A week after the Trump administration tried to bury its own report revealing the that climate change could cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars and harm Americans across the country, editorial boards nationwide are still calling out Trump’s ignorance and inaction on this looming threat. See below:
NEW— Palm Beach Post: “By rejecting the reality of climate change, the president is putting all of America – all the world, really – in unnecessary danger. The same goes for other leading Republicans who maintain that taking steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions – with, say, a carbon tax – will harm our economy (Read: fossil-fuel industries). If that’s our government’s unshakable position, we’re in trouble.”
NEW — Yakima Herald: “Here, according to a scientific consensus, is the gist about what awaits our state should climate change continue unabated: fires in the forest, spread of disease, droughts in parched fields, floods on the coast, salmon die-offs, closed ski resorts, smoky summer (and fall) skies. Think the drought year of 2015. Every. Single. Year. Yes, it’s that severe.”
NEW — Philadelphia Inquirer: “But President Trump announced this week that he just doesn’t believe his own administration’s report. That’s as practical as not believing in gravity.”
NEW — Charleston Gazette-Mail: “The country can already see the effects of a warming climate caused by industrialization. Record precipitation means ravaging floods. Tropical storms growing in number and strength continue to pummel the coastal areas while wildfires the likes of which have never been seen devour swaths of land in the West. These things are costing Americans their homes and their lives in the present. It’s already here, and it’s only going to get worse the more government and industry officials refuse to take action.”
NEW — Asbury Park Press: “Trump’s combination of power and ignorance is a genuine danger to the planet. So when federal agencies under his own administration conclude the negative effects of climate change are here and increasing, Trump will be loath to admit any of it. Hence, the Black Friday news dump.”
NEW — Tampa Bay Times: “States and some communities are taking action because there’s no leadership on this issue in Washington, D.C., or Florida. The Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Coalition is one of many bringing together scores of local governments to find ways to cope with climate change. But that’s an uphill battle when President Donald Trump dismisses the findings of his own administration’s report, and when Florida’s outgoing governor, Rick Scott, questions whether climate change exists.”
Miami Herald: “As the state’s newly elected governor, DeSantis shouldn’t remain silent for long. On Friday, less than a month after his narrow victory over Andrew Gillum, 13 U.S. government agencies released an unsettling major scientific report that warns of grim economic consequences if nothing is done to curb global warming — a report President Trump is downplaying.”
Chicago Tribune: “Yet the report argues persuasively that Trump would get burned by his own thinking in the long run: The economy will decline if temperatures continue to rise.”
San Francisco Chronicle: “The Trump administration’s war on reality has entered a new phase of absolute and simultaneous self-contradiction. Having issued an extensive report on the depredations of climate change, the White House pretended it didn’t exist.”
Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “States like California can continue to confront the issue, but without new leaders — or a new attitude — in the Senate and White House, working with other nations to confront climate change won’t be a priority.”
Portland Press Herald: “Maine’s climate challenge will be living with the consequences of the world’s slow response to the well-founded warnings that have been signaled for decades.”
The Aurora Sentinel: “The vast majority of Americans and Colorado residents understand the looming danger climate change imposes on all of us. More than a million Colorado residents now live in areas threatened by wildfires created or worsened by climate change. The livelihoods of millions of rural Colorado residents who make their living in agriculture are at risk as drought and severe weather threaten cattle and farming operations alike.”
Times Union: “The problem is that decision-makers like Mr. Trump and many Republicans in Congress have long denied the reality of human-influenced climate change, and have refused to work to shift the country to more sustainable energy sources or participate in international efforts.”
New York Times: “The president shrugged it off — ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said Monday — as he has all previous studies on climate change, even as his administration pursues policies that will in all likelihood make the problem worse.”
Washington Post: “The report was released the day after Thanksgiving — when many people were distracted — probably because it contradicts practically everything President Trump has said and done on global warming.”
Akron Beacon Journal: “Hard to miss in the second volume of the assessment is the forecast for Ohio and nearby states without more aggressive efforts to slow emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The region steadily will be warmer, wetter and more humid. A crucial part of the regional economy, farming will be hit hard, in the form of such things as pests and crop disease, the health of livestock and yields at risk.”
Marshall Independent: “But right here in southwest Minnesota, can we afford to completely ignore the report’s findings? If the scientists are even close to their predictions, the nation’s farm belt is likely to be among the hardest-hit regions.”
Star-Ledger: “While Trump thinks he’s saving international trade, the federal government’s top scientists say doing nothing on climate change will make us less competitive in industries like agriculture and tourism, yielding fewer crops and visitors to the shore.”
North Jersey: “Trump’s combination of power and ignorance is a genuine danger to the planet. So when federal agencies under his own administration conclude the negative effects of climate change are here and increasing, Trump will be loath to admit any of it. Hence, the Black Friday news dump.”
Mass Live: “It is too late to entirely erase the effects of greenhouse gases and other effects on the environment, but it is not too late to mitigate their future damage. It will be a costly tragedy, one felt in many human and economic ways, if the United States waits until it is.”
Pacific Daily News: “Climate change, the 1,600-page report stated, is not about some hypothetical threat in the distant future. Human-caused global warming has created a dire situation now.”
The Register-Herald: “And then on Friday, our own government spelled out in great detail the sort of staggering reality the Donald Trump administration seems quick to belittle, minimize, discredit and dismiss with nothing more than another off-handed comment from his considerable bag of conspiracy theories and lame, uninformed observations.”
Crookston Times: “When the most powerful person on the planet tries to trigger his detractors by making jokes about cold weather, clearly this is something that has to be driven from the bottom up, by the people.”