There is only one word to describe the Trump administration’s recent attempt to hide the climate change report that came out Friday: cowardice. The administration refuses to look at the scientific facts and would rather continue on in ignorance and stupidity as the Earth dies around us every day.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment was released Nov. 23, a whole month earlier than it was originally intended to be released. Not so coincidentally, that was also Black Friday, a day where few people are paying attention to the news.
Black Friday is a busy day full of shopping, eating leftovers and recovering from the holiday craziness. It is common knowledge that many people are not monitoring the news like they would on a normal day.
The Trump administration took advantage of this fact and released the report so that fewer Americans would read it and realize how perilous the climate change situation is. They are trying to hide the terrifying facts from us and keep on living in ignorant bliss.
The report concludes overall that the world’s temperature is rising and that this could largely be due to humans. It goes on to name the vast economic, health and environmental impacts of the rising temperatures.
All in all, within the next few decades, America will start feeling disastrous impacts from climate change in all aspects of society, as the report says. The entire report, if you choose to read it, is truly terrifying and a real call to action.
Bear in mind that the report is not simply speculation by unprofessional people. It was put together by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 climate scientists. The credibility of this science could not be more established.
What was Donald Trump’s response to this? He said, “I don’t believe it,” according to CNN. The man with no degree in any field of science whatsoever took plain facts, presented by 300 climate scientists, and simply does not believe them.
To cite some of President Trump’s other brilliant responses to climate change, we can turn to his Twitter account. Last Wednesday he tweeted, “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?”
If our president took the time to simply Google climate change impacts, he would know that extreme weather patterns not previously seen before are direct results of global warming. So, the fact that it was so cold this past Thanksgiving could be global warming, after all.
Other similar tweets by Trump show that he thinks global warming is immediately cancelled out when it gets cold, which is not at all how global warming works. Clearly, our president does not know the difference between weather and climate.
As I learned in middle school, weather operates on a day-to-day basis and climate is over time. Therefore, climate change is something seen gradually, not on one cold day. If Trump looked at the zoomed-out picture, he would see that every year it is getting warmer and warmer.
Why would he do that, though? Why not instead just take every piece of hard, scientific fact and completely deny it on the basis of trying to meddle with the economy? He once tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
News flash: this report shows that on its current trajectory, climate change would cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage from rising waters, health crises and much more. It is actually in the economy’s best interest if Trump would acknowledge our dying planet and decide to do something about it.
Not only was the government unethical in strategically releasing the report on Black Friday to minimize the amount of people who saw it, but Trump denies that any of the information it portrays is correct. Both of these transgressions are what make America the laughing stock of the world.
As the American people, we must go read the report they tried to hide from us and demand action. It is not even about the future generations anymore. We are going to be affected within the next 30 years. It is about the present and saving the earth now.
