, arrogant and ignorant as Trump (well, probably much richer - after all, he lies!).
No one that supports Trump will save us. We have to save ourselves - from climate change and the ignorant people who deny it!
1
Can Lysenkoism be far behind? Let's talk about phase change. Is extra energy really required for water to change to steam? Is steam really a form of water? What about diamonds and carbon? Is the Dear Leader from another planet or another universe? We can rule out Earth origin. We need a federal Office of Pyramidology and Atlantean Studies.
2
Trump has said it himself: He will not be around to reap the consequences of his actions. Like many power and wealth-obsessed individuals, there are no interests in the cosmos that are not his alone.
Guess why generations of people are rapidly learning to utterly despise Americans. You would, too, if a stranger shoved an exhaust pipe down your child's throat and revved the engine.
14
Not even the Democrats in positions of power would sign off the AOC’s green new deal.
3
@JAC
Sure, which demonstrates the fact that most Democrats are right of center conservatives which, in turn, demonstrates that Republicans are right wing extremists.
5
@JAC They Should. They will change or be voted out.
@JAC Which proves what?
Horrifying and depressing in so many ways. Vote them out!
8
A frog won't jump out of a pot that is slowly brought to boil. It cooks alive.
Climate change is caused by greenhouse gasses... FACT.
Smokestacks and exhaust pipes cause greenhouse gasses...FACT.
Trump and his supporters are economically invested in smokestacks and exhaust pipes...FACT.
Trump likes to lie...FACT.
Anyone who believes Trump's lies will get burned... FACT.
14
Have Sgt. Bonespur read some Elizabeth Kolbert.
Sorry, I forgot, the Sgt. doesn't do the whole reading thing.
5
This is not unlike Galileo and the Catholic church.
8
We have known for years that the Trump administration has gutted rational and needed climate change policies. What we now know is that Trump supporters have doomed their children and grandchildren to the devastating consequences of man-made climate change we are already experiencing. The immoral and greedy Trump base that sacrifices its own children and grandchildren has revealed itself. The lines have now been drawn.
5
Of higher concern than food or environment, now humanity itself is unsustainable.
7
Thank you NYT for keeping this insanity in the headlines. We must “throw the bums out” in 2020.
Would also be interested in regular reporting on the progress being made by states, businesses and organizations to reduce emissions and increase reliance on renewables. There is progress being made in this regard by sane, intelligent people and they need to be highlighted too.
14
Let's play journalism 101 and dissect this piece.
First para -- nothing specific except pulling us out of the Paris Accord. But the article fails to mention how ineffective the PA is -- and that it allows China and India to make no commitments until 2030 or so, if then.
Para 2 -- now after 2 years of unravelling... SO -- that's what presidents do that don't agree with their predecessors policies, particularly if their pred couldn't get things done legislatively. And "assault" is a highly loaded word -- hardly worthy of objective journalism in this context.
Para 3 -- nothing but generalities and anti-Trump rhetoric.
para 4 -- undermine the basic science? That's not even close to true, it's said for dramatic effect and to again, attack Trump.
para 5 -- pretty much ober te dictum, adds nothing.
para 6 -- completely without context, hysterical and misleading -- and assumes that these end of the century projections add any value. And which scientists say this. And again, the use of emotionally laden words like "attack." And I thought AOC and Beto and the new green deal crew said it's over in 10 years --- so what difference does it make anyway?
I could go on, but this is clearly a biased "news" article. It's an editorial disguised as news. It starts with the assumption that making long range projections re climate -- and then tagging on policy based on those unprovable projections -- is sound. And that debate about CC and policy is wrong. Ridiculous.
5
@Ralphie
The article itself might be biased, but if we see the scientific stats of climate change, it is pretty evident that we are warming up. My piece of advice is if it is impossible to cut these processes completely at least put a reasonable cap based on scientific facts.
5
In the 60’s it was the Vietnam War. No it is climate change denial. Young people have the most to lose. They must unite, vote out the cowardly Republicans, and take to the streets if necessary to protest to protect their future and the future of their children.
11
Just the beginning. Trump will continue his destruction of American science, technology and the economy under his Russian contract.
11
It's happening in some of the most "red" areas. Nebraska and Missouri are underwater. Oklahoma occasionally stops sandbagging its rivers long enough to take shelter from tornadoes. Tornadoes swept through Dayton OH and a suburb of Indianapolis last night. Meanwhile, it's 100 degrees in Georgia with extreme fire danger.
I'm waiting for a booming voice from the heavens to speak up and say, "You're doing this, not me." Come to think of it, He is already saying that, in the daily headlines of disaster.
7
@Voter: Physical processes don't think.
The media based on reality need to adopt climate descriptions more in line with current scientific perceptions. Instead of the benign sounding "climate change", the words "climate heating" would be more appropriate. Society has always dragged along the naysayers and conspiratorial thinkers. For the past few decades, science and reality based critical thinking has been dominant and this has made incredible achievements that has left many dumbfounded in disbelief as if it is all magic - ie fertile ground for the conspiratorial thinkers, who expand their numbers and now have someone of their ilk in the WH. Humanity may well be faced with the concept of several decades of non reality based policy making, similar to when kings and church ruled. This is sad for those grounded in reality, but good for those like trump or alex jones who sound so good to many. The rapidity of science and technology may have to slow down for a while for the those of society who view everything with suspicion to catch up.
3
Science is a tried and tested methodology for seeking the truth that is indisputable. When errors occur, they are can be deliberate, which are discovered over time, or fail to include all the facts. To cast doubt on the validity of science is to cast doubt on our way of life and degrade the people and institutions who are dedicated to finding the truth and advancing answers we need to help us survive as a species in a hostile world. I am saddened by the motives and lack of knowledge of the leader of the richest, most scientifically sophisticated country on earth to want to take us back to a period where witchcraft is a competing truth or where fraud is used to skew the truth for political purposes. Now more than ever we need to listen to and support our scientists.
8
I’m not a climate scientist but I think the science is reasonably easy to understand. Water and heat are what fuels our weather. Without water (clouds) in the atmosphere there would be no rain, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. Clouds are the result of evaporation from lakes, rivers and oceans. Climate change is warming the air and these bodies of water resulting in more evaporation, more clouds, more weather and more severe weather. Got that Donald?
6
I’m not a climate scientist but I think the science is reasonably easy to understand. Water and heat are what fuels our weather. Without water (clouds) in the atmosphere there would be no rain, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. Clouds are the result of evaporation from lakes, rivers and oceans. Climate change is warming the air and these bodies of water resulting in more evaporation, more clouds, more weather and more severe weather. Got that Donald?
1
This is subversion of science for political ends, 1984 redux. And blatant censorship. None of these ministers of information, least of all Trump, is remotely qualified to evaluate the state of climate science or climate modeling. It’s analogous to fixing the facts to get us into Iraq.
6
Let’s pretend for a moment that climate change is not happening. So now shift the debate to good ole air pollution. So Trump is pro-pollution?
4
@YFJ He is cutting back on the regs for air pollution to save corporations money. Since those regs are based on science and he is in a war against science, we should soon see life expectancy's drop and cancer rates increase. Oh wait, that is happening now, but is called fake news.
1
so here is an article with the word "science" in the title written by two authors who do not have a science background (one has an English literature background, the other business administration) and really have no idea what is meant by the word "science" To start there is no way these authors understand how "models" are derived, whether they are "experimental" or just hypothetical, and whether "predictions and projections" of models should be taken as fact. Additionally, tThis article also does not attempt to detail what sort of rollbacks trump's administration is proposing - are the rollbacks just administrative - for example, companies will be able to file fewer and shorter reports or subjected to less frequent inspections - or are they substantive and reduce global C02 emissions - we do not know from this article. The reality is Trump is not attacking "science" ( look up what that word means in a dictionary) - that realization starts by one first understanding what "science" means and its methods, but instead is attacking Obama's administrative policies. The current title of this article is misleading most of its readers. you can see that from the comments. Instead it should have been written as trump's attack on obama's administration of green house gas release not on any underlining experimental science. The content and substance is about the same as the Nytimes articles on trump colluding with the russians,
3
remember how
- the oil industry withheld information about the environmentally harmful effects of fossil fuels [they knew of since the 1950s]?
- scientists made the world believe sugar isn't harmful.
fat does much more damage?
- tobacco companies refuse to acknowledge a direct connection
between smoking and lung cancer?
- the chemical industry denies harmful effects of controversial
pesticides?
- car makers lied to customers about "clean" car emissions?
BIG industries have been
- spending zillions of dollars to advertise & sell hellishly unhealthy
products to all too willing or perfidiously duped customers;
- paying loads of scientists to support their shameless lies;
- applying loads of psychological tricks to get people hooked on
tobacco, other drugs, alcohol, video games, social media, ...;
- ...
- ...
4
Profits vs heathy planet. Nothing new. I saw raw sewage being dumped into the Great Lakes decades ago. Criminal Trump is just a temporary conduit for this to continue nationwide.
If only a large majority of Americans would work together and demand change, but alas the addiction of Amazon and Netflix is too strong.
7
They deny because it feels good to shout slogans at rallies and it feels bad to confront the truth of an inexorably changing planet.
I hate it when I read or see things about places and species that are being destroyed. Dismal news just leads to a sense of futility and immobilizing depression, in a time when we instead need optimism and to mobilize. We need articles and videos about remaining great places—that’s the only way people will care about them and work to protect them.
If our government would take our side, and take action via regulations or subsidies or funding research that helped us lessen our impact, millions of us would feel encouraged and adopt better practices.
I have degrees in physical science. Put it this way: the math is hard, but I have done the math. We need public access to actual peer-reviewed scientific literature, too.
3
Obama was for it.
Trump is against it.
Donors who own fossil fuel companies won't pay the GOP unless they stop competition from renewables.
It's a pretty simple equation that has repeated itself right down the GOP food chain.
Science is real.
7
As we see with so many issues they Trump opposes, there is no refutation of the realities of science. No logical arguments. Just denial. Climate change is settled science, yet this "low IQ individual" makes no argument. Only denial. Sad.
15
Right wing ideologues deny climate change because it’s caused by their vaunted capitalism. “Growth” uber alles is an existential threat and must be brought under control if civilization, or what charred remnants of it remain, is to continue to exist.
12
What’s driving this?
Follow the money.
13
Aren't those big puffy white clouds in the photo just beautiful!
(Oops, sorry -- for a second there I didn't realize they're really dangerous carbon emissions. Oopsie.)
5
its already too late, once CO2 levels hit 1200 ppm no more clouds, no more rain, just more heat and salty red tide covered shallow seas. Or Not? in trump who trusts?
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
https://www.sciencealert.com/high-levels-of-co2-could-stop-these-cooling-clouds-from-forming-warn-scientists
3
It's sad that the GOP puts profits over principles every single time. Its even more sad that our country is filling with ignoramuses who are spoon fed their talking points without a thought given to their source or their purpose. And its even more sad that people would sacrifice their grand children's future for a little comfort today... The sad irony is that there is no downside to being better stewards of the earth. Not a thing. Unless the only thing you care about is money... Thanks GOP, you're proving again that you are full of the most corrupted and the most greedy people in our society and possibly history. But before you dismiss others as the fools, you should know that your grand kids and their kids are going to hate you for what you did and in this case, didnt do...
12
It is impossible to state Donald Trump is the leader of the conservatives in this country. There is nothing they conserve. Better they and he should be called the destructives.
19
Why are people still having 3, 4, 5, or more children?
10
Science was once the heart of American success. Indeed science has got the entire human race to where it is. To outsiders the US is losing its way, which unfortunately will affect the entire world. Conservatism in the US and worldwide has a psychological problem accepting climate science, a fact that future generations will rue. Unfortunately nature is indifferent to human suffering, and climate change is already starting to roll over the human race.
683
Well actually, science has infuriated conservative thinkers for hundreds of years. Traditional knowledge systems rely upon the knowledgeable enlightening the ignorant. The knowledge is available from respected authority and it is about truth. By the Renaissance in Europe, knowledge was only to be had from good authority, there was nothing new, and the concept of discovery was fantastically unbelievable.
Then, Columbus discovered America. There was lots of things that were that authorities had not known. That was when when conservatives and established knowledge of reality began to disagree with new stuff, and it’s never changed, since.
Science makes it even worse because it never asserts that it is any more true than the reliability of what has been determined with it. Conservatives don’t welcome knowledge that forces change. Science and conservative thinking will always be at odds, I think.
16
@Tim Spicer
Should we even call the current Republicans “conservatives”? About the only thing they want to conserve is their own power and that of their mega-donors.
Real conservatives would heed the advice of George Washington (avoid foreign entanglements) and Adam Smith (those who live by profit have deceived the public and are not to be trusted).
36
@Tim Spicer in order to win elections, Conservatives have made a tactical choice to ally themselves with zealots and sell-outs. We need to do what we can now to bolster demographic and philosophical changes that can end certain conservative trends for good. It’s up to the Millennials in 2020.
22
Notice when all these climate disasters and extreme weather is occurring in the United States - you hear crickets from the White House. Silence on these disasters. He doesn't acknowledge nor does he have empathy and compassion for the American citizens suffering and whose homes are destroyed and whose states and communities are devastated.
Instead this president flies off to Japan on Memorial Day weekend, a time of remembrance and sorrow for our fallen soldiers - he's watching Sumo wrestling and Japanese leaders and monarchs are kowtowing to him which of course he eats right up since this president is only good at self aggrandizement. Americans at home were suffering tornadoes, flooding, devastating damage throughout the midwest and mourning their fallen war heroes. And if that isn't bad enough, meanwhile in Japan, Trump was denigrating a former United States Vice President who has served this country for 40 years and whose son fought in Iraq.
