Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHere's The National Climate Assessment Shitstain Didn't Want You To Even Hear About
In a move environmentalists and journalists denounced as a blatant effort to bury facts that conflict with the president's denialism and pro-fossil fuel agenda, the Trump administration used the Friday after Thanksgiving to quietly release Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), which warned Earth's climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization and concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for planet-threatening warming.
The decision to release this damning report when families are beginning to celebrate the holidays and newsrooms are short-staffed is a brazen attempt to bury the truth from the public that we must act now to move off fossil fuels and stabilize the climate, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.
Releasing this report when no one is looking, tweeting his annual nonsense about global warming and cold weather, and announcing that he'll use the upcoming U.N. climate meetings as a fossil fuel tradeshow, Trump is doubling down on his climate denial for the holidaysas many families are still reeling from unnatural climate disasters across the country, Hauter continued. The science is way past in on climate change
We must prepare for our climate future in spite of Trump.
From deadly wildfires to catastrophic hurricanes and other extreme weather events, the impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future, notes the congressionally mandated reportthe first of its kind released since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.
EDIT
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/11/23/dire-national-climate-assessment-trump-white-house-bury
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,779 posts)The administration decided that a release on Black Friday would bury this report to a majority of Americans. It was a deliberate and studied release date, since the original date was sometime in December.
Help get the word out.
Thanks hatrack.
Squinch
(51,014 posts)CousinIT
(9,257 posts)Martin Eden
(12,875 posts)But a single headline won't have much effect.
The importance of this issue has to be sustained, or public opinion won't be moved.
hatrack
(59,592 posts).
CousinIT
(9,257 posts)That's good news.
But it should be on ALL front pages and headline news EVERYWHERE - ALL the time such that any politician that ignores the problem cannot even get on the ballot.
This is an imminent and grave threat to HUMANITY itself and it's treated like a side story.
Incredibly stupid on the part of the McGreedia - I guess climate change isn't a "sexy" or "scandalous" enough headline. Pfft.
PaulX2
(2,032 posts)Its not Trumps fault most Americans dont want to change.
Pay for sequestration 100% at the pump is the only answer.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)And Americans would easily change if it was the law.
PaulX2
(2,032 posts)That comes out of your tailpipe?
I know many would, but many wouldn't.
We are passing our overheated planet off to our children with all the heavy weather, and fires.
Gotta do something immediately.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)PaulX2
(2,032 posts)Figure what the cost would be to sequester the carbon released when the fossil fuel (purchased) is burned. By planting trees or with something like
http://carbonengineering.com/
where they take carbon out of the air and turn it into fuel.
Pay the true cost for the fossil fuel use, instead of passing on the "externalities" like climate change caused by carbon to our heirs.
Only fair sensible way to address the REAL PROBLEM.
NNadir
(33,556 posts)...of no real value, and will prove as useful as all the money spent on solar and wind, which is to say, not at all.
Thinking that trees can save the day at this point is to minimize the scale of the engineering project involved. It sounds good, but it won't work.
NickB79
(19,271 posts)Our carbon emissions are so high, we don't even have enough land to plant enough trees to compensate: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bob-mcdonald-1.4132679
We can only stop this catastrophe by cutting carbon emissions at the source. Stop driving gas guzzlers, have fewer children, eat less meat, take fewer airplane trips, live in smaller houses, and kill the consumer culture our planet has embraced. More shit doesn't make you happier.
NickB79
(19,271 posts)I wasn't stupid enough to buy a fucking pickup truck when I needed a new vehicle, and I made sure to buy a house only 10 minutes from work when we were house hunting.
If I made the rules, there would be a permanent price floor of $4/gal on gasoline. If it retails for only $3/gal, an automatic tax would be applied to bring it up to $4/gal, and the revenue would be used to pay for public transit, carbon sequestration, EV infrastructure construction (charging stations nationwide), etc.
Next question.
justgamma
(3,667 posts)I'm amazed they didn't bury it.
SeattleVet
(5,479 posts)but they did it at 4:00 on Black Friday, when most would not see it and they hoped it would get lost in other news over the weekend. It's one of the all-time great 'Friday News Dumps'.
They also managed to make it somewhat difficult to get the whole thing...each chapter and section is a separate file - there's no single .pdf of the entire document that I could find.
I downloaded all 36 files and have been making my way through them, and what they have put out is actually quite terrifying.
(On edit: found a link to the entire report on a site that's usually not mentioned in the articles: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_FullReport.pdf )
Edit again - forget it! That was another report from last year!
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Shame on you. Bad people just want to blame Trump for everything.
FakeNoose
(32,767 posts)Thanks Hatrack for the great post! Even though this is awful news, we need to share it far and wide.
Martin Eden
(12,875 posts)I'd like to see the front page headline in Saturday's Tribune (US climate report warns of extreme harm, Nov 24) followed up with regular features on how human activities are causing catastrophic climate change and what can be done to change course in limiting the devastation which is already costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. This issue is far too important to be just another passing headline which is forgotten after the next sensational news story.
Facts on the ground, the overwhelming consensus of scientists, and this government report identify a threat to the American people and our economy which would be wildly irresponsible to ignore. The deniers argue that even if the scientists are right we simply can't afford to make the changes necessary to sufficiently reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. On the contrary, we can't afford not to. The economic damage already evident and projected to be much worse in the decades to come are a clarion call for the kind of American ingenuity and can-do attitude I remember growing up in the 1960's as we set a national goal and succeeded in putting a man on the moon.
There is great potential for economic opportunities in expanding on sustainable energy technologies which already exist, and in developing new solutions. This requires an informed and involved public with a common purpose and responsible leadership in our government. The free press, which is still essential to our republic, has a vital role in this. Our children and grandchildren will be impacted by what we do or don't do next.