By JOSHUA MITTWOL
Donald Trump doesn’t believe in Global Warming.
For some, this is just yesterday’s news, but to many this is alarming and says a lot about what his views on the environment, observers say.
“I’m not a big believer in global warming,” Trump told Politico. He has called it “a total hoax” and “pseudoscience,” according to a Politico article.
But many proponents beg to differ. They believe that climate change is actually one of the greatest threats on the planet.
“Global warming is a destructive result of the ruthless machine that is capitalism,” says Michael Casson, 22, a student at Ramapo College of New Jersey. “The ice caps are melting, sea level is rising and slowly but surely we are destroying our planet and if we don’t start to take our emissions into serious consideration our planet won’t last forever.”
Trump alleges that global warming was really “created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” according to his tweet back in 2012.
But the fact of the matter is 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists have looked at the data and facts, and agree that the planet is 100 percent affected by global warming.
While an estimated 97 percent of climatic scientists agree that climate change is real and man-made, and affecting communities in every square inch of this country, too many elected officials are denying the science of climate change.
And along with their “polluter allies,” it’s said they are blocking the process to fight against climate change. See which one of our elected officials are deniers here.
The Science of a Warming Planet
While many view the effects of climate change to be very important and happening more rapidly, the scientific general agreement on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has increased between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years.
According to studies from NASA, nine out of 10 of the warmest years have already occurred since 2000, which factored out to a 1.7 percent increase in global temperature. The carbon dioxide levels have been at it’s highest in 650,000 years, an increase of 404.2 parts per million. The arctic ice minimum has decreased 13.3 percent since 2012.
Greenland’s ground ice losses 281 Gigatonnes annually, where rates doubled between 1996 and 2005. And the global average sea levels have increased 7″ (178mm) within the past 100 years, an increase of 3.4 millimeters annually.
According to Live Science, scientists who have conducted global warming research have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. This means big changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due melting polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.
During a policy speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on October 22, Trump addressed his contract to the American voter stating that he will “cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure” within his first 100 days in office.
Trump’s focus is on what is beneficial to the United States rather than solving some of the world’s major problems: famine; water erosion from melting ice caps; a hole in the o-zone layer and the list goes on and on.
Instead, he claims the U.S. has bigger problems facing ISIS, Russia and Iran. Building a wall on the border of the US and Mexico that is roughly 2,000 miles long also seems to be one of his major focal points when first stepping into office.
Still, Trump is looking for a way to protect one of his golf courses from “global warming and its effects.” He is applying for permission to put up a seawall at coastal protection works to prevent erosion at his seaside golf resort, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in Country Clare, according to Politico’s article back in May.
READ: Poll: Most oppose Trump’s wall, split on who is best on immigration
“This fight is not between the rich and the poor, nor between the developed countries and the developing countries this is a fight between people who are willing to act on climate and those who refuse to act, those who are willing to speak out and those who choose to stay silent,” says Thilmeeza Hussain, 38, former Deputy Permanent Representative to the Permanent Mission of Maldives to the UN, HR & Climate activist, co-founder of “Voice of Women, ” and a world sustainability professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, said to WECAN (Women’s Earth Climate Action Network). “For if, we choose later, we won’t be leaving our children with a planet that is livable.”
As an example, The Maldives, a luxurious vacation spot for the upper class, is in danger of the island submerging due to the sea levels rising – water erosion due to the melting polar ice caps. The Maldivian people have refused to back down to the sea of water, yet they continue to show the world that survival is the only way to get by on the island. Survival is their only course of action, and a healthier approach to climate change is the only consequence.
“When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and man-made, and is affecting the most vulnerable communities around the world, and we have someone who does not believe in climate change running for the highest office of the most powerful country in the world, it is scary and it is mind boggling, because the truth about climate change is that it is killing people, and it is only getting worse, when we “don’t act on climate,”what we are doing is criminal,” Hussain said. “Let us stand together, and let us act on climate.”
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