Trump has no clue. Nor does his administration. They are all clueless! There is no hope for any of them! We need to vote this tyrant out in 2020 and vote for true American patriots for President and for the Senate. Enough madness. Bring sanity back to the White House in 2020.
17
Hard to have a positive outlook on the future when the people in power refuse to listen to scientists - they care more about money and their god than they do about keeping this planet habitable.
9
The headline could be "Trump hardens attack on the truth about reality." It fits with the expose of the "Trump Family Business" expose of their failures and financial corruption last night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rBMimHcHYA
Will Happer has no expertise whatsoever in climate science, and is also not ranked highly for his physics in his later years. He's also a mean-spirited person. His association with the Mercers and Bolton are revealing. Myron Ebell is the Kochtopus point man for putting unskeptical "skeptics" who promote big fossil and toxic deregulation into the Trump administration; he was part of the planning team from the start, and works with Pence as well.
People are so gullible: Princeton is a fine institution and has many many credible top-level scientists, but one rogue degrades the rest, but exploiting his standing. The few overwhelm the many.
It's really a rogues' gallery of anti-science nasties: Mercers, Bolton [!], Ebell.
What do they think is going to happen to them? While hurting the rest of us, they also damage themselves and their younger friends and families.
I hope the courts will stomp on this. How shameless, and how dangerous!
13
I hope that the Bernie Bros who sat out 2016 in a snit, as well as the geniuses who cast a vote for Jill Stein, are all very happy now.
14
@Rex7 blame Trump on Bernie, not Hillary? Or Jill Stein? That’s in the same category as science denial! As for 2020, your comment helps Trump.
Mother nature. The wind blows she breathes. The rain falls she cries. The sun shines her heart beats. The night falls she sleeps. The snow falls she grows cold . The spring comes she awakens from her slumber. Summer arrives she is happy with the sounds of her children. Fall arrives she is alive with color.
2
@Charles
Very poetic. You might enjoy this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8d_JvMpoY4&list=PL5WqtuU6JrnXjsGO4WUpJuSVmlDcEgEYb
1
@Charles beautifully said! Bravo!
1
Thank you very inspiring.
Even just from the business point of view, this seems a continuation of the American business "tradition" of avoiding innovation by any means necessary. As I recall, Japanese cars first achieved their popularity in the US not because they were cheaper but because they were better made and didn't break down within a year. And though China is indeed a major polluter because of its use of coal, it has also had a major push underway to convert to renewables, so much so that even US companies that want to produce solar panels or wind turbines decided to build their factories in China because there is a much bigger market there. So the current administration is glad to let China become the world's supplier of the energy sources of the future while we export oil. Yes, China has hurt the US economy in a number of ways, but it has been aided and abetted by the shortsightedness and sheer stupidity of the US oligarchy.
I hope the next major hurricane takes out Mar-a-lago so we can send Trump a large shipment of paper towels to toss to his members!
8
It's hard to fathom what needs to go wrong in one's life to make a person essentially say "Not only do I not care what kind of world I'm going to leave behind after I die, but I'm going to make it my mission to make it as terrible for everyone else as possible."
It's no secret there are some poor excuses for humans out there in the world, but this is a whole other level of loser right here.
19
President Trump should be impeached immediately for crimes against humanity. His climate change denials may, in time, exacerbate the loss of millions of human lives. History, if there is one, will judge this madman harshly.
14
“Nobody in the world does climate science like that,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton.
Got that right. Nobody in the world, except the Republican Party in the United States, and their selfish, greedy donors. A lot of aging, affluent, arrogant white men bent on destroying the planet before they fall into the grave. At least they're providing a stark illustration of what's at stake in 2020. Vote like life on Earth depends on it.
15
"In an email, James Hewitt, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the proposed changes."
"In an email" shows the weakness of any spokesperson, someone who can't think nimbly during a phone or in-person interview.
Source: am spokesperson.
4
Perhaps a minor point, but it would be helpful if The NY Times made clear to its readers the education, areas of research and/or expertise of persons such as Dr. Happer. I believe he is a physicist, not a climate scientist. It seems a bit like quoting an orthopedic surgeon opining on brain surgery without identifying the orthopedic surgeon as such - it robs the readers of context to evaluate his comments and almost implies he is actually as qualified as eg Dr. Hathor. That would be a shame.
8
The GOP created this out of thin air years ago for the purpose of wedging the electorate.
It is criminal and they are criminal.
8
You can say you don’t believe in gravity but the apple will still hit you on the head.
You can say you don’t believe in global warming but that’s not going to stop it getting hotter.
I think we are headed to a future with considerably greater warming than 2 degrees C. That means a lot of people will suffer. A lot of people will die.
12
@Erik Frederiksen
Well said. How can anyone with Grandchildren not worry about their future? All the gaudy gold towers in the world will not safeguard our progeny from rising sea levels and polluted air.
4
I am doing what I personally can, but what can be done on a larger scale. Here in FL the locals just voted down a 1/2cent tax for water...they don't trust their elected officials is the reason, yet they don't vote them out of office. So what else other than personal responsibility can we do?
4
The article mentions William Happer, who the Trump administration has brought in to be the chief climate science denier on a proposed panel. For a good read on the subject, below I provide a link to a white paper that was originally written by Dr. Happer, and rebutted, in my opinion convincingly, by Michael C. MacCracken, PhD, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute. Here's the link:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/The-Real-Truth-About-Greenhouse-Gases-and-Climate-Change.pdf
15
When I saw this story, I immediately thought of Stalin and Lysenko.
The parallel is closer than I imagined: here's what Wikipedia has to say about lysenkoism:
"In modern usage, the term lysenkoism has become distinct from normal pseudoscience. Where pseudoscience pretends to be science, lysenkoism aims at attacking the legitimacy of science itself, usually for political reasons. It is the rejection of the universality of scientific truth, and the deliberate defamation of the scientific method to the level of politics."
Russian genetics studies took a generation or two to recover. If we allow Lysenko's heirs to have their way for long, climate science may nevertheless recover one day; but that may be too late for an earth that is hospitable to humanity.
10:45 EDT, 5/28
27
Shades of Stalin and Lysenko. They can attack climate science all they want, they can de-fund the research, muzzle and fire the scientists, you name it. As far as truth is concerned, this horse is long out of the barn - the world knows the status and the basic, important facts. The world also knows, more or less, what needs to be done. The hard part is to do it. I am not sure it makes much practical difference whether the Trumpies deny and suppress the science or not. They are not going to do anything about climate either way.
13
The only way to reduce temperatures in any meaningful way is to get rid of the cars = all of them.
This is hard to do when the entire country and much of the world has been configured around them. Trump 'policy' simply reflects a social reality.
Yet, one way or the other the cars will go, what differs is method. We can give them up voluntarily or they will all go 'the hard way': by way of war, economic crisis or fuel/resource supply shortfalls.
3
Reducing the use of cars would be a good thing but actually air conditioning is the greatest driver of climate change.
3
@steve from virginia--Why do you think we have such poor public transit? Why can't we travel, comfortably, from sea to shining sea, or the town down the road? We have to put these people out of business, before it's too late. Write, call, demonstrate, strike, divest, boycott these companies. We can't just sit around and complain. Do what you can, even if it's only to give some money to the causes.
2
Actually, air conditioning is the biggest driver of climate change. See below
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/13/climate/climate-change-make-a-difference-quiz.html
3
Mankind and the energy ecosystem that has enabled its growth and survival has evolved pretty deliberately and methodically, not likely to change on a dime. Obama was great with symbolic gestures that made people feel good for the moment. Perhaps Trump is often too practical minded.
1
1. Your own metabolism is quite stable and unlikely to change abruptly, yes? So what happens if you decide a nice dose of typhoid would be good?
2. You lot really must decide: was President Obama feckless, or did he act to Destroy America From Within?
3. You ARE aware that this article’s about the greedy and imbecelic attack on Obama’s actions to control climate change and pollution, yes? Could you explain how if he didn’t do anything, there’s anything to attack?
5
This morning CNN and MSNBC led the news with stories of devastating tornadoes in Ohio. The notion that we can't afford to spend money to address climate change is exactly wrong.
The oligarchs would much rather see the Government spend hundreds of billions in disaster relief than have to spend a nickel of their own to address the core issues. The death and untold misery is acceptable collateral damage to them.
12
The real cause of the global climate change is people: Too many of them.
The Earth's human population is now at 7.7 billion -- double what it was in the 1970's -- and still growing at 800 million a year. No amount of emission reduction, carbon sequestration, und so weiter, can possibly compensate for that. And the Right wants to outlaw abortion. Abortion should not just be permitted; it should be mandated.
But it's too late. Every process has a tipping point -- a point from which recovery is impossible. The human species passed that point half a century ago.
Limiting coal usage, going clean with electric cars (and the their recharging electricity is generated how?), square miles of solar panels . . . all treating the symptoms while the disease rages on. If you had two or more children: You are the problem.
This planet, as a habitat for animal life, including us, is doomed. Irredeemably doomed.
7
@Austin Liberal - Interesting observation. So People farts are causing global climate change. The reality is that we as a species have removed 300,000,000 years of petrochemical based materials (crude oil etc) from storage and BURNED IT creating an overload of CO2 in the atmosphere while at the same time burning down the lungs of our planet to grow methane producing cattle.
5
The impulsive Know-it-all-in Chief would not go up in an airplane without a belief and insistence on the use of aeronautical science. He picks and chooses his support of silence based on immediate monetary needs not on impartiality or rationality. During his personal Vietnam days, I think he would have put his trust in medical science rather than random impulses and unqualified opinions picked up in a disco.
3
It is not science nor climate science that is the problem it is America.
Here in Quebec we have no problem because we have dispensed with faith. Our churches are empty our Creator has gone somewhere else in the universe. We are no longer people of faith , we are people of science.
Science is the opposite of faith. Science requires our constant questioning of what we see. It requires looking at the shadows on the cave wall and discovering their metaphysics.
My ancestors wrote The Bible for me and people like me, There are no events nor historical occurrences in the bible. The stories are allegories telling us who and what we are. The Bible is allegorical truth and America has perverted all its meaning.
Faith has become the opposite of science. Science is about doubt and a search for fact. Science is a process which never precludes doubt. America wants faith. America has lifted faith to a role in the universe where science cannot exist.
Science tells us we have a future if we have doubt and try to understand our seemingly insignificant existence. Faith tells us doubt is bad we must believe things that are impossible in a universe that has laws that are immutable and there are no miracles.
America wants answers and science only answers with more questions. Real scientists don't wear clerical robes that reveal the secrets of the universe they question the universe around them looking for the questions that might lead to enlightenment.
America is afraid of truth.
12
There are many ways to get rid of a "bad" president. Most are lawful. Some are not. But because this president has essentially backed all of us into a corner with his insane actions, we are going to have to consider all of them if we are to survive. So, stay flexible, as you stay alert.
6
Another comment: this piece keeps quoting people like EU bureaucrats and "climate scientists". They are immaterial.
Who counts are the bureaucrats and "climate scientists" in China and India. WHERE are their quotes in this article. When and only when I start seeing screams from both "climate scientists" and bureaucrats in China demanding that they stop
using coal will the whole affair seem anything but a joke. Remember that China said in the "Paris Accords" that the expect to to RAISE their CO2 emissions.
2
@Doug McDonald: You forgot that China is a communist country. They are not allowed to protest. India is still a developing country and has much more to worry about just to keep the country together. However, America (until Trump) has been looked to as a leader and is now saying, don't worry, what you don't know may kill you, but our future economy needs you to ignore the facts.
2
Living under the Trump administration feels like being in a car that is hurtling down the highway at breakneck speed, weaving this way and that as it demolishes everything in it's path. Everyone in the car (who is paying any attention at all) is white knuckled, wants desperately to get out, but fears the bully at the wheel who tweets vitriol and lies out to the waiting world as he goes.
Meanwhile, in talking to the younger generations who will inherit this world, I sense so many people braced for the ever escalating disasters of global warming.....massive crop failures, massive migrations, massive flooding, and insufferable waves of heat. They talk of having "go bags" at the ready for any number of these calamities, and so many even question the idea of bringing a child of their own into this world.
As the rules and regulations that were implemented to keep our air breathable and our water drinkable are gleefully dismantled by the folly of Trump, all for short-term economic gain, I watch the richest get vastly richer. and they of coarse of will be the most prepared for the bleak world to come created by our inability to act for the greater good of our planet.
Step 1.....take away the keys
7
Anyone not moved to resist Trump’s reckless, fake-news-driven climate policies and their devastation on our planet should consider, in addition all the other overwhelming evidence, the fate of the northern Pacific walrus. For centuries these magnificent, two-ton creatures have lived on sea ice in their feeding areas. Now, because of global warming, the sea ice is all but gone, and the walruses must retreat to rocky shores to rest, sometimes hundreds of miles from their food sources. They have poor vision and are not accustomed to land. In these overcrowded refuges they trample and suffocate each other. They easily stampede. And in their desperation to find open space, many scale the rocky cliffs and crash to their deaths hundreds of feet below. This tragedy is vividly shown in Netflix’s new Our Planet series, in a harrowing scene which the cameraman described as “the worst thing I have ever filmed.” We need to do better than this.
7
Narcissists tend to seek Pyrrhic Victories for their own" benefit" regardless of the cost.
