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Also see:
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Interior;
Undated: Climate Change: How Do We Know?
Facts. Evidence.
The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000
years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the
abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of
the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate
changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the
amount of solar energy our planet receives.
The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is
extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human
activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is
unprecedented over decades to millennia.1
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled
scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of
information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of
data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.
The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in
the mid-19th century.2
Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere
is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question
that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in
response. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Undated:
There are claims that "31,000
scientists say global warming is not happening". However, these are apparently
people who are not proven to be scientists and/or who do not work in the
specific sciences necessary to have the experience or knowledge about those
issues contributing to global warming ... in other words, they may have
experience or knowledge in an unrelated field, rather like an educated
experienced veterinarian working as a pediatrician.
As of December 2017:
Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1
show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree:
Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human
activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide
have issued public statements endorsing this position.
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ -- 2016 --
Back to top November 23: trump on climate change ... facts vs hyperbole
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/
December 14: Scientists are Saving Climate
Data; This Is Why it Matters
In recent days, efforts have sprung up to archive climate data on federal sites.
They’ve been spurred by fears that the Trump administration could take a hostile
stance toward climate science and that
budget cuts could make data less accessible.
While the administration hasn’t said it’s going to erase or curtail access to
climate data, appointments to the Trump transition team and the views of his
cabinet nominees have set alarms bells ringing. And with good reason. The data
that NASA, EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S.
Geological Survey and countless other federal agencies collect is essentially
the bedrock of scientific enterprise.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-saving-climate-data-why-it-matters-20976 -- 2017 --
Back to top Undated: Energy Department Refuses
Trump's Request for Names on Climate Change
March 28: President Trump, flanked by
company executives and miners, signed a long-promised executive order on Tuesday
to nullify President Barack Obama’s climate change efforts and revive the coal
industry, effectively ceding American leadership in the international campaign
to curb the dangerous heating of the planet. ...
At a ceremony, Mr. Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency to start
the complex and lengthy legal process of withdrawing and rewriting the Obama-era
Clean Power Plan, which would have closed hundreds of coal-fired power
plants, frozen construction of new plants and replaced them with vast new wind
and solar farms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/climate/trump-executive-order-climate-change.html
April 5: If society does nothing and continues burning fossil fuels,
scientists say we can expect worsening super droughts, deadlier heat waves,
mass extinction in the natural world and
rising seas that ... will sink half of Florida as
well as many coastal cities. It's not a
matter of if as much as when ... Don't think it's a big deal? ... Ask
yourself: What if you're wrong?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/politics/sutter-pruitt-fox-question/index.html
May 31: President Trump is nearing a
decision on whether to formally withdraw the U.S. from
the Paris climate
agreement — a landmark deal in which nearly every country volunteered to
curb its greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit global warming. ...
Trump
tweeted early Wednesday that he'll announce his decision "over the next few
days."
May 31: Did Donald Trump Claim
Global Warming Is a Hoax?
Donald Trump and his campaign refused to acknowledge instances of his referring
to global warming/climate change as a "hoax." What does the public record show?
Donald Trump’s stated views on global warming have changed over the past seven
years or so ... as exemplified, on the one hand, by his endorsement of a 2009
letter urging the U.S. government to invest in a “clean energy economy” and
pass legislation addressing the “immediate challenge” of climate change, and, on
the other, by his November 2012 tweet
stating that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese
in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (Contrary to
rumor, Trump did not attempt to delete that tweet years after the fact.)
Trump’s current position, as clarified by his campaign manager, Kellyanne
Conway, in a 27 September 2016
interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, is that climate change exists but is
“naturally occurring".
June 1: President Donald
Trump announced his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord
Thursday, a major step that fulfills his campaign promises while seriously
dampening global efforts to curb global warming. The decision amounts to a
rebuttal of the worldwide effort to pressure Trump to remain a part of the
agreement, which 195 nations signed onto. Foreign leaders, business executives
and Trump's own daughter lobbied heavily for him to remain a part of the deal,
but ultimately lost out to conservatives who claim the plan is bad for the
United States.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/trump-paris-climate-decision/index.html
June 1: [Trump withdraws from Paris Climate
Accord]: I am fighting every day for the great people of this country.
Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its
citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord — ... —
but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely
new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its
workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to
negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can,
that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/
June 1: [Trump] has denied the existence of
climate change and appointed as the head of the EPA a man who
doesn't accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing
global warming by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Obama decried Trump's decision in a
statement released Thursday.
