The Trump administration largely ignored a new government-produced study detailing the current "substantial damages" and near-term escalation of those costs, though Trump himself took the time to nonsensically dismiss it based on his own say-so. Over the weekend, it partnered with two of the world's worst actors to further de-emphasize scientific warnings of catastrophic warming paired with catastrophic effects on humankind.
As is appropriate for anything touched by the ever-pouting Individual 1, it is largely the outburst of a tantruming child.
“The United States was willing to note the report and express appreciation to the scientists who developed it, but not to welcome it, as that would denote endorsement of the report,” a State Department spokesman said.
“As we have made clear in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other bodies, the United States has not endorsed the findings of the report.”Take that, collected scientific evidence gathered from every corner of the globe; we don't welcome you. Also, it's really insensitive of you to be coming to all these carefully proven conclusions during fundraising season, and here in oil country it's always fundraising season.
That the current Republican administration would choose to partner with Russia, led by a kleptocrat who owes his rule the skimmings of his nation's oil industry, and Saudi Arabia, a monarchy that owes its own existence and relevance to the stuff they can drill out of the ground, is conspicuous. But it is not surprising. Trump is, first and foremost, a crook; his climate stance and the stance of his team of arch-conservatives is based entirely on appeasing a fossil fuel industry that is willing to spend extravagantly in order to gain a government that will defend their own interests, and planet be damned.
Trump likely believes he will be dead before the consequences of those acts become apparent to the wider public. Given his diet and evident decay, that may be the case.
But given that the consequences are being felt now, in California megafires and strengthening Eastern storms, it is not a bet that too many on his staff should be so willing to take. The evidence is becoming overwhelming; the effects of even slightly warmer temperatures are being felt not in textbooks, but on the nightly news. The public will, at some point, come face to face with the consequences of unchecked fossil fuel consumption in the form of a single, unprecedented disaster striking a region or city long thought to be immune from such destruction, and when that day comes I wonder if the current sneering anti-science shills will have enough of a head start to outrun the angry crowds.
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