4
Our President is clueless. Russia must be so pleased that Putin helped Trump be elected. And the Republican party is standing up for Trump; they've obviously lost their minds. It is our job to do our best to get Trump out of office next election.
8
The way Trump is deteriorating, you'd better hope there is a "next election".
The Greens in Europe drew an outpouring of millennial voters and others. Democrats would be wise to make climate change and some version of a green new deal central to their campaigns. Inspiring non-voters in 2016 to vote in 2020 is crucial if we are to restore fact-based governance that represents what the majority wants.
13
Here's the so-called attack on science: "James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments … use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously." That is the change made by Trump's people. And these climate models have been ridiculously wrong since they started making these predictions 30 years ago. So reducing it to a 20 year projection rather than 80 years is more common sense than an attack on science,
2
Computer models are exponentially better now than they were 30 years ago just based on processing power, data granularity and machine learning techniques. Also 20 years is a fairly short time frame compared to the length of a human life, let alone a geological time scale. So going from 80 to 20 is the opposite of common sense.
6
@John
Didn't bother reading the article to the end, did you?
In any case, you are dead wrong. I am dead serious, you need to become more observant and watch what is going on all around you. Promoting comfortable illusion and continuing wasteful habits is not going to make the world safe.
The planet has the only seat at the table, and it bats 1000.
8
@John
The models have been very accurate. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/316/5825/709
And we have observations which bear out what the models are telling us.
8
Remember this other Left wing hoax when you vote in 2020. A growing body of evidence suggests that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon-dioxide emissions than policy makers generally assume—and that the need for reductions in such emissions is less urgent.
According to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, preventing “dangerous human interference” with the climate is defined, rather arbitrarily, as limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures. The Earth’s surface temperatures have already warmed about 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1850-1900. This leaves 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) to go (Source: Judith Curry). You believe in SCIENCE, right?
4
@Hank
1824 Fourier says the surface of the Earth is warmer than it should be, it must be doing something like a greenhouse.
1859 Tyndall says, hmmm, CO2 is doing it.
1896 Arrhenius says hey if we burn fossil fuels we're raising CO2, we're going to warm the Earth and this is how much and he was pretty close.
1940s the modern quantum version with the US Air Force right after WWII. They weren't doing global warming, they wanted sensors on heat-seeking missiles to shoot down Soviet bombers before they incinerated their cities.
The CO2 absorbs infrared whether its coming from the engine of an enemy bomber or the Sun warmed Earth. The idea scientists don't know what they are talking about is completely absurd.
9
@Hank
Nothing arbitrary about it. If you were more observant, you would realize that uncertainty is not your friend.
Try reality, and talk to some people about what's all around us. World weather is getting wackier and more destructive.
It's not the day to day, but the overall trends.
7
@Hank ... One thing is for certain, Carbon Emissions as a problem is Not Going Away.
4
The only solution is to sweep this existential threat out of office in 2020. Take the whole DC enchilada and invoke emergency powers to radically mitigate climate change. The Green party’s surge in Europe gives one hope that youth and women can be the catalyst for a definitive electoral victory here in the U.S. As an aging independent, I intend to vote straight democratic until you pry my cold dead hands off the voting lever.
17
@the doctor ... Live Long & Prosper
4
@the doctor
Well said. Me too.
4
There will be sufficient lead time prior to climate change becoming a mass extinction event for authoritarian governments to set up hardened, protective facilities to enable perhaps one or two million people to ride out climate change for a few centuries and then reestablish a survivable planet for their progeny. For the people presently in charge, lethal climate change is therefore regarded as a natural and narrowly manageable outcome for a world otherwise out of control in multiple respects, and a mitigating global response does not serve their interests. All consistent with the chummy regard dictators and would-be dictators show for one-another, while downplaying the climate change issue.
6
@smartypants
The changes coming will be dramatic. No place will be safe, no matter your wealth.
3
@Erik Frederiksen The technology envisioned for exo-planetary colonies would amply serve the purposes I'm describing, and anyone well-versed in the engineering disciplines would agree with its feasibility. This is not a matter of individual wealth, but the collective resources available to advanced nations. It can also take place on a secretive basis, as, for example, the huge Manhattan project during WW2 to develop the atomic bomb.
2
These global warming denying scientists are claiming expertise in disciplines which they never studied and claim superior knowledge over those who have studied those areas. Coincidentally, they have been granted considerable amounts of money by people who risk losing a lot of money if global warming is addressed as a priority.
6
@The Wizard Who cares what Ayn Rand thought? She certainly had no scientific expertise. But that you think it worthwhile to refer to her in this context tells us everything we need to know about your ideological bias.
OK Billionaires, it's time to step up to the plate and put your money to important uses. Forget about sending millionaires into space for a cheap thrill. Start funding climate science so that those dedicated to the field can continue their research.
Start foundations that can reliably replace the funding from government agencies now more and more headed by nutcases.
Support advanced nuclear power so that the energy for electric vehicles comes from adequate, reliable, carbon-free sources. Solar and wind are anything but adequate.
Get on with using your vastly excessive resources to help save our planet despite Trump.
16
“Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him.”
What is the point in reporting on this distinction?
It’s all the same fiction. And the president has far more power than an institutionalized ideologue.
1
“The previous use of inaccurate modeling that focuses on worst-case emissions scenarios, that does not reflect real-world conditions, needs to be thoroughly re-examined and tested if such information is going to serve as the scientific foundation of nationwide decision-making now and in the future,” Mr. Hewitt said.
Does this remind anyone else of Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth'?
Sometimes it's good to be old.
p.
11
Dems and Independants might try addressing the fact that many in the midwest and rural USA, outside urban centers, agree with Trump. They dismiss and mock everything about climate change or the environmental impact of pollution.
We've got to find ways of reaching them. Here in in the Chicago burbs, many have university degrees and live affluent lifestyles while others barely survive on wage slave incomes. Most are what we refer to as Good People. They pay their bills, follow laws, raise their families.
These Good People of all education and income levels jeer at research on climate change and pollution, or shrug their shoulders saying theres nothing to be done about it. When public schools stop teaching critical learning skills, reading and history this is what we get. I apologize to the world for what's happening in our government, and question the collective sanity of our society. I am deeply ashamed of the current regime and the willful ignorance of those who support it.
9
Perhaps a more frightening prospect is what Trump and the oligarchs will do when he is re-elected which right now appears to be the most likely outcome of the 2020 election (see Rattner's column to day in NYT). What will we do? Tie ourselves to the coal plants or the coal trains. It will be unstoppable and damaging perhaps permanently.
3
@M.S. Shackley We all need to stop repeating the "Trump will be re-elected" line. Per the mid-terms, it's not a foregone conclusion, not by a long shot.
8
Every move of the Trump administration is based upon the desire to be re-elected. For Trump the only important thing is Trump. By rolling back climate protections he is garnering re-election cash from coal mine operators.
5
Sixty years ago my father had a passion for remote parts of the American West. He introduced his four sons to hiking in wilderness from Montana to California. Vast tracts of forests were healthy and untouched in those days and we gained respect for the nature of life on earth.
Today... we do not need climate scientists to warn us that man is killing our planet. The evidence is there for all to see. We have overpopulated our planet, subdivided our wilderness, sickened our forests, our national parks are overrun, plastics are choking our oceans and killing critical marine environments. Millions of species will be gone before the end of my life.
Worse, fools argue that there is no problem and we can go on being irresponsible with no consequences.
Sweep this dangerous administration and its allies from power and change direction America.
21
Watching this President publicly deny thousands of peoples scientific work and citing only a couple of sold-out scientist´s research is ridiculously sad to watch. It's obvious that this is done to help the dirty energy industry. Sad. Also, don't let them push the argument that "closing up coal plants will destroy jobs" as experts predict that ALL workers would be able to find a job in the renewable energy industry. But hey, what does an expert's opinion mean to the American president these days...
4
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." In entirely negating numerous policies seeking to address the existential threat of man-made climate change and, moreover, then affirmatively enacting his own anti-science, reckless policies which will make the dire consequences of that worldwide threat only worse, this Fake President has unequivocally and intentionally violated his solemn oath of office. This complete and unprecedented disregard for all forms of life on our planet must be included as a separate Article of Impeachment in any enumeration of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors " which he has committed. What offending conduct could possibly be "higher"?
8
Can we now add a charge of crimes against humanity against Trump? There is no other description. I know, other countries aren't doing enough either, but I'm not aware of any world "leader" who is purposefully allowing the situation to get worse in their nation while lying about the fact that the situation is getting worse.
12
This should be the story of the day, but I've had MSNBC on for hours, and not a word. Instead, endless reporting of Trump's remarks about Biden and coverage of the Ohio tornadoes with no mention of climate change. The mainstream media have the power to wake all of us up before the 2020 election. They could treat Trump's comments and tweets as the rantings of a pathological liar and ignore them. Instead, they allow them to determine the narrative. They could make climate news central to every broadcast. Do none of the people in corporate media have children and grandchildren? How many times in how many ways do they have to learn the same lesson? Silence=death.
7
At what point can we start suing the GOP and Mr. Trump personally for dereliction of their constitutional duties? For all the climate-change related damages, financial losses and death? All the tornado damage we're seeing in recent days. Storms that are more frequent and more violent. Farmers having to contend with never-before-seen weather patterns. Yesterday morning I wore a puffy coat... during the last week in May... in Phoenix! The oil oligarchs and their corrupt buddies are willing to destroy everything and everyone in the name of profit, fleecing the unsophisticated and desperate with distractions (e.g., xenophobic populism) and promises of jobs while ignoring the barely tapped potential of green technology, and ceding those opportunities (and jobs and profits) to countries like China. Every single day it's new low with this administration; they're not looking out for America, they're only looking out for THEMSELVES and they will retreat to their fortified lairs and chortle about how “adorable” we all are fighting over the scraps, divided and conquered.
9
By imposing the draconian solutions AOC and her ilk are proposing, this country and every other developing and advanced economy would collapse amid the prospects of massive unemployment, starvation and civil war.
That’s more certain than the results of algorithms that are doubtful. Additionally, while the US has done an admirable job of cutting production of greenhouse gases in recent decades, other countries like China, India and Iran have done nothing and don’t intent to. The subject of climate change demands more study.
5
@JAC
Lots of solid evidence from economists about the continuing economic impacts of global warming now and prospectively. Their numbers suggest that we may have more to gain from addressing climate change vs. ignoring.
4
@JAC
From the world’s largest general scientific association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science:
"The range of uncertainty for the warming along the current emissions path is wide enough to encompass massively disruptive consequences to societies and ecosystems: as global temperatures rise, there is a real risk, however small, that one or more critical parts of the Earth’s climate system will experience abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes.
Disturbingly, scientists do not know how much warming is required to trigger such changes to the climate system."
http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/
If you look at things like the rate of loss of sea ice, shrinking glaciers and ice sheets, melting permafrost and changes to the northern polar jet stream and deep ocean circulation, it could be argued we are seeing the beginning of such changes now.
4
Sorry.... not true in the face of economic consequences
The Trump administration’s approach to nearly all science based research - not just with respect to global warming, but many other environmental issues - for example limiting environmental pollutants - is entirely suspect, inasmuch as they are determined to ignore the scientific community at large, while only inviting those whose opinions they already agree with.
If an actual “red / blue team” approach were opted for on the sole subject of climate science (one piece of our environmental puzzle requiring informed expert risk modeling to anticipate possible outcomes), I suspect all the other anti-scientific positions they hold will only become ever more entrenched, as they lay claim to their one effort to have dialogue while trashing any other well-founded environmental science requiring intervention or remediation.
Despite there being grounds for debate due to the complex scientific analyses required, Trump has invited every fox (and Fox as well) he can find into the henhouse - it is no way to promote the much needed scientific consensus building they lamely suggest they are seeking.
7
They can try to squelch the report, but the evidence is well documented. Climate change is already upon us and likely to get far worse. Better to focus on ridding ourselves of Trump in 2020 and getting back on track. Many states are already proceeding with climate initiatives.
13
My concern about the scientific studies involves a lack of thoroughness. A key issues seems to be missed. Suppose we adopt every green recommendation, accept the costs to business. Suppose the rest of the world continues with their current policies, not their future intentions. What would the world look like in 100 years? Would our sacrifice be worth it? I’m not asking for an answer now. I just want to see a serious academic study on that specific issue.
1
@Robbins
You might try actually looking at the reports instead of taking somebody else's word for it. This work has been done, and it is very thorough.
We don't have 100 years, we have about 11 to turn things around, if we want to lessen the disastrous course we are on. Yes, "green" recommendations are insufficient.
Try this for a demonstration of worst case scenarios:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4
3
@Robbins ... Hard to address your concern - e.g. how much is $100 dollars today worth in 100 years?
Another example: $100 today for a per person in a poor country vs. a middle-class person in a rich country is not comparable.
And, there are a few other daunting questions that Science Can only Partially at best Address re our great-great grandchildren's situation in 100 years.
@Robbins There are a wealth of serious academic studies that explain just this. Here is a review of one from the World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/heres-what-earth-might-look-like-in-100-years-if-were-lucky/
If this isn't academic enough for you, I suggest you check Google Scholar - you'll find plenty.
The Market will not care what Trump and the US thinks about climate. The Market will move ahead and reward those countries and companies who make products and services that are resilient, low cost, efficient and sustainable. The Market will move in the right direction, leaving the US covered in coal dust.
