Trump Sentences Our Children to Death, Hands our Economy to China and Russia by Dropping Out of Climate Agreement

As expected, Trump proves he is profoundly ignorant and pathologically dishonest. His announcement that he would remove the United States from the Paris Climate Accord contains virtually not one bit of truth.

In choosing to pull out of the accord, Trump has unilaterally handed over the future of America to the Chinese and the Russians. By most standards, this would be considered treason.

Because of Trump's attempt to deflect the news cycle away from the investigation of his collusion with Russia in the election (and continued daily corruption and violation of U.S. law and the U.S. Constitution), he joins the only other two backward nations not part of the accord - Syria and Nicaragua.

In doing so Trump embarrasses the nation and all Americans. He goes against every scientific organization in the world, every National Academy of Sciences in the world, virtually every climate scientist, more than 100 years of peer-reviewed, unequivocal published research, and basic physics.

Trump also stands alone against American business, his own Defense department, every scientific agency, the CEOs of every major corporation in America, and the vast majority of Americans in every U.S. state, and virtually every nation in the world.

In announcing this gross negligence, Trump showed that he is both incredibly stupid and willing to destroy the future of all Americans. He lied repeatedly during his announcement.

He claimed that man-made climate change is not happening. That is a bald-faced lie. He knows that their is virtual unanimity among climate scientists. He knows that every business leader has told him it is real. Even his own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil, historically one of the biggest funders of climate denial lobbyists, has told him the evidence for it is undeniable.

He claimed that "the Paris Accord is a BAD deal for Americans." That too is a bald-faced lie.

He claimed that "the accord was negotiated poorly by the Obama administration and signed out of desperation." Again, a bald-faced lie. The agreement was negotiated over many years by nearly 200 countries with the United States in the lead.

He claimed that "it frontloads costs on the American people to the detriment of our economy." A bald-faced lie. The agreement is actually easier for the United States to implement and accomplish because we've already been taking steps (many of which Trump has dishonestly set back). Countries like China, which has a much greater burden to implement, will now have free reign to take even more U.S. jobs in the growing future energy industries.

Trump has without a doubt disgraced the United States with this move. He has endangered national security, endangered human health, endangered the environment, sent future jobs overseas that could have been here in America, destroyed our future economy, and sentenced to death hundreds of thousands of American children.

[Graphic source: https://www.redbubble.com/people/theaesthetic/works/20838237-no-trump?p=poster]

175 Nations Sign Paris Climate Agreement on Earth Day - What It Means

"We are in a race against time. The era of consumption without consequences is over. The poor and most vulnerable must not suffer further from a problem they did not create." 

So said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Earth Day at UN headquarters in New York City. Ban was joined by 175 nations in a ceremony to sign the Paris Climate Agreement worked out last December. This is by far the largest number of countries to sign an international agreement on any single day.

Secretary of State John Kerry signed the agreement for the United States while holding his granddaughter, one of 197 children at the event representing each of the nations that had adopted the agreement. The action being taken by the world to deal with a global problem is unprecedented.

But it doesn't stop here. Everyone agrees that the agreement is only the first of many big steps needed to achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction in an effort to stem the tide of man-made climate change. Sophie Yeo at Climate Brief has put together an "Explainer" to describe what is happening, and more importantly, what must happen next.

Now that the agreement has been signed, it needs to be ratified. Here is where the parties, in particular US President Obama and Secretary Kerry, showed their political acumen. The legal text of the agreement allows three different forms of "ratification:" acceptance, approval, or accession. The agreement also specifies that it goes into force when it has been ratified "at least 55 countries representing 55% of total global emissions." Already 15 countries have ratified (though, admittedly, they represent 0% of carbon emissions). Sophie Yeo explains that despite the assumed Congressional intransigence (because Republicans currently control both the House and Senate), the flexibility written into the agreement will likely still allow the US to "ratify."

Of course, if the Democratic party regains the Senate (and perhaps the House), along with retaining the presidency, in November's elections, this process becomes much easier.

Signing, and even ratifying, the agreement is only the beginning. The US and China in 2014 put into place a bilateral agreement to reduce our respective carbon emissions - a big deal given that we represent the two largest sources of carbon. Both countries have also instituted individual actions domestically, as have many other countries and the European Union. These steps must be joined by even more dramatic actions. Carbon Brief put together a list of tasks that have to happen next to keep the process moving forward.

And the process must maintain that forward movement if we have any chance of slowing the rate of warming our climate is experiencing. Already we have seen major impacts such as ice loss, sea level rise, increasing extreme events (drought and flood), human and animal migration, and ecological changes. These impacts are likely to get worse long before they get better because we've already built into the climate system additional warming and ocean acidification. Significantly shifting to a renewable energy future is already long overdue and must occur at a more rapid pace to limit impacts as we move forward.

There is a lot of work to do.