Climate Change and the Election

If there is a single issue that a rational person could choose to make a decision on voting for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump I would argue that it is climate change.  Trump has labeled theories of climate change as ‘bullshit’ and ‘a hoax’.  He has vowed to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement, to rescind the Climate Action Plan, to save the coal industry and to eviscerate the EPA.

Climate is a complex phenomenon.  A complete understanding of its trends and future will elude us for the foreseeable future.  But are we really willing to take the chance that climate change is not real?  Every major scientific organization in the U.S. has endorsed the theory of climate change and the influence of human factors on it.  Here are just a few of them:

• ·         National Academy of Sciences - "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
• ·         American Association for the Advancement of Science - "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society."
• ·         American Chemical Society - "Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem."
• ·         American Geophysical Union - "Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes."
• ·         American Medical Association - "Our AMA ... supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant." 
• ·         American Meteorological Society - "It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide."

Climate science skeptics will argue that satellite data does not support the warming trend that earth scientists record very clearly (Ted Cruz has promoted this specific critique).  Never mind the fact that there is ample evidence that satellite data is seriously flawed. They will also say that climate change is not ‘settled science’.  In this modern age of social media where every opinion and every set of ‘facts’ is propagated endlessly the ‘truth’ can be hard to discern.   However, it takes a very stubborn skepticism to argue against ALL of the major scientific communities.

And even if one is skeptical, can it possibly be a prudent position to completely reject the risk of climate change and its possible consequences?  Only a fool would be adamantly opposed to careful consideration of this issue – to roll the dice and simply hope that climate change isn’t true or that its impact won’t be catastrophic.

It is somewhat understandable that conservatives fear the potential economic impacts of large scale emission control programs.  No one wants our fragile world economy to be unnecessarily hampered by new regulations or imposed restrictions on energy and commerce.  But what about the economic impact of climate change itself?  If recent events are any indication of what we are in store for in the future, then the costs of wildfires, droughts, floods, storms, famine and a myriad of other potential consequences of climate change – not to mention the political fallout of refugees and global conflict -  will make the control of emissions look like the best economic bargain in history.

Delaying a serious and considered handling of the climate change issue for 4 or 8 more years is perhaps the single biggest blunder our nation could make.  The U.S. needs to demonstrate global leadership on this issue and is perhaps the only nation qualified to do so.  It is clear that this will not happen with Trump.  This is reason enough to completely reject his candidacy.