35
First this article says Trump is an arm chair naysayer which once more mysterious people that know him say. More information from the unknown. Then it says the effects will be felt after 2040. That must upset AOC cause earth will be gone in less than 12 years. I don't believe anyone is denying there is weather change. Just not all agree it's man made. After all what did the dinosaurs do to start the ice age? In the 70's it was global cooling. Even the scientist don't agree. There are many that don't think the MAN made program is accurate,
6
@jacrane - there are not "many" who believe that who know anything about the actual science. It is, in fact, man made as real facts have determined beyond any doubt. The scientists do agree.
3
@jacrane
Right, "In the 70's it was global cooling" is a popular line among deniers. Too bad it ignores the fact that Exxon's very own scientists were talking about man made global warming.....in the 70's.
3
There was no “Global Cooling” in the 1970’s. In fact, that is when warnings of global warming began in earnest, led by the voice of NASA scientist, James Hansen. Also, an Ice Age is not what drove the dinosaurs to extinction, an asteroid impact did. And finally, I’m sure you would agree that humans are much more capable of affecting the climate than were dinosaurs.
3
This should be regarded as a crime against humanity.
38
I want every climate change denier to put their names down in the "Climate change is just a hoax!" name log book. You should be proud of your position, so why not record it for history? In a few generations, their great grandchildren can look them up and see how delusional and/or ignorant their ancestors were, and how little they cared to protect the planet while we still had time.
42
"Elect-A-Crook" - with branches in the US, Russia and North Korea, to name but a few ... not to forget Hungary, Italy and of course China. The shock has been that the US was once a champion, albeit often a reluctant one, of truth and justice. RIP.
22
@Bill George
Just a friendly reminder. Trump was 'selected'.
Not elected.
3
For all those who have been waiting for the other shoe to drop on Donald Trump's one-man march toward climate change Armageddon ... this is it.
11
Good to see the Trump administration push back on climate propaganda. Here is Canada our corrupt leader Justin Trudeau (the guy who fired his Justice Minister for not dropping a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin) is now calling it a climate emergency which is complete nonsense!
5
Trudeau is just following the advise of people who know the facts. Nature just does what it does. Living things that cannot tell the signs that nature offers can become extinct.
2
@Peter B
I'll trust the studies of climate scientists rather than take your word for it.
3
@Peter B
If you are going to attack someone, at least do it based on the truth. While Americans may not know the intricacies of the SNC affair, we Canadians do; most of us anyways.
3
Grade school children know more about climate change than T. does. Why are the farmers still supporting this man and his antics?
19
@Bev Kagan
Present money over the future.
Please, everyone, remember this when you vote this coming year. Vote EVERY Republican out of office. They are a threat to the survival of the planet.
68
@The Dude - I'm concerned about climate change, but still plan to vote for almost all Republicans. Sorry.
1
Sue, sue and sue! Anything to hold this action up in the courts. There must be a way to stop this madness!
10
For the duration of the Trump nightmare I hope they start an alt-EPA just like we have an alt-NPS.
3
My theory -- The wealthy oligarchs want to ruin the world to trigger some cataclysmic event that will kill most of the unworthy and unwanted poor leaving the world to the few deserving survivors who can afford to protect themselves. Of course there will be a labor crisis and riots and violence but as long the rich can wall themselves off and wait for everyone else to die off they are ok with that. Sick sick sick thought but what else does evidence suggest.
16
@DRTmunich correct, but you left out "specifically black & brown people" ....as the "wealthy oligarchs" want those folks gone more than anything ....
1
@DRTmunich
And, in the end, they too will suffer as we head towards an uninhabitable earth.
1
@DRTmunich Except we create their wealth for them by our labors. Without the working poor, the rich would have nothing.
1
A madman on a mission to destroy the planet, could not bear to read the whole article. Future generations will look back on this shaking their heads in disbelief.
16
No one's blinder than he who would not see.
7
I used to believe humanity had a bright future. A future where we went beyond our current existence towards a more enlightened inclusive society. How foolish my beliefs were. I should have known better.
Now I don’t see a future. If news agencies like the Times are unable to publish the concept of overwhelming consensus on science and instead do us a disservice and lie to make the fringe as equal. By placing them on equal footing you actual further the attack on science.
This isn’t something we can fix after it’s broken and a myriad of life is extinguished. It doesn’t work that way.
Balanced news isn’t airing both sides as equal when they aren’t.
15
@Mathias
The Times has done a good job here. If you require perfection, nothing will get done. This does not treat "both sides as equal".
Yes, they have failed to investigate the detail on Happer's lack of qualifications, but they've talked to some good people.
3
We should not tolerate leaders who deny truth. Ever,
20
I firmly believe Trump wants to destroy the world. His policies all aim to increase pain and suffering, and the more he causes, the happier he is.
19
An America that has completely lost its moral authority is not good for the world. I know that there are many Americans - I'd even concede that they comprise the majority - who despair over this as much as we do in the rest of the world. On behalf of all our children and our grandchildren, please do whatever you can to stop this horrible, ignorant man and his accomplices in the GOP.
17
Every day brings fresh confirmation of the absolute insanity of the president, his cabinet, and his republican enablers in Congress. By whatever is the most effective lawful means, we must get him out of office as soon as possible.
17
---Well...They are consistent. Consistently wrong, on environmental issues in particular, but certainly not...exclusively.
13
I read the physical paper, delivered each morning by a wonderful man named Mike. This morning I was alone and able to read the whole news section. I was able to cry, as I did when I read the story of the laid-off Lordstown auto plant worker, who is such a good father and a good guy, with his underpinnings knocked out from under him, and the story about the people who rescue pets from floods. When I came to the climate change article (see: article about rescuing pets from floods) I raged, i screamed, I shouted at the photo of Trump about how much I hate hate hate him and his crass cunning and his utter, total selfishness. It can be great to be alone with the windows closed.
I am the Democratic precinct committeeperson in my ward. In 2018 we had 883 registered active Democrats, and there will be more in 2020 because a new townhouse development is in progress. i can't change the world, but I can say this: we will have 95% turnout here in South Whitehall 6. That will be my mission.
39
A large majority of climate scientists say the gun is loaded. The President says it's not. So he aims it at the young people in the world and is pulling the trigger.
27
@Henry: If I could, I would magically whisk all young people to a more civilized country, get them out of America. There is no future here for them, better they go somewhere else and use their talents and energies.
I told my 32 year old, non-mainstream daughter, my only child, that if Trump wins in 2020, I want her out of here. I want her to leave. I myself would like to leave but that probably will not happen for many reasons. It's much harder when one is old(er).
Young people? Leave while you can - and work towards a better future for yourselves and the climate.
3
For over a hundred years oil and coal interests have made a killing exploiting our economy. And it is their captains who are at the helm and other corporate interests support the status quo. Big money does not give up its power easily in the face of what they see as tree huggers and conservationists. Never mind that lots of corporate profits can be made by supporting policies that support our environment rather than exploit it. Old paradigms die hard.
And Trump in his effort to churn up his base brands all those who care about the environment as elitists, the term that his base hates to the point of ignoring the dire threat to our environment and our very survival. Politics can not be allowed to trump this grave threat which is becoming more real as the days and years go by. In the end it may be our squabbling and hatred that does us in as vast swaths of our population buy into the story of climate change as hoax and old energy interests continue their pillage.
14
This article reminds us why we need to VOTE out the current administration and begin AGAIN to honestly address man made global warming for what it is...the biggest threat to mankind of this century...nuclear bombs and proliferation right there too.
17
About 60% (and growing) of Americans see climate change as a serious threat - that number is far higher in China and many other countries. Once again, the party representing the minority, a bunch of cowards who couldn't care less about this country or this planet, are trying to ramrod their ignorance and 1700's mentality into our society. Remember the party of "the truth isn't the truth", "fake news", and "facts are not facts." Every year we break heat records, locally, and globally. The deniers simply deflect, say "look how much snow we got this year!", as if that's a defense to a impending medium to long term climate disaster, as if that's a defense to the loss of all freshwater glaciers, as if that's a defense to hard facts recorded for many decades. You can't fix stupidity or greed, and we have a LOT of both in this country.
24
Trump will be gone either in 2021 or 2025 if he doesn't die in office sooner. What the world is learning from the Trump administration is that despite our Great Institutions of higher education and the great research institutes, the United States is still governed by uneducated hysterical fools who are put into office by masses of ignorants who believe what they want to believe despite the evidence against their beliefs. We are in deep trouble if Trump is what our electorate has chosen.
32
this just in: science has confirmed our worst suspicion - President Trump is the devil himself and he is out to get your grandchildren. film at 11.
8
Lucky for trump that he has no children or grandchildren (that he cares about).
13
@el: I've said for some time now that if Trump were in the one and only lifeboat, and Ivanka was trying to climb in, he'd smash her fingers until she slipped under the waves. He cares about nothing and nobody but himself.
3
Hey Trump Family, where are you gonna hide when we can't breath clean air anymore?
To help you decide, I know of a few caves in Saudi Arabia.
11
The greed of the Kochs, Mercers, Big Pharma, Big Oil and the rest of the cabal of the plutocracy running this country knows no bounds. What good will all of your hoarding of wealth do you when the Earth is no longer habitable?
8
This assault on science is reminiscent of the Galileo trial of 1633 and the denial by the Catholic Church that the Earth was anything other than center of the universe.
10
@Brown Dog
Yes and there is a whole chapter on this in Robert Crease's recent book, "The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority," 2019 and published by Norton.
The Catholic church also frightened quite a few other thinkers, including Descartes.
This whole business is part of longstanding fights over various forms of intellectual authority.
1
It's only my opinion, but mob-boss/president looks worse every week. His shape is reaching out like a volcanic island. His color is orange, not pleasant to look at. And his entire demeanor a little bit smarmy, with a whole lot of toxic end-of-day for anyone not from America or Russia. It seems to me he is sprinting to his finish.
5
Stick your fingers in your ears, shut your eyes real tight, stamp your feet, and yell "IS NOT IS NOT" over and over again. Sorry, but the floods and storms will still come, the fires will still rage, your crops will still wither and die, the plants and animals will still go extinct, the climate refugees will still cross your borders, and the monuments you build to yourself will crumble to dust.
7
I can’t believe we are actually allowing the most ignorant and spiteful man on the planet to lead us down this path.
18
@Coop
And I still can't believe that he's in the White House.
7
Don’t get mad...get even!
3
It's baffling to me that I'm about to quote FOX, and it's also a scientific segment. Here's something to read before you decide to move or even visit the State of Florida: Florida's toxic algae crisis: Brain toxins produced by blue-green algae concern researchers - Story | FOX 13 Tampa Bay
http://www.fox13news.com/news/fox-13-investigates/florida-s-toxic-algae-crisis-brain-toxins-produced-by-blue-green-algae-concern-researchers
@merchantofchaos This is really scary. I'm surprised they let a story like this get on a Fox channel.
American corporations are commuting suicide, because they will make a profit.
2
Trump and his allies should know that their memories will be despised by future generations who will suffer because of this campaign. Truly evil.
8
@Doug Hill What's really evil is they don't care.
"Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science"
It is not a surprise that Trump administration is on the attack with regard to climate science and scientists. With once-in-hundred years floods and highly powerful hurricanes everywhere, hitting US small cities at unprecedented frequencies, climate change is bond to become a major issue in the 2020 election. And given Mr. Trump's past records and actions taken while in the office, climate change can become his Achilles' heel (and to be confused with his bones spurs).
Across the world, young professionals (24 - 38 old) have become extremely worried about climate change and what it means for their futures. In the US youth votes can make a difference in localities won by a narrow margin by Mr. Trump in 2016. So, attacking climate science and scientists by Mr. Trump's 2020 election campaign planners should be viewed as part of "viewer conditioning" or "setting the stage" for how Mr. Trump can handle questions on climate change in upcoming debates between him and his Democrat presidential rival in 2020.
5
The spectacular rise of American ignorance has no parallel in world history. The United States poses an existential risk to the planet, a risk that must be confronted by the civilized nations of the World firmly and decisively. It will not be easy for Trump and his coterie of racist ignoramuses are merely the tip of a gigantic iceberg of ignorance and bigotry, over 60 million strong, who elected them to office in 2016, and will re-elect them in 2020.
18
This is a fight for the future.
If the Trump re-election effort is close, like Pelosi says, he will will smear it and discredit it. Trump is what our founding fathers feared the most, a tyrant.
We must continue to fight for the right to see his taxes and bank records. Obvious there is damning material in there and the effort he is putting in to stop ways and means from getting them proves that.
9
For any younger readers out there- if your parents or grandparents voted for Trump, please go to them and thank them for leaving you dying planet.
8
Don't think Ohio, Arkansas and Oklahoma are sharing denials on Climate from WH. U.S. Military will be spending billions to shore up sea level increases that threaten bases. Trump looks the other way handing out toilet paper with smiles to the casualties. He'll be gone soon enough and leaving GOP, Corporations with walls of money, morally bankrupt and nowhere to hide.
7
The climate change fanatics have become their own worst enemy by blaming every hurricane, wildfire or springtime flood on it, and with their " silly alarmist predictions about the future" (great quote). It is an eternal frustration that we can't all just agree that the less carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere the better, and work towards that goal without all the histrionics.
1
@David Godinez
A straw man argument wrapped in scientific inaccuracy is the playbook for climate science deniers.
My feeling is that people who defend the use of fossil fuels should do an experiment in which they go into a closed area and turn on a fossil-fuel engine.
Then breathe deeply the hundreds of volatile poisons emitted by the tailpipe.
This will tell you how healthy it is to rely on fossil fuels and defend their use.
1
52 tornadoes in eight states just yesterday! Not proof of climate change but definitely worth getting very upset about.
