President Trump’s action of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement is no surprise because his campaign promised such an action.
He asserted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He appointed Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Pruitt claimed recently that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”
These assertions of Trump and Pruitt have been clearly contradicted by scientific evidence, as recognized by every major organization of scientists. The American Association for the Advancement of Science stated that “based on well established evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening.”
The most eminent scientists of the U.S. and the U.K. are members of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, respectively. These groups’ joint publication states that “climate change is the defining issue of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate.” The American Geophysical Union asserted that “Human-induced climate change requires urgent action.”
This consensus among scientists led almost 200 countries to agree in Paris to reduce fossil fuel emissions. We must alert our fellow citizens about future problems (global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification and severe weather) resulting from the U.S. abandoning its commitment to the fight against climate change.
Milton W. Cole,
State College
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