November 10, 2016

Climate according to Trump

editor:	Murat Suner

During his campaign, Donald Trump pitched his vision for an American future – one in which fossil fuel production explodes across public lands and Americans. The intended end result: lower taxes, fewer energy regulations and a rush of new funding for infrastructure projects.

Apparently he will stick to that. According to the Scientific American, Trump has selected one of the best-known so-called climate skeptics. Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute is spearheading Trump’s transition plans for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In fact, you can't be really skeptical about climate change – it's happening –, you can just deny it or lie about the man-made rise in temperature and its consequences.

Who is Ebell?

The Scientific American provides a record: Greenpeace featured him in the “Field Guide to Climate Criminals,” Rolling Stone called him a “misleader” on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming. Also, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.” Wow.

Also, he told Vanity Fair in 2007, “There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”

And Trump? He has called global warming literally bullshit.

While the international community is working at COP22 in Marrakesh on the implementation of the goals from Paris Climate Summit 2015 (COP21), he has said he would “cancel” the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama’s executive actions on climate change.

Nearly 400 top scientists warned in an open letter against Trump's pullout at Responsiblescientists.org.

Also United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) warned that emissions reductions must be ramped up before 2020 or the world will miss its chance to keep global warming below 1.5°C, the all important figure to avoid the worst ravages on our environment.