How frightening! Maybe Trump and his Cabinet should hold meetings in some of these climate-ravaged areas. But, then, he'd probably say it's "fake atmosphere."
5
As a result of Trump's policies many Americans will die. Who will keep him accountable? Why is his base so blind that they are willing to risk the health of their children and grand children? It boggles the mind!
7
So basically, Trump is trying to buy his reelection by allowing environmental deregulation to be a short-term stimulus for the US economy. And typical of all Trump "deals", it will be someone else (i.e. us) paying for it in the long run.
5
Young people, you best get out and vote these people out - and not just the President. Turn the Senate. Vote State and Local. Get out and use the power of your numbers.
Older generations may not have been kind to you. They may have left a mess for you to clean up. But if you and your cohort do not show up at the polls and turn the tide, you may find yourselves the victims of the climate deniers and their political installations, long after they are gone.
I am Gen X. There are not enough of us turn things around alone. We need to work together.
It matters. Vote.
16
Insanity, greed, and ignorance are the coin of the realm in the Trump administration. How in the wide world did we come to this frightening place? If we do not get rid of Donald Trump in 2020 American democracy is done.
10
This current attempt to restrict research bears some resemblance to past Republican attempts to muzzle scientific inquiry concerning gun control. Hence this smells of a variation on the 1996 Dickey amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment .
4
We still have the IPCC report, and previous reports - so the attempts to cover up the impact is not going to change the facts or the availability of the projections.
3
I am traveling in France right now, and I am astounded by the differences in energy policy between this country and the US. First of all, there is no coal or natural gas produced in this country- and, although they do have nuclear power plants, they hope to phase them out while pursuing alternative wind and solar energy options. Every home that is listed for sale is given an energy rating that reveals how energy efficient it is. These strategies are used not only in France, but all the other EU countries. Meanwhile, the US is frozen in a energy policy meant to discourage scientists from pursuing any meaningful energy or climate change solutions. I'm not sure how much longer Trump plans to keep his head buried in the sand, but I hope his pathetic standing on climate change becomes his Achilles heel in his pursuit of re-election. Our country and the world cannot abide 4 more years of his misguided policies.
13
No facts matter when they get in the way of what DJT wants to do.
It is obvious that his only policy is the dismantling of everything President Obama completed or achieved.
At every turn he proposes the exact opposite of the Obama achievement wherever he can.
Since he cannot create and pass any of his own work his only plan is undue things that are actually working:
- Iran nuclear deal
- ACA
- Climate regulations
- Trade agreements
- Basic civility
- Morality
- Free and open elections ( remember “Don’t boo, vote!!)
Thankfully soon after the 2020 election we can start to undo the damage inflicted by DJT but it will take some time.
10
I fundamentally do not understand the GOP's reason for not believing in climate change. It seems to me a fundamental miscalculation on the part of the wealthy (because, be honest, its not about the working class at all).
I were the wealthy, I would want to become the leader in the next-gen energy sources and gather massive control on those industries for financial gain, and have the government help/pay lip service to these.
In this scenario one of two things happens: 1) climate change is real but I now control the new-age energy sources, or 2) climate change isn't real and I control both old and new energy. (hint: its answer 1).
It seems to me to be a fundamental miscalculation on the part of the GOP to not see the potential long con that they could pull here. That is the parties specialty. Perhaps they should look at climate in this way.
8
@Matt S your cynicism is spot-on, but you overestimate the long-term thinking of the GOP. Most of them are a bunch of old white guys supported by other old white guys in traditional fossil fuel industries. They don't care about the fate of their children or grandchildren and are only concerned about maximizing wealth in their lifetime...basically 20 years. Even if they actually care about their spoiled heirs, they figure that money will insulate them from world crumbling around them. And as for the energy industry, I suspect that, aside from deep pockets, fossil fuel companies have no transferable skills that would make them leaders in emerging energy industries, so their only play is to drill and stall as long as they can hold back reality.
4
@Matt S
The GOP has never really been about free markets, much less a strong economy. Their loyalties are always to their donors - period.
The GOP bases it's entire strategy on willful ignorance on purpose. They are on the wrong side of EVERY policy issue (be it climate, abortion, guns, god, LGBTQ rights, etc), and they cynically use that ignorance as a tool for getting campaign money and votes. The formula works.
Don't expect logic (apart from applying it for political gain) to be a driving force with this group. The sorting that has taken place over the 25 years since Gingrich has made the GOP the party of unabashed willful ignorance and is entirely now composed of voters that are not critically thinking people.
The divide is now officially about those that care about facts, logic, reason, education, and intelligence, and those that have contempt for these things.
4
If the previous use of inaccurate far fetched modeling is true, why not doubt its forecasting predictions ? At the the very least the subject deserves more discussion without the left (in its usual fashion) demonizing and dismissing those who propose it. Furthermore, to say that the left has not politicized climate change is comical given that this very article does exactly that. The subject of climate change study is worthy of discussion by more reasonable people on both sides of the issue.
4
@JAC
There is absolutely nothing left to discuss unless you belong to the anti-science denier group, which you clearly do. And nobody has politicized the science more than your lot, but your projection is duly noted.
5
@JAC There is no both sides of the issue. Climate change is real and humans are driving it. It's settled.
8
@JAC Please let me know when you find reasonable people to discuss the subject on the right.
7
With three weeks until summer, temps approaching 100 in the South are setting records with a palpable impact on the quality of life. Despite the irrefutable connection between global warming and our current climate, "deniers" like Trump still enjoy strong support among Southern voters. The disconnect is breathtaking. It is the issue that troubles me the most, since my three young grandchildren will suffer the full impact of our gross negligence and our political choices.
17
.....perceived as a White House attack on science? It is an attack on science, and truth. Ms. Pelosi: Could we please take back the keys to the asylum now?
8
Democrats should announce to the small minority of corporate shareholders behind this policy that they will not stop at undoing these changes at the first available opportunity, instead hardening pre-Trump policies to offset current damage and punish malicious lobbying.
3
What again are the knock-on effects of this alleged climate change? Are we just talking about assaults on the status quo followed by a new order? If so, how does that new order look? Man has been responding to climate change since the beginning. For example, the "Little Ice Age of the 15-1600s" apparently brought about positive social change, i.e., the breakdown of the feudal order and the growth of the middle class. What about the parts of the world which are now relatively uninhabitable and unpopulated. Do they gain appeal(e.g., Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia, etc; Maybe with climate change, the Finger Lakes will be able to produce a decent, affordable red wine)? So, instead of lamenting the effect on the status quo, let's also consider how that new order would look. Maybe on balance, we'd be better off. 'Just sayin'.
2
People are doing that. It’s looking to be a very challenging future which will make life a very hard experience for all. Do your research.
This is the problem in a world where the rich believe they can buy anything. Somehow the ultra-capitalists believe that they will be walled off from environmental troubles, in gated communities were everything can be solved with cash.
15
The Empire of Delusion project is what our species has embarked on.
We believe we can infinitely increase our consumption, pollution, bulldozing, burning, mining, hunting, fishing, animal enslavement, paving and population growth in a finite biosphere.
Science says otherwise, and any 5th grader understands the rock solid fact called the "greenhouse effect," in which C02 creates warming in the atmosphere.
All of us who are rational and fact-based know humans are pouring megatons of C02 and hundreds of poisons into air, land, water and ourselves.
Trump and those who support him don't really care that humans are a mass extinction event, ruining the entire biosphere.
They have cognitive problems, but more than that, they have moral failure.
15
You would think that with a global emergency declared by them, twelve years or the planet is bust, you would have all these amazing climate scientists who can see so well in the future be everywhere in town halls.
Answering questions like what makes them so sure that humans cause and control the climate, and what are the expected concrete results of given policies. And how and based on what they reached those conclusions.
Mobilizing the whole economy of the world on a war like footing is a huge thing.
If we were to be hit by an asteroid, astronomers would be around answering questions everywhere. That's what scientists do in an emergency.
Instead, it's crickets.
Decades since last time climatologists took questions from the public.
If ever.
@otroad There have always been climate scientists taking questions from the public. What are you even talking about?
4
This mind-set is nothing short of narcissism and self-interest at it’s finest. Question: When the Trump administration is sued post-rollback of Obama regulations, what happens in the interim while the courts decide how to rule? Will the coal industry be able function under the new lack of regulation or do they have to continue to function under current regulations?
4
Perhaps, we are missing the benefit to Trump and his ilk of the effect that climate change will have, principally, on the poor and racial minorities. I believe that Trump does believe that climate change is real and that humans are one of the principal causes, but, the denial and antithetic approaches that he takes fit his and the Republican party's need for the support of the fossil fuel industry. Further, it fulfills a "racist" desire to suppress those who will not be able to afford to deal with the forthcoming changes to our environment. Conspiracy theorist-like thoughts, but, perhaps, reality.
9
If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, they better shout this from the rooftops EVERY DAY to get the young adults out to vote because this one issue will affect them the most.
Moving backwards on climate change is absolutely devastating for their generation.
16
Despite everything that's happened over the last two years the gravity of this one issue totally disqualifies the Republicans and their disposable human weapon Trump from any consideration at the ballot box.
16
Politicians in their 70's are in control in Washington and their lead "climate" scientist is 79. They are all a bunch of dinosaurs and will all be dead in 15 years or less. What do they care about what will happen after 2040? Why do so many conservatives prefer mindless platitudes over scientific evidence? Though I fervently wish their climate change denials were true, we all know that pretending the problem doesn't exist will not make it disappear. If this keeps up Republicans are literally going to destroy life on earth.
15
I was always taught that science was about questioning beliefs and testing hypotheses, and that no idea is ever “settled.” Why shouldn’t we use science to test the global warming “consensus?”
3
@Greg In science there are degrees of confidence in a theory. The more data agrees with a theory, the more confidence there is the theory is correct. The scientific basis for ruling out a theory is reliable data that contradicts it, full stop. This article is about ignoring some theory predictions not based on the data, but (apparently) on economics and convenience of the petroleum industry and political considerations. You can argue whether that's good economics or good politics, but don't call it science.
3
Because we are testing that consensus every day, and gaining more data in support of global warming being a problem and not the reverse. No amount of data will convince people who, for political reasons, have their heads in the sand about this. Over and over again for the past 30 years they have said what you are saying now, while the data pours in and they ignore it.
2
@Greg We are using science to test it. Stop pretending that we're not.
1
If Mar-at-lago floods due to rising seas Trump would take this seriously. This is the nature of the current president. He cares nought for the future of the world unless he is personally impacted.
13
Forget the moralizing. I would think that by now the conservative captains of industry would have figured out the most cogent reason for embracing climate change and green technology: Someone is going to make a boatload of money!
But nooooo. We would rather be great again.
9
After hearing about 52 tornados overnight, I wonder if anyone in Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and the many other states affected has had their eyes opened to the reality of climate change.
How about all that flooding that's occurring in places previously thought to be immune to flooding? Has anyone become convinced that our climate is changing?
What are you going to do about it?
Nothing will change in government policies until the people currently denying that our climate is changing are replaced by people who acknowledge that our climate is changing.
I hope it's not already too late.
18
@S Butler The hard part is to prove with the historic record that such tornadoes are unprecedented.
In what is called tornado alley.
1
@otroad
No one believes that this outbreak is normal.
There is a historical record of past tornado outbreaks. That record documents 52 tornados in one overnight period as abnormal.
Will you continue to deny this reality?
1
"most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously."
An that, of course, is very, very sensible prudence, given the
extreme divergence of different models. It like saying that the current hurricane prediction for this summer is likely very inaccurate past June 15.
I've served on several Atmospheric Sciences PhD finals panels over the last few decades, all involving computer simulations. All sounded like reasonable tries, and the candidate passed. But there were obvious holes in the
models, or the model simply assumed a key result from another simulation. They fit the past, but none have in retrospect predicted the then-future quantitatively. In particular, they did not predict the then future of the Antarctic
ozone hole.
Attacks on such prudent policies as I quoted above by people like the present writer make everything else they say not only suspect as politics, but also as real science-quoters.
1
It would help advance the arguments that we must change our behavior if those with high public profiles promoting climate change solutions would lead by example. Give up the private jets and chauffeur driven limousines.
5
Only two groups of Americans are pushing this anti-climate change garbage: Those who know climate change is real but are making big money off of it; those who Trump tells it's a hoax and don't have the educational or intellectual wherewithal to ferret out the truth.
Even the Chinese government is suddenly on board and taking action on climate change and for a reason that should sober everybody.
The Chinese military issued a white paper in 2010 warning that climate change will lead to political and economic instability at home and internationally. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has warned of the security consequences of climate change-abetted droughts and floods both in China and in neighboring countries.
The CCP knows that when it is unable to provide food and clean water to its rapidly expanding middle class, the state itself will be put into jeopardy.
We out here in the Midwest know that massive flooding combined with Trump's idiotic trade war is going to have a major effect on food prices and availability for years to come.
And thanks to greed and ignorance, the horror show is just getting started.
26
@James J The Chinese are still building a new big coal power plant every week.
@otroad
Yep. It's true that the Chinese burn more coal than the rest of the world combined.
But it has also created the world’s largest carbon market, pumped approximately twice as much money into renewables as the US, and has surpassed the US in terms of both the number of electric vehicles on the road and the number of publicly available charging stations. It has also committed to peaking its emissions before 2030 and is mulling the eventual banning nonelectric cars.
So, as opposed to Trump and his base, the Chinese are now acknowledging the problem and are taking steps to rectify no matter how halting are those steps.
