Columns

In a September 14 speech, Joe Biden blasted Trump for "his disdain for science and facts.” "If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze?" Of course Biden was referring to the wildfires raging in California, Oregon, and Washington. 

During a morning roundtable in California on the same day, Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources, said to Trump,  

“We want to work with you to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forest, and actually work together with that science,” “If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.”  

“It’ll start getting cooler,” Trump replied. “You just watch.” 

“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot said. 

“Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump replied. 

Trump’s denial of climate change is in keeping with his past disparagement of climate change science. He has called climate change “a total hoax,” “bullshit” and “pseudoscience.” In a tweet, Trump argued that global warming is just a concept "created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” 

Yet, back in 2009, Trump and his three adult children joined some 50 business leaders in signing a full-page advertisement in The New York Times calling for “meaningful and effective measures to combat climate change.” “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”  

And in 2014, Trump sent a $5,000 check to Protect Our Winters, an Olympic snowboarder's climate change advocacy group, after a Celebrity Apprentice contestant requested his support.  

And in 2016, the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland applied for a permit to build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from “global warming and its effects.”  

Is Trump lying or ignorant or using climate change denial as an excuse to do little or nothing about it? Probably all of the preceding. Remember that what Trump does or says is based on what will best serve his personal or political needs at that particular time; it’s his “all-about-me" personality. 

Let’s be clear, there is a scientific consensus that the climate crisis is real and is largely caused by man. This is not a theory; it is a fact. In other words, more than 97% of scientists working in the disciplines contributing to studies of our climate, accept that climate change is “extremely likely due to human activities." Climate change is no longer about science; it is now a political, economic, social debate. In other words, what do we do about the crisis now? Otherwise we will have to adjust the effects of climate change such as raging forest fires, rising sea levels, thawing permafrost and extreme weather. 

Nothing will be done about climate change if Trump is reelected. The election is less than two months away.