"The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap
the benefits in jobs and industries created," the former president said.
June 2: Donald Trump’s
rejection of the Paris climate change treaty is
the most emphatic answer to date on the question the rest of the world has been
asking since January: What does “America first” mean?
“I am elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” the president
declared ...
With those words,
the US joined Nicaragua and Syria in rejection of an accord signed by 195
states which was voluntary and open to amendment from within.
June 1: Explaining his choice to withdraw
the US from the Paris climate agreement, Trump said: "I was elected to represent
the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
Pittsburgh's Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto, in an interview on CNN's "The
Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," said Trump was off-base to point to his
choice as benefiting the city -- in part because Pittsburgh swung strongly for
Hillary Clinton.
June 2: The business community lashed back
at
Donald Trump's decision to ditch the Paris climate accord, as two
high-profile executives quit the US President's advisory council and Goldman
Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein took to Twitter for the first time ever to express
disapproval.
"Today's decision is a setback for the environment and for the US's leadership
position in the world," Mr Blankfein wrote.
Walt Disney chief executive Bob Iger and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk both
withdrew from a presidential jobs panel as a result.
And such blue-chip US titans as General Electric, Ford Motor, Dow Chemical and
Microsoft were among companies weighing in with their dismay.
June 3:The world is "laughing (and) crying at the president of the United
States, who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about," former U.S. Secretary
of State John Kerry told CNN on Friday.
"I would ask Donald Trump, does he think that (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping),
(France's) President (Emmanuel) Macron -- that the Prime Minister of Great
Britain (Theresa May), the Chancellor of Germany (Angela Merkel) -- don't know
what they're talking about? Are they stupid?" Kerry, a Democrat, asked. "Is he
accusing them of somehow buying into a hoax?"
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/413971/Kerry-World-laughing-crying-at-Trump-on-climate-science
July 20:
A former senior official at the U.S. Department of the Interior claims the
Trump administration
[attempted] to push him out of the agency in retaliation for speaking out about
climate change.
Joel Clements, who previously handled policy around the impact of climate change
on Alaskan communities, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that his public
comments on climate change motivated the U.S. Department of the Interior to
reassign him to a position in an accounting office that collects oil and gas
royalty checks.
https://www.ecowatch.com/whistleblower-climate-change-2462474066.html
October 5: The Washington Post
reported late yesterday that Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert at
the Interior Department, was “removed from his job by Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke shortly after” he disclosed how climate change affects Alaska Native
communities. Clement was reassigned “to an accounting position for which he has
no experience,” prompting him to resign.
December 6:
With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acknowledging fault, a
group of federal lawmakers offered a forceful warning today never to
repeat a troubling incident earlier this fall. In October, the EPA
withdrew its scientists from an important workshop on the health of
Narragansett Bay and the threats posed by climate change and other
environmental factors. After a group of New England members of Congress
demanded an explanation, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt responded with
a letter assuring the members of Congress that “[p]rocedures have been put
in place to prevent such an occurrence in the future.” Pruitt also said
the EPA would continue to fulfill its obligations under the National
Estuary Program (NEP), which helps to protect estuaries like the
Narragansett Bay.
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/epa-responds-to-new-england-members-of-congress-on-silencing-of-scientists
December 11:Several U.S.-based climatescientists are about to win multi-year, all-expenses-paid grants to relocate to
France.
The "Make Our Planet Great Again" grants are an effort by French President
Emmanuel Macron to counter U.S. President Donald Trump on the climate change
front. Macron announced a competition for the grants hours after Trump declared
he would withdraw the U.S. from the global accord reached in Paris in 2015 to
reduce climate-damaging emissions.
Macron is unveiling the winners Monday evening ahead of a climate summit Tuesday
aimed at giving new impetus to the Paris accord and finding new funding to help
governments and businesses meet its goals.
December 18: The
Trump administration has dropped climate change from a list of global
threats in a new national security strategy the president unveiled on Monday.
Instead, Trump’s NSS paper emphasised the need for the US to regain its economic
competitiveness in the world.
That stance represents a sharp change from the
Obama administration’s NSS, which placed climate change as one of the main
dangers facing the nation and made building international consensus on
containing global warming a national security priority.
December 29: Cold weather doesn't disprove
climate change, Donald Trump
... scientists say that the
record low temperatures and
record high
snowfalls aren’t proof that global warming is a hoax: they’re precisely the
weather you’d expect in a warming world.
Donald Trump ended a year of climate change
flimflammery in true Trump style: with an uninformed,
ill-conceived tweet. Trump proclaimed—presumably through touchscreen-compatible
gloves—“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps
we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but
not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against.
Bundle up!”
https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/week-50-when-it-gets-cold-trumps-climate-change-denial-heats
January 23: The trouble with Trump leaving
climate change to the military
Late last week, the Pentagon released the
unclassified summary version of America’s new National Defense Strategy. For
the first time since 2008, it makes no mention of climate change.
The administration didn’t cite climate change in its
National Security Strategy release in December, either. After that, a
bipartisan group of 106 lawmakers
begged Trump to reconsider, but at this point, there is no reason to think
he or his appointees plan to listen. At least formally, they plan to ignore
climate change in security and military policy.
January 23: Trump is bringing America First
to the climate-change economy
Donald Trump just
dealt a blow to clean energy in the US.
On Monday (Jan. 22), he approved higher tariffs on solar cells and modules made
abroad, putting duties
as high as 30% (pdf) in the first year and gradually dropping them to 15%.
The idea is to protect US manufacturers of solar equipment from cheaper
offerings made overseas, especially by Chinese companies. Critics were quick to
contend, however, that other parts of the solar energy sector, such as
installers that rely on cheap imports, would be hurt by the move.
January 27: Donald Trump appears to
misunderstand basic facts of climate change in Piers Morgan interview ... US
President also expressed willingness to 'go back in' Paris climate agreement,
but only if US is given 'a good deal'
When asked if he believed in the existence of climate change, however, Mr
Trump’s answer did not chime with the scientific consensus.
“There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be
climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well
because it was getting too cold all over the place,” he said.
January 28: When it is warm in winter, it is
not evidence that there is no climate change as deniers insist. In fact, extreme
weather events are caused by changes in the climate. Trump has no grasp of the
issue, but Fox News has told him that there is no such thing as climate change,
so that is what the president believes ...
February 6: From dropping out of the
Paris climate deal to overturning environmental
regulations,
President Donald Trump has targeted a number of Obama-era policies on climate
change in his first year — with one notable exception.
The Trump Administration has hesitated to throw out a key
deal reached in 2016 to phase out a pollutant found in air conditioners that
is a factor in climate change, in part because American companies think it could
be a huge business opportunity for them.
http://time.com/5134208/kigali-amendment-donald-trump-climate-change/
February 13:A
Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment
February 21: 'Trump Forest' planters want to
curb climate change one tree at a time
In efforts to counter President Trump's decision to pull the United States from
the Paris Agreement, donors across the world have donated more than $130,000 to
plant 1 million carbon-absorbing trees in a project dubbed the 'Trump Forest.'
The "Trump Forest" – dubbed by three New Zealanders behind a website channeling
funds to the project – hit the million milestone this week as the president
heads into his second year in office, backers said.
March 23: In Alaska, a town threatened by
climate change gets federal funding to relocate
The village of Newtok has been trying relocate to safer ground for decades.
The small coastal village of Newtok, Alaska has secured more than $15 million in
funding to begin relocating households to safer ground inland. The funding is
part of the $1.3 trillion spending bill signed Friday.
This amount, however, is still just a fraction of what’s required to relocate
the whole village.
Located along the banks of the Ninglick River, the land on which the community
of roughly 350 people lives has been eroding away
since the late 1950s. They have been trying to relocate since 1994 but
securing funding has remained elusive and the effects of climate change — sea
level rise, stronger storms, and melting permafrost — have made the situation
increasingly urgent.
https://thinkprogress.org/newtok-alaska-gets-relocation-funding-35b4434242a6/
March 27:North Atlantic right
whales may be on edge of extinction. There's been zero births this year
April 11: Atlantic Ocean circulation at
weakest point in more than 1,500 years
New research provides evidence that a key cog in the global ocean circulation
system hasn't been running at peak strength since the mid-1800s and is currently
at its weakest point in the past 1,600 years. If the system continues to weaken,
it could disrupt weather patterns from the United States and Europe to the
African Sahel, and cause more rapid increase in sea level on the US East Coast.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180411131642.htm
May 5: Approximately 191 feral horses have
been found dead in a stock pond on Navajo land in northern Arizona, according to
Navajo leaders, who attributed the death to ongoing drought and famine