1
We will know that climate change or global warming is real when all of the Hollywood celebrities and coastal elites start selling their ocean front properties. If they really believed, we would see a record number of people moving inland. You would also see these elitist embracing natural gas and nuclear power, the cleanest and safest form of energy that is already plentiful. No, the climate alarmist are only interested in forming a large political constituency to overthrow the big oil companies. The science is non conclusive and flawed. Build and improve on what you have. Don’t waste trillions on an inconclusive hoax. And please, don’t be a litter bug!
@Sven Gall, while your comments were rather humorous, they lack substance. I am not sure of which camp of climate change deniers you belong, but it is quite clear you have done little research on the effects of human contributions to climate change. Be sure to save what you wrote for your grandchildren - and what limited number of generations we may have remaining. They will understand then how little regard you had for the survival of humanity.
6
What does this have to do with the science? Your basis of reality is when actors move off the coast. So after we have flooding and most life is extinct you may believe. Doubt you will even then. I’m sure you’ll find some other Hollywood elitist justification to say it’s all a lie and the water didn’t rise and CO2 doesn’t exist.
2
For every chemical action there is a reaction.
1
When is it time to say enough is enough?
Mr. Trump is accelerating the destruction of our life supporting environment. Almost every day we hear about a new problem caused by our planet warming.
This is short term thinking carried to the limit!
People... are we going to stand by and watch unregulated capitalism destroy our living planet?
33
What I cannot understand is how fossil fuel barons and their GOP minions, many of whom presumably have children and grandchildren are so blinded by their greed and quest for power. They are willing to take the chance that those loved ones will face a Mad Max world before the end of the century. Their own scientists have informed them of the impending disaster.
20
why listen to scientists when you can listen to accountants? why be concerned about those grandkids - let them pull themselves up by their own diaper straps and figure out how to cope in their time as we do in ours. they'll come up with something great, take care of the whole thing, and make a bundle of money on it like chips off the old blockheads. now shut up about this climate malarkey. I have to get to work where there's money to be made before the party ends - for example, by settimg up money laundering schemes for Russian petroligarchs and potenates of oil soaked Middle Eastern kingdoms, and even Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
What is the point of one ego-inflated schoolyard bully making the world uninhabitable for billions of people in the almost immediate as well as the foreseeable future? There's no excuse for this except quick profit for Emperor Donald it's as fossil-fuel buddies. But over whom will he be Emperor if we are all sick or dying from global overheating, disease and other issues caused by ignoring genuine science and green issues?
10
The Republican Party has inflicted more harm to the country and to the world than any other twenty-first century organization. The damage is not only immediate, it's generational. It is not only national, it's global. It cannot be undone. It is gratuitous.
18
Let him run on this in 2020 and it might help to get him defeated.
6
It is apparent to me that Trump and his abettors are only interested in making money. They don’t care about the future because they know they won’t be around to see it. They don’t care about the futures of their own children,grandchildren,because they are narcissistic and only understand what is in it for them, right now. Although in Trump’s case it is also ignorance, with some of the others, they know better,but don’t care. How sad that we have these people making decisions that will impact generations to come.
9
As if voters needed more reasons to vote this unfit, know-nothing out of office. The same poison propaganda that convinced rural citizens to vote against their own interests--while favoring the donor class--now attempts to dupe them into believing that the planet is not really at risk. Up in down. Wrong is right. Science is nonsense. Rubbish is fact.
Neither the SDNY nor history will be kind to the Baby King.
10
Captain Trump orders full CO2 ahead and heads S.S. Earth directly toward the climate iceberg thinking the ship, and himself, unsinkable. Like the Titanic, there may be lifeboats only for few of the passengers, most whom will find themselves trapped on a sinking planet.
6
The bitter irony of it is that the global warming deniers will, once the effects of their obstruction and obfuscation become even more keenly felt, will then move into a position of being global warming denier deniers -- that is, they will try to camouflage their efforts in causing the disaster that afflicts the human race.
Much like how, in years after the Trump regime, almost nobody will admit to having voted Trump into power, once the disaster he inflicted on the country (and the world) is fully tallied.
Denial, hypocrisy, and self-delusion is at the heart of right-wing ideology. Or, as one of their luminaries has said, "when reality doesn't fit the theory, throw out reality."
Humanity has lost the luxury of wallowing in its own ignorance. This hasn't been realized by the Americans who supported Trump and the GOP. Ignoring the science and the facts doesn't eliminate the reality.
9
Changing the time length for the projections is not only short sighted, it is incredibly stupid. We have 30,000+ gun deaths a year in the U.S., year in and year out. It's like saying if we go a week without any gun deaths, that's proof that there is no longer a problem, when we know our insane gun laws have not changed.
The projections of impending disasters from climate change just to the end of the century are already short term. We know from the geologic record that these events in normal geologic cycles can melt the ice caps and sea level can be 100' higher. The initial IPCC projections were originally on the conservative side, 2-3' of sea level rise by 2100. There are several variables in the model leading to this: warming from an unprecedented increase of CO2 emissions--add to this methane (CH4) from fracking and burning of forests for palm oil; and from this increased evaporation, water vapor also being a GHG; to ice sheets melting (ice reflects heat into space, or more warming) to tundra melting producing more methane; all cumulative events towards more warming. We now know that the warming can raise ocean temp. to melt ice sheets on the periphery of Antarctica faster, and also with the Greenland ice sheet melting, this will probably raise sea level (6-10') faster than first expected.
We know that Mercer, Icahn, and especially Trump are evil in this. While publicizing the villains, also teach us the science, such as temp to vol of ice melt to sea level rise.
6
Attention, young voters.
13
Once again, since the 2016 election, the world will turn to western Europe, where voters care about the environment, for leadership.
Please reject Trump and the Flat Earth Party in 2020.
11
On a fundamental level, this is incipient 1984 "Newspeak". It's an assault on our language.
In 1984 our perception of things is altered by he removal of words for them - there is no such a thing as "bad"; something is "ungood". With Trump, "truth isn't truth", it's now hedged by "alternative facts". A "lie" no longer means anything - it's accepted and carries no consequences. Trump's intrusion into our language seems for him instinctual. It's frightening the number of people who are seeing things his way.
Eliminating phrases such as "global warming" or "climate change" from official documents will make discussion of this topic difficult, if not impossible. At a minimum, any narrative will be stilted and stifled.
Inevitably, no sensible discussion of the topic of climate can be had without a discussion of global warming. What Trump is insuring is that scientific discussions coming from governmental agencies will be useless at best, and policies based on them will ultimately be destructive, all the while justified by his narrative.
He is bad on so many levels.
12
This latest outrage from the profoundly anti-science Trump Administration has tipped the scales for me. I was willing to wait until 2020 to vote the Trumpists out. The impeachment process should begin.
17
@James Repace I want Mueller to testify as much in an open Congressional session as he can, then testify and respond to questions in a closed session as long as may be required -- following that, there should be multiple investigation tracks to pursue, and when those are complete it will be time to begin the formal impeachment process.
Fortunately, knowledge is not a scarce commodity. While Trump makes a mockery of American science, scientists from other nations can fill the gap. The real damage is the rollback of emissions' regulations. That can't be fixed. Defeat him in 2020.
18
The very fact that the Trump administration intend to limit the
the forecasts of computer-generated climate models to 2040, and to disregard worst-case modelling scenarios, suggests that someone amongst them knows the science, knows its conclusions to be compelling, and knows how to weaken the relationship between the data and the conclusions.
This administration isn't anti-science; it is merely corrupt.
12
... because what better way to have an infrastructure plan than to ignore landslides, extreme weather, floods in coastal areas, and water supplies drying out in places like Arizona.
Also, keep destabilizing the healthcare marketplace so that children with asthma - thanks to an increase in pollution in both water and air - can't afford the medicine needed to keep them from ending up in the emergency room due to a life-threatening event that could have been prevented.
Yes, you Republicans for Trump sure don't mind spending money like it's water on an infrastructure that denies reality; and you alao sure don't mind increasing the infant mortality rate when it comes to real human beings.
7
Pentagon leaders consider climate change to be the most serious threat to world peace and stability. They imagine a time in the not too distant future -- 2040 -- when prolonged droughts will result in severe food and water shortages, triggering mass migrations to places that have these life necessities. Riots and wars, general chaos will likely ensue.
This is Utopia to one person: Vladimir Putin. A profoundly unsettled world is the Russian playground. There's already political turmoil here and in the European Union. This will seem trivial if the worst effects of climate change come to pass. This is why I believe that Putin is behind Trump's hard line stance to end Obama's climate change initiatives. He has ordered his toady to, in effect, hasten the day when the world descends into a horrifying pre-apocalypse. Democracies will collapse; autocrats will rule.
We can stand another year and a half of this and still survive relatively intact, I believe. But not another five and a half? I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that next year's presidential election is the most important in the history of humankind.
12
The response of Trump and the super-rich oil tycoons is not cynical - they expect to survive while the rest of us die. There won't be equal distribution of global warming effects - not geographically, and not amongst economic classes. Nations near the equator will collapse first. As the crisis moves northward, the global poor will starve, then the middle class, then the rich. Whole economies will implode, though the richest of the rich will have money and technology enough to protect themselves and their families. They'll watch the world burn while standing behind glass paid for by the very industries that caused the crisis in the first place.
4
Why not extend the same logic to NASA and tell them that they must limit their observations to all objects within 10,000 ly, since the universe cannot be older than that according to the bible. Tell NASA that the organization's discoveries cannot be trusted and the brilliant scientists at the "Discovery Institute" will now take up the mantel of scientific inquiry and interpretation.
1
I have a little grand daughter whom I truly adore... When I think climate change and the future, I consider the probable impact of a run away climate on my little friend. This sickens me. I say that if there is more than a virtually nominal possibility that the extreme projections of the scientific community are right, it is appropriate, and required, that our government do what it reasonably can to protect future generations. Isn't this what government are supposed to do? Isn't this protective umbrella the very basis of their legitimacy to rule? The total disregard of the probable adverse consequences of our current life style materially breaches the deal between the government and the governed. In fact, if I weren't a mature, moderate person, I'd even say that we should "Throw the Bums out!" because they so badly miscalculate the existential risk involved.
3
The U.S. government is presently lost, so we have to turn our attention to local and state governments as well as the corporations that are externalizing their costs on all of us, but especially the poor and communities of color. These bodies can still be influenced by the power of people, successful examples abound and are growing every day. Everything outlined in this article scares me, but also motivates me to take collective action with people who also care.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/business/dealbook/pnc-joins-banks-not-financing-mountaintop-coal-removal.html
4
The Trump admin. is slow dancing the nation into the gas chamber, whispering sweet nothings into his base's ears as we go, and when we least expect it, the door shuts and locks.
We can't seem to be rid of him. So far our institutions have failed us as the monumental damage mounts.
Of course there is the 2020 battlecry! Yes!
'Trump can't win! [fill in the blank] will win!'
Sound familiar?
That all assumes, of course, that the 2020 cycle comes off clean, or he accepts the result, or it even happens in the first place.
At the outset I stated that the nation can endure this man for two years. He must be gone by then. Didn't happen, and he is accelerating the damage, not slowing down in spite of the DemCong.
If anything they provide a useful foil for him, a bogey-man to throw more hatred and fear at his base. It would be one thing if they had been effective at checking his power, but so far they've shown poor results.
4
PS:
Almost without question Trump plans to have consolidated his total power by 11/2020.
Hang on, kids! 'We ain't seen nothin' yet!'♫
It saddens me that science is such a dirty word to this hapless Administration and its followers. We had only 8 days this month without rain which is similar to last spring/summer. I've lived in my house 29 years and have never had standing water survive till the following year! As inconvenient as this is, it pales by comparison to the increase in deadly tornadoes in the midwest and hurricanes that render entire islands leveled. Don't they understand that such destruction hits our pocketbooks and Treasury? The wanton disregard for scientific data is astonishing and irresponsible. I shudder to think what a second Trump term will do to our ability to survive it. He isn't going to learn anything and likely cannot retain what little knowledge he's acquired through the years. This country used to pride itself on being the leader of the free world. There is hardly a metric - other than defense spending - in which we lead the world. If the dumbing down of this country only impacted the ones who deny science and technology and pride themselves on their ignorance, I could grudgingly accept that. However, it impacts all of us in one way or the other. Both houses of Congress need to step to the plate and exercise their Constitutional mandate to exert some control over this feckless Administration to protect this country before it's trashed irreparably.
5
The Trump administration is demonstrating pure unabashed short sighted willful stupidity in denying global warming. Of all the many many dangerous actions, divisive and hurtful rhetoric, and thoughtless and cruel Trump displays, this is the crowning feather in the dunce cap of the dunce in chief, who will leave behind a brutal legacy and diminished world. This is a nightmare.
19
Well he is acting more like a more recent traditional Republican here. Short term gain with no sense of responsibility for the future ...... Regan deregulations, Bush's wars, Trump's incompetence and focus on Dow.... long line of poor planners.....
12
Another blatantly naked appeal to his base, some of whom feel that science is for eggheads, and others who feel that it runs contrary to their interpretation of the Bible.
9
tipping point - the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.
we have reached a tipping point in this country...... there are enough ignorant people that support trump to take the rest of us down with them.
8
Each and everyday, I am revolted by the grotesqueness of this president. Like an empty hole, he spews lies and horror. To imagine that this group and so greedy, that despite the hundreds of millions and billions lining their personal pockets, they will continue to shovel lies onto the public to get more, should offend any thinking human. THIS MUST STOP. I do not share individual one's death wish. I do not embrace children dying in cages. I am not impressed by the 'power and money', all of which is being used to project his mental illness onto others. Where is his wife? Where is his family? Is there not one rational person in his orbit? We pay for the whole brood to travel and dine and live in luxury while factories close and Roundup and methane and filthy rivers make people sick. WHEN WILL THIS COUNTRY WAKE UP? WHAT WILL IT TAKE?
