Climate scientists with the National Academy of Sciences are gravely concerned over the continued failure of many political leaders to act quickly on the climate accord. But U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s specific threat to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement if elected president is cause for alarm.
The open letter to the public is unusual in that scientists are stepping into the political arena for possibly the first time in this country’s history. The letter warns that climate change denialism is a very real threat to this country.
With the Earth just going through its warmest August in 136 years, the unprecedented letter warns: “…that the problem of human-caused climate change is real, serious, and immediate, and that this problem poses significant risks: to our ability to thrive and build a better future, to national security, to human health and food production, and to the interconnected web of living systems.”
We all know that climate change is real and it is man-made, something we have caused, and now it has become a part of our daily lives. But the Guardian points out that for the Republican Party, climate change denial is all part of their platform to get elected.
And that is sad in so many ways. The GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln, the president who initiated the National Academy of Sciences. It is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, the president who created our National Park system. It is also the party of Richard Nixon, the president who created the Environmental Protection Agency.
If Donald Trump is elected president, it will be a slap-in-the-face, not only to great Republican presidents who cared about our natural wonders, science and environment but to the American people. But the saddest thing of all is that the party of “fiscal conservatism” is leading us into a morass of higher economic and social costs that will affect all of us.
We don’t really know what the future will bring. Will California’s epic drought continue, leaving the state in economic ruins, will the North Pole become ice-free? How many more months of extreme heat will we have to endure? The biggest question on many people’s minds is: will we be able to adapt?
With politicians like Trump telling the public climate change is a hoax or assuring us we are “just going through a warm spell,” we have to see beyond the campaign rhetoric and realize this kind of talk is dangerous. The letter describes the inane Republican platform and the foolish position of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
What does Trump want to do? Basically, he wants to scrap all our environmental agreements, get rid of the EPA, take us out of the Paris Climate Agreements, open up this country to wholesale drilling for oil and coal mining, oh, and we might mention relaxing food safety standards.
The letter says it best: The political system also has tipping points. Thus it is of great concern that the Republican nominee for President has advocated U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord. A “Parexit” would send a clear signal to the rest of the world that the “United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change. You are on your own.”
To read the letter “An Open Letter Regarding Climate Change From Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences” go HERE.
