On Black Friday, while Americans were busy shopping and eating Thanksgiving leftovers, President Donald Trump’s administration was up to something else.
The administration released the National Climate Assessment, a report on climate change.
Worked on by over 300 climate change specialists and 13 different federal agencies, the report was meant to be released this month.
The information in the report concluded that the Earth’s temperature is rapidly increasing at an alarming rate.
It also stated that human actions, such as the accumulation of factory waste, was the cause of the rise in temperature. The report went onto say that climate change has the potential to drastically affect the U.S. economy.
It’s believed that the administration moved the release date up to ensure that it would not recieve public attention.
Contrary to the administration’s theory, reporters and citizens alike latched on to the report in disbelief with what it said.
Within minutes of the report’s release, most news channels went from reporting on Black Friday deals to criticizing Trump for it’s early release.
Talk about the report was fueled once again on the following Monday when Trump was asked about the report. He responded by saying that he doesn’t believe in climate change, and for that reason, he hadn’t bothered to read most of the report.
White House spokespeople went on to say that the evidence in the report wasn’t completely factual, as it depended on models and data used and collected during the Obama administration.
Trump’s remarks aren’t
surprising, and they only support the belief that he and his administration meant to cover up the report because they
disagreed with its content.
Time and time again, Trump has shown his stance as a climate-change denier. A list compiled by Vox in June 2017 noted that he had posted over 115 tweets doubting the validity of climate change, just between Nov. 2011 and Oct. 2015.
On Nov. 21, just 2 days before the release of the National Climate Assessment, Trump tweeted to his nearly 57 million followers, “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?”
On Dec. 28 2017, he tweeted, “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that out country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”
But as a President, Trump has taken his skeptic beliefs from Twitter to the real world.
In 2017, he announced his plan to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.
Trump defended this plan by saying that he “represents Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
Despite this statement, nearly 80% of Americans believe that climate change is real and needs to be limited, including Republicans and Trump’s own daughter, Ivanka.
The Paris Agreement, which was signed on April 22, 2016 by 195 foreign leaders, is an agreement between nations to attempt to lower greenhouse gas levels and work on decreasing the effects of climate change.
Trump’s declaration to withdraw is only symbolic for now, as none of the nations involved in the agreement can withdraw until Nov. 2020.
Still, Trump’s actions have encouraged other nations to consider withdrawing, such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, the Trump administration has already taken actions that could accelerate climate change.
Just two weeks ago, the EPA announced that restrictions on the greenhouse gas emissions of coal companies would be loosened up.
Clearly, Trump doesn’t care much for the environment, and his policy is starting to move awareness of climate change backwards. the greenhouse gas emissions of coal companies would be loosened up.