12
@lulu roche
You captured my sentiments exactly. And then I read the polar opposite comments from someone like DecliningSociety in Baltimore who believe that "lefties" are just spewing "doom and gloom." They believe that concern about climate change is only going to damage "industry." But I would ask them, what gain is there in expressing concern about climate change? What would motivate someone to advocate for measures to combat climate change (if it is not real)? What possible benefit could be derived from advancing what you see as a hoax? It is illogical to think that scientists and most of the civilized world would be perpetrating a sham by sounding the alarm about our planet's future. On the contrary, climate change deniers have everything to gain (in the short term) by maintaining their untenable beliefs.
1
I guess the lefties think if you put the word "science" into some claim it makes such claim valid. The lefty doom and gloom fear assertion of "global warming" became "climate change" and now "climate science" when all the warming predictions proved to be meaningless and plain wrong. The "climate denier" lefty attack point is yet another issue where the lefties prove they are totalitarians in my book. The way I see it, the lefties believe they have god-like omniscience in observing and predicting planetary environmental phenomenon. Of course, they predict that the planet will be destroyed (in just a few more years) unless we give them political power over US industry. Another sad fear mongering and totalitarian effort to control, tax, manipulate the citizen.
1
Science is a rather reliable means of determining facts about reality. It lacks a good narrative and it says nothing about good or evil nor even about the meaning of life. It offers no assurances of truth beyond what has become known by science thus far. Anyone who follows sound science is free to confirm or disprove any of it by the use of science. Where it becomes controversial is when it disappoints. Global warming if accepted alters all of the priorities of human activity.
1
@DecliningSociety
I believe you're wrong. The science exists independently of political viewpoint. I wasn't aware that "all the predictions proved to be meaningless and plain wrong." Are you sure this is true? Please cite a source. I can give you a good source that contradicts your claim, and please pay close attention to the sidebar "Scientific Consensus" because the people who know the most disagree with you: https://climate.nasa.gov/
1
Bah!
Humbug!
What has the future ever done for me?
6
Power v. Truth
In reality: Corruption v. Truth
6
The lefties view the "science" of climate change like they view the "science" of socialism.
So what if the practice and predictions never work out, just give them political control over industry and consumption and they will provide you with a canned "study" to show you that it works.
1
The infinite growth paradigm per industrial capitalism is incompatible with a finite planet.
7
The Trump administration is just like the Soviet Union -- deny, lie, obstruct, shut down the truth tellers and insert the liars and hacks who toe the party line.
The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl is a prime example -- first try to cover it up, then lie that it never happened, then lie that it wasn't a core meltdown, then lie about the effects of radiation killing people, animals, plants, trees, etc. Then lie some more and then don't allow the scientists to tell the truth of what happened in order to prevent it from happening again.
Lying about the effects of climate change and it's long term effects on humanity is like knowing there is a cancerous tumor in the body and refusing to talk about it, treat it etc. and just pretend it's not there and ultimately won't kill the person. It's all insanity brought to us by the insane Trump and his cult of know-nothing, see nothing, do nothing hacks.
7
Looks like 1984 has finally arrived...
6
Hey Ohio and all the mid-west under water, you ain't seen nothing yet. Keep voting for the GOP and dinosaurs and we will join them, the dinosaurs that is.
9
The self-serving and ignorant behavior of this administration in relation to climate change is beyond appalling! It will one day be seen for what it really is: a crime against all humanity.
10
Trump and company need to be removed from our White House. The next election can't come soon enough.
9
Remember, the very same folks who deny the reality of human impact on climate preach that one must take Jesus as one's savoir because what happens after death is forever. That is how they calculate their bets.
4
In many ways we humans are a stupid bunch of animals. In addition to being the most invasive species on earth, we cannot be bothered with the welfare of future generations. Even those who accept the science of climate change are mostly unwilling to make any sacrifices in our own lives such as paying more for energy and using fewer resources. Look at all the huge vehicles that many of us drive and the inefficient houses we live in. Most of us are not even willing to use reusable shopping bags to minimize the use of plastic and paper. My family does many things in our own lives to protect the environment but sill not enough.
6
This is very bad news for learning and developing and finding ways to improve our systems. Being a skeptic is no replacement for science. These behaviors are clearly politically motivated and nothing more. I hope voters come to their senses and I hope Democrats learn some lessons and create a platform that more people can get behind but I wouldn't bet on it.
9
@Robert Allen "Being a skeptic is no replacement for science."
Indeed.
Being skeptic IS modern science.
1
Skeptical of reasoned conclusions from confirmed facts requires better facts. This behavior is just ignoring what is reasonable in favor of what is desired.
1
@otroad You are skeptical that humans have been directly responsible for the extraction and combustion of geologically-sequestered fossil fuel resources that has added hundreds of gigatonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere during the past few millennia (particularly the las centuries)?
Who do you consider as the responsible parties...gremlins, leprechauns, the Devil's tooth fairy, or invisible aliens from Venus (or somewhere equally hellish) here to remake our fair planet to their liking?
No, it's just been us human beings, intent on surviving in the short-run and prospering in the longer-run without much thought to the really long-term effects of our self-centered actions and choices.
Didn't the Pentagon say that climate change was one of the biggest threats to our national security? What does Trump say about that?
33
@susan Trump knows more than the Generals. We know that's true because Trump told us so.
9
The “green revolution” that made Paul Ehrlich wrong in 1968 to predict worldwide famine in the 1980s was not a bunch of wonderful ingenious ways to get more from our fields. It was the purchase of additional food through use of oil-based chemicals which cause more warming. It also contributed to global warning via population explosion and by causing desertification and soil degradation.
Buckminster Fuller’s projection of the transition from scarce oil to plentiful solar, wind and tidal renewable non-polluting energy never happened because fossil fuels never got scarce. Now, as we steal rather than borrow from the future, the transition will be more expensive to accomplish.
Consumption must go down and conservation must increase. The present trajectory will reduce consumption by mass starvation and increase conservation by broad economic collapse, which, in turn, will accelerate mass starvation and disease. It will not come soon enough to avoid warming by 3 Degrees C. The sea will rise by 10 feet no matter what is done.
The solutions will succeed when there are 5 billion fewer people. If we are lucky, there will not be that many fewer species. We could apologize to our grandchildren, but the greed and lack of long-term perspective will be in their nature as much as ours. Invest in contraception and enjoy your GPS and WhatsApp.
4
I have no reason to doubt that human caused climate change is occurring. But please, listen to any right wing talk radio show, and you will hear numerous "facts" that they present to refute it. We have to have an ongoing, public debate with these people in which we can at least begin to agree on a few facts.
If the scientists can't get the deniers into the same room, we must publicize and refute their arguments. Repeatedly. Until they respond and then continue.
To say that this is settled science and we should not respond is foolish. By not responding we reinforce their positions.
Make US great again: vote Democratic!
13
They have been refuted in scientific journals not in deep red state politics. You might as well talk to a wall. It’s the red state way or the highway.
1
It is settled science. A “debate” is exactly what the obfuscators want you to think we need, in order to buy more time for them to enjoy their profits.
3
A country ruled by fear is a domed place. The deep state IS Trump with a spineless and utterly immoral GOP. For the planet to survive we might not have time to wait for elections.
7
The complete rejection of facts is the hallmark of this debate.
1. Consensus is not fact.
2. Models, especially those that have been demonstrable incorrect, are not predictions.
3. China, India, developing nations and societies will overwhelm any small gains the developed world enacts.
4. Climate fanatics don't know, don't care or don't want to think.
5. It's largely one more democrat money laundering and contribution scheme for each political hack to gull a part of the feckless public. Al Gore leaps to mind.
Is that politically incorrect enough for a Tuesday?
2
Consensus, in this case, is based on repeated observations, which have accumulated. A “fact” can be debated on its philosophical grounds ad nauseum.
Models have been largely wrong for under-predicting the gravity of the situation (pace of change, loss of Arctic ice, effects of methane, loss of aerosol protective effect).
Developing countries certainly have the right to “develop” and improve their livelihoods; but can they make the transition in a clean way, or should we simply throw in the towel?
Climate fanatics? Who really has a greater influence on our politics: so-called fanatics, or deniers?
Finally: do you really think there’s a profit motive among people who call for a scale-down of fossil fuels, or do you think there’s a profit motive to continue the use of fossil fuels? Who’s really gaining here?
Happy to correct your politically incorrect (mainly truth-challenged) points this Tuesday.
3
Delusion is a scary, and mysterious, thing, @Dr. Mysterious.
2
And we should wait to impeach because...?
The fate of the planet is at stake. It's time to put political games aside and do what we know is right.
7
Economics remains directing majority of electricity producers to abandon coal in favor of natural gas, wind and solar.
On the global level, however, with India refusing to abandon any coal usage and its building more coal fired generation facilities and China exporting to African nations coal fired generation facilities, whatever Trump-Pence do is mute, their stupidity is far less negative than that of India and China.
Further to domestic USA - despite the comments and polling finding more than 70% of Americans are concerned about climate change, there remains very scant evidence that Americans are doing much at the personal level. Few have solar panels, few drive hybrids- in fact SUVs and trucks (thirsty vehicles) sales continue to rise, few have replaced old windows with low-E glazed, few demand apartment owners go-green.
Ranting about Trump-Pence is a displacement activity. We should all examine our own efforts. (Writer is 'off-grid' by way of solar panels, drives hybrid, enjoys a small carbon footprint.)
Business deniers DO believe in climate change [it].
They DON't believe:
1- anyone can stop it
2 - it will affect them anymore than abject poverty does now
They also DO believe they will make money in the next catastrophe as in the last.
2
We are all disgusted when we see pictures of homes left without care, overwhelmed with neglect and indifference despite being tenanted: the "Collyer's Mansions"if you will of the disturbed. If you like "Grey Gardens" then you'll love the environmental cost that is about to be debited to Planet Earth.
3
Catastrophic fires, unprecedented flooding and, just this week, huge tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Ohio--ho hum, our President says climate change is not real so we can just sit back and watch the disasters get worse and worse. Why worry? Trump has spoken and his faithful believe in him. This is what happens when the minority are able to elect a President despite the good sense of the majority.
12
It's time to rethink the way the legislative and executive branches work. Two men -- trump and mcconnell -- now hold all real power. This is unconscionable. Two despicable men determine the fate of the nation. Our dysfunctional government is the proof. We no longer have the luxury of time. Change or die. Nature will have the last word.
14
We are just another species on this planet.
Species come and go over time.
There is nothing special about us except perhaps our arrogance.
If there was something special it was the faint possibility we could extend our presence in the universe for some time.
That possibility is dwindling rapidly due to that arrogance.
5
In other news, states that went for Trump like Oklahoma and Ohio are already dealing with massive pre-summer flooding and tornadoes. Science doesn't care what you want to believe.
13
Predictions made in 1970 by scientists, professors, politicians and media.
Civilization will end in 30 years
200 million people will starve to death.
In the 1980’s people living in cities are going to have wear gas masks to survive air pollution.
Air pollution will stop the sun from reaching earth and the planet will be dark.
All fish will suffocate and die.
Life expectancy will be 42.
We run out of oil by 2000.
Average temperature will be down 11 degrees.
2
Sources for that information, please.
1
@N Williams, George Orwell's 1984 was right on the concepts but wrong on the specific date. I would suggest the same is true with your unnamed but quite correct scientists. Almost everything you are mentioning is happening but not as quickly. Perhaps the reason for the delay is that some regulations were in place and actually being followed.
1
“First they came for the climate accord, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a climate accord.
Then they came for the scientists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a scientist.
Then they came for unheralded migrants, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an unheralded migrant.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
3
It is frankly difficult to comprehend the thinking of the men who are making these decisions for Mr. Trump. He doesn’t make the decisions, merely follows their advice.
Not a single industrialized nation has begun to fulfill the Paris Accord’s commitments to reduce global temperatures by 2 degrees of warming. A likely increase in warming is now between 2.5 and 3 degrees by 2100. That is if we do nothing. If we follow Mr. Trump’s policies all the way to 2100, burning coal and gas and oil, global warming will certainly be higher.
It needs to be pointed out, again, that none of these men giving advice to the White House are climate scientists. Their thinking is guided solely by disregard of science and facts, and endless profits for the fossil fuel industry.
Every person on Earth will know the end results.
14
All this does is isolate the USA even further from other developed countries. In 2016, 195 countries signed the Paris Climate Change Accord--today there are still 194. China, Japan, India, are all focused on rapid changes to their systems to address the problem. The recent EU elections showed a dramatic increase in votes for the 'Green Parties' and climate change is considered a top priority. The policies of Trump and his cronies regarding this crisis will only put the US in a weak position, with loss of markets and expensive 'catch-up' options in the future.
6
There is no scientific controversy over whether humans are changing the climate. We are. There is political controversy. There is religious controversy. There is no scientific controversy. There is consensus.
What Trump is doing in promoting climate change denial, in promoting the use of fossil fuels, makes him the enemy of our species, not to mind most other complex life forms. Nothing else he does, for good or for evil, begins to rival this in importance.
15
"It reminds me of the Soviet Union," says Phillip B. Duffy, who served on the Nationa Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the most recent National Climate Assessment.
