Tag Archives: National Climate Assessment

As long as we’re talking about what we ‘believe’ . . .

Donald John Trump says he has read “some” of the much-discussed National Climate Assessment, says it is “fine,” but then adds quickly that he doesn’t “believe it.”

What doesn’t he believe? He doesn’t believe the projection from the government-ordered analysis of the impact of climate change on our economy. The Assessment projects a 10 percent decline in our Gross Domestic Product if we fail or refuse to do anything about climate change.

This report comes from the government. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Connect the dots here. OK?

So, as long as we’re talking about what we “believe,” I happen to believe that Donald Trump shouldn’t be president of the United States. What’s more, I want to suggest that more people share my belief in his unfitness for public office than share Donald Trump’s belief as it regards the National Climate Assessment.

Trump buries report that disagrees with climate-change screed

Donald John Trump won’t admit this, but he doesn’t know anything about science. For that matter, neither do I. Thus, I am left to heed the analyses given by actual scientists, people trained to study things that go far above my level of understanding.

Climate change, for example.

The federal government itself has issued a report that says the hazards presented by Earth’s changing climate are going to accelerate. The National Climate Assessment is done by living, breathing experts on this stuff.

What’s the president’s response? He doesn’t believe them. He has buried the report because it disagrees with his own “belief” that climate change is a hoax. He’s said so repeatedly. He stands by his view about climate change. It’s made up. Fabricated. A product of “fake news.”

He tweets idiotic messages that take note of a cold spell and asks, “Where’s global warming?” As CNN’s Chris Cillizza has declaredA warming planet doesn’t mean there won’t be cold days. Or even cold weeks! Or months! It means that, in the long seep of history, the planet is getting hotter and hotter. And that those changes in the climate produce more wild and unpredictable weather events, like tornadoes and fires.

Scientific agencies such as, oh, NASA, take note of the evidence they have witnessed over time: ice caps are shrinking, sea levels are rising, Earth’s annual mean temperatures are increasing.

Humankind is burning too many fossil fuels that are spewing carbon gases into the air; we human beings are encroaching on natural habitat, level vast expanses of forest, taking down trees that replace carbon dioxide with oxygen.

The president doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He continues to repeat the lie that climate change is a hoax, that it’s not actually happening.

His own National Climate Assessment says the exact opposite.

Who do you believe, a politician/serial liar or the experts who study these matters intensely? I’m all in with the experts.