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Leak before clamp

Environmentalists the world over ought to be grateful to the American media. In the aftermath of the leaked report on…

Leak before clamp

US President Donald Trump (Photo: AFP)

Environmentalists the world over ought to be grateful to the American media. In the aftermath of the leaked report on climate change, Donald Trump will only be deluding himself if he imagines that global warming is only a bogey or what he calls a “Chinese hoax”. That delusion might have prompted him to go off at a tangent and not to associate the US with the Paris agreement ~ a consensus to protect the world from an almost intractable geographical phenomenon that confronts the Earth to which the world belongs. Markedly, the damning climate change report has been disclosed to the world by the New York Times amidst fears that are not wholly unfounded, specifically that it could be airbrushed by the Trump administration. Small wonder that the White House has declined to comment on the report “before its scheduled release date”. The US President has his back to the wall ~ as he does on a welter of issues ~ as the leaked government document is a direct contradiction of Mr Trump’s perception of climate change and global warming. The basic findings are unnerving enough and as one of the world’s most developed countries, America under President Trump cannot be impervious to grim reality. The report has underlined that temperatures could rise by an additional 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit within the next century if current trajectories of carbon emissions continued ~ “How much more the climate will change depends on future emissions and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions. Global warming will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius, which could bring about devastating changes in the environment, weather, and climate. Human activities are primarily responsible.” The inference, based on empirical evidence, runs counter to the delusory “thesis” being circulated by Trump and a section of his team. In their weird reckoning, “the human contribution to climate change is uncertain and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.” White House will be expected to reflect on ~ if not concur with ~ the primary contention that the average temperature in America has been rising rapidly since 1980 and that “it is now hotter than any other time in the last 1,500 years”.

There are two facets to the National Climate Assessment that has been crafted by distinguished brains in America’s science fraternity. Quite obviously, the first relates to the chilling disclosures. The second and no less crucially, it is a damning reflection on the Trump administration. It is, on closer reflection, a leak that has been driven by fear, i.e. the findings might have been suppressed by the White House. Climate change and global warming constitute a geographical aberration… and not a “Chinese hoax” as President Trump imagines. The reality is dire, and it is time to react. Trump has been trumped on climate.

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