It reminds me of the HBO miniseries "Chernobyl." The opening lines could well describe the present -- and Trump's attack on climate science:
"What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies then we no longer recognize the truth at all."
13
I would not put too much stock in the predictions about global warming or climate change yet. Yes, they could be happening as they happened before over the past several millennia with ample proof of such occurrences, but the planet recovered on its own.
Here is a different way to look at the problem that reinforces the notion that this time whatever is happening is different and indeed man-made, and calls for preventive action. During the known history of the planet lasting thousands of years, and until recently, the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere held pretty much constant, and the waters were not polluted with trash, chemicals and sewage. All the while, Earth's population was much lower and those who were there did not burn fossil fuel and did not consume products near as much (per capita) requiring the discharge of pollutants of various sorts. Now that the population tripled or quadrupled in the last century, and nearly each individual is producing all that pollution, what do you think will happen to the natural balance of things in our environment? Factor in the fact that forests and other plants that were balancing the oxygen-carbon dioxide proportion are shrinking, and the lakes and seas do not seem to have a “self-cleaning” mechanism to start with. Where do you think we are headed? What do you think will happen to this balance? Do we really want to take this risk, especially since the negative impact of action on the economy is THE hoax?
1
@Morris G
So Morris G, what level of risk would convince you to take the risk seriously? Let's say you knew 1 in 20 commercial planes would crash. Would you get on one? Yes,? Ok, what about one in 10? So what if the risk of global catastrophe is 1 in 10? Is that low risk, or high risk? Would you cancel your house insurance if your risk of fire was 1 in 10? (after all, you could use that insurance premium for something else, right?). At this point, it is not rational to say the risk from human-caused warming is zero.
The real problem is that humans just can't wrap their heads around risk, which is why so many text and drive: "it won't happen to ME." Or, "I'll buy a gun. MINE won't be used for a suicide." Or, "I can smoke--I won't get lung cancer."
It's too bad the deniers can't imagine a better economy by leaving fossil fuels. The innovations and opportunities for new products and services will far outweigh staying the course.
1
Trump and his "scientists" sound like charter members of the Flat Earth Society. So, while the rest of the world is readying for the inevitable crisis' that will be coming in a few short years, the Trump administration continues to careen wildly towards certain disaster for America and by extension, the rest of world since we will nothing to constructively change the situation.
Only one hope that I have is that the 2020 election will put more rational minds back in place but the damage has already been done. The world is writing us off and we will have a hard sell to get back into any kind of leadership position. And it will take time to root out all the deniers in the EPA and elsewhere before we can change direction.
6
This article illuminates again the toxic nature of this president and the members of his senior staff. We already know that if something is beneficial they are against it. The puzzling part is why they latch on to ideology that when implemented furthers the degradation of quality of life for all of us. Although there are major differences between many of us and the recidivists around Donald Trump, they too must breathe clean air to survive. They are lying to themselves first and then the rest if us. Only they believe their own lies and we refuse to.
Those who remain in public service and maintain professional integrity deserve our gratitude, as do writers like the co authors of this piece.
3
In all my years of studies, I was never taught that I could argue with science.
7
Glad to see this on the front page. All media outlets need to report on climate change and expose those that attack the science for what they are, oil industry (and the like) hacks. It sickens me that so many are willing to ignore the consensus reached by climate scientists globally for personal enrichment. Do they care at all about the planet they’re leaving their children and grandchildren? It’s not like there’s a back-up Mother Earth waiting on the sideline. If you believe the science isn’t full proof, isn't it better to err on the side of caution rather than jeopardize the only planet we have.
6
My experience is that my acquaintances who have fallen prey to the right wing anti-science machine, DO believe that the climate is changing and DO believe that there are dangers and risks...they've just bought into the fall-back of "it is a cyclical thing".
I think it is becoming harder and harder for the average person to believe that the weather is not different from before.
All that said, I suppose if the brain washing machine can convince them that climate change is cyclical and that Donald Trump is all about family values, it's a short step to convince them that climate is changing, it is cyclical and it will have few impacts on humans (oh...that's right, they don't know that Homo sapiens are humans and humans are people).
1
At my age,76, I am impervious to Trump' brutalism affecting my own behavior. I had the notion of fair play and the golden rule pounded into me. I have veered from those tenets occasionally, but never without a voice in my head pulling me back to righteousness, like a sailboat on auto pilot. Younger generations, not so schooled with a moral compass are leading humanity straight into an abyss. They don't know what they don't know. Scary.
2
@scott hylands
It's quite ridiculous to suggest that all younger generations lack a moral compass.
There are plenty of craven 76-year-olds. It's just too bad they are attracted to political power.
The United States should be leading the way on Global Warming instead of ignoring it. The Democrats should be presenting the facts on the current and pending disasters that Global Warming presents.
The appalling approach to global warning by Trump and the climate deniers typifies the Trump approach to everything. All Trump seems to care about is that people praise him and how he looks. Mike Pompeo’s glib and extremely dangerous view on the Artic warming should result in him being fired.
7
Green Party voters in swing states: maybe rethink strategy?
1
Re "after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.
Let's tell it like it is. What Trump is really doing is fulfilling the demands of the energy magnates who back him big time financially. "Unraveling the policies of his predecessors" is just icing on the cake.
3
Animal agriculture accounts for a huge percentage of human causes of global warming. Check out the destruction of the rain forests all over the globe for grazing animals and production of animal feed.
Everything humans do is ruining the planet.
1
The good news is that the world is moving on.
The bad news is that the world is leaving US behind. Instead of being the leaders developing the new technologies, we will be purchasing them from China (if they let us). As our economy becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the total world economy, our belligerence becomes less of a problem.
52
@Ivan The US produces 25 percent of the world's CO2 pollution. Even if the US does falter economically as you predict, Trump's refusal to take steps to reduce that pollution will have a devastating effect on the entire planet by 2021 when the country's voters kick him out.
3
I’m not sure if this is widely known but the US Department of Energy began removing the research autonomy clauses from the contracts guiding the operations at the National Laboratories a few years ago. The absence of this clauses gave DOE the ability to veto publication of research results if they wanted to. Last fall DOE began exercising their ability to control publication of research that contradicted administration policies with a review process wherein researchers must seek approval of what result they will obtain and publish prior to starting the research. The DOE has even forced Labs that still have an academic independence clause in their contracts to yield under an implied threat that funding will be diverted away from them to National Labs that comply with the policy. Needless to say, researchers who want to keep their funding comply. As a result, the entire body of work produced by DOE is compromised, which is of course the entire point of the endeavor.
72
@Deep Throat GW Bush also suppressed research results that contradicted his preferred policies. This has been a GOP tactic for a long time. Maybe we should thank Donny for making all this reprehensible behavior public. It used to be done behind closed doors and few knew it was going on.
6
Congress can stop this censorship.
How long will it take before it really sinks in that our booming economy is already increasingly offset by the onslaught of natural disasters? How long before Trump realizes that Mar-a-Lago will be flooded, and the East River will be lapping at the threshold of Trump Tower? Perhaps more important - how long before Trump understands there's long green to be made in a Green Economy?
46
@KEF "our booming economy is already increasingly offset by the onslaught of natural disasters"
That's precisely the kind of thing which should be the subject of a nationwide debate. With an emphasis on the disasters being unprecedented.
6
@KEF Trump will be long dead before the worst effects of climate change hit us. That is precisely the problem with the American Business mentality and Trump, who is a product of that type of thinking. It is primarily focused on the next quarter results. It is a real stretch for him to consider what might happen next year or even 5 years out. Climate change is a decades long juggernaut that will remake the world in the next century. Trump doesn't care what we leave behind for a children, our grandchildren, or any of the rest of our descendants and anyone who thinks otherwise is being willfully ignorant.
3
@otroad
More nationwide debate? While our species is runaway school bus speeding and accelerating toward a looming cliff of existential disaster, a proposal to further discuss the pros and cons of using the brakes seems less bold than the situation calls for. Calls for further debate are a climate denier's tactic of distraction, not a path toward a solution.
1
As a scientist, I find this deplorable. Politicians and political appointees should not make decisions about which types of models or analyses to use. Making analysis choices designed to lead to certain outcomes undermines the entire scientific process. The results of such an analysis will not be considered valid by the scientific community. To those reading this article — please call or write your representatives and tell them to stand up for independent science.
105
Trump and his minions are in the process of ensuring they will have a prominent place in the history of the world. For as long as that might be.
13
@JS, it's likely their "history," if we survive that long, will be included among the world's biggest pariahs. But Facebook will see to it that the pariah segment is sanitized. (Oh, sorry - Facebook was yesterday's news; we're past all that now, aren't we?)
Sadly, Trump does not understand that the changing weather patterns are the results of ignoring what science has been telling us. He needs to get off the golf course and travel to Dayton, Ohio, and see first hand the damage three or more tornadoes caused Monday night. Thousands of people are without power, and so is the water pumping station. The water pressure is dropping rapidly and if the power is not restored quickly, thousands of people will not have water either. I don't expect Trump's base to learn science, but I do expect them to get wiser quickly.
19
@victor g The harder part is to show that there were no tornadoes before.
@otroad Yes! One tornado every few years if that much. Last night, there were three or more, The devastation is catastrophic. There is still no water or power in the area. Back to the stone age.
Everyone smart enough to have a high school diploma understands the dangers of global warming. Republican politicians, however, are more interested in the political support of the fossil fuel industry.
But what is Trump’s motivation to deny the truth? Is it erasing the Obama legacy or conspiring with Putin to help Russia with its main export? It is certainly not to improve the future lives of today’s children and those who will be struggling to cope with Global Sizzling in 80 years!
44
@TheLeftIsRight- You did not read your history. The last time the world was warmer it was positive for humans
As chaos president. the scenario of masses of climate change refugees hitting our borders fits well the program for the unlimited term presidency Trump has in mind.
Each crisis he creates, only he can save us from.
If the turmoil of displaced peoples, famine, and drought are inevitable, why not accelerate the pattern and take total advantage of the crises and assume complete control?
Then too, he can always say, "I told you so".
8
Then the GOP wonder why we are so polarized. I love this world that GOD gave us with fresh clean water and clean air. This GOP has been destroying it by deregulating all the safeguards the Dems put in to protect us. All the religious groups who support him must be fake to allow him to daily dismantle all the rules that were put in and keep turning their heads when he is daily allowed to destroy our air and water and not speak up. Very sad.
19
@D.j.j.k. Not only Dems but old-line GOPers like Nixon.
1
The actions of Trump and his enablers are truly crimes against humanity. The science is indisputable. Only a small outlier percentage of “scientists” who are funded by the fossil fuel industries disagree. We are rapidly destroying the habitability of the earth for humans and many, many other species. Short term, I would think that even Trump followers would be disturbed by moves of this administration to remove common sense regulations that keep their air and water freer of carcinogens and pollutants that kill.
As for any argument that we can’t “afford” to deal with climate change, we cannot afford NOT to deal with it, if you want any type of future for your kids and grandkids. I would implore Trump supporters to start reading primary studies not funded by the fossil fuel industries, e.g. the Koch Brothers. This is bigger than tribal loyalty to one’s party or candidate. This is your very future at stake.
31
@J. Unfortunately, Trump supporters don’t seem to be readers.
8
@T. Stone Or more-than-shallow thinkers, either.
We need to stop talking about Trump this and Trump that on every issue. There are bureaucrats at the highest levels making these decisions while Trump tweets cluelessly. They need to be dragged into the light.
23
@Jim Bob
True, Jim Bob, I agree 100%. (Which is rare for me to say.)
Trump is an authoritarian that should be taken out of office by every constitutional way possible. His administration should be indicted and prosecuted for governing without regards to the Constitution. The US Government Vs. Trump and Gang.
25
What can I say? Republican's and especially Trump are wildly anti-science from believing man and dinosaurs walked together to today's climate change.
Both Republicans and Trump are anti-intelligence or education. Their base (both) relies on frightened easily swayed ignorant people. I don't fault them but I do fault the institutions and people that set the system up.
They say get a Liberal Education; yes education makes one more liberal (or open to change). Conservationism is closed to change because either a) they like the way things are or b) are afraid of something they don't understand.
The only way out of our current political environment is education and hopefully some will learn the important ability to have a critical thought..... I can dream can't I?
Now just relax, for this too shall all pass: with a whimper........
4
My head explodes. Of all the damaging shameful corrupt practices of this administration and its enablers in Congress, this one hurts to ponder. I wrack my brains for an explanation - every other strain of graft and corruption has a profit motive, accumulation of wealth and/or power. This one requires its proponents to trade away the future health and safety of their own children and grandchildren for present wealth. Can people really be so craven? Or has GOP ignorance and disdain for science, which has brought anti-vaxxers to the highest level of the party, become so prevalent that the gaslighting, brainwashing, mob mentality cool factor of being unafraid of chemicals in drinking water, the food supply and air, and smirking in the face of clearly obvious consequences of rising temperatures and sea levels is a badge of honor for them?
25
I am okay with not putting money into climate change research. The science is settled. We know that CO2 warms the planet. Science has done their job. Lets put our money in getting ready for a warming planet.
8
@Jim If the science is settled (that would be a first in modern science) then the measures are settled too. We should not use any more public money or mandates.
Private investment is always welcome.
1
It's no secret that Trump's only agenda is to destroy the world, as some kind of perverted revenge against his mystical enemies. Clearly insane. And of course the Koch brothers and their network of billionaires don't mind at all. They are obsessed with spewing the idea that their wealth was created by hard work, not their inherited fortune. God has given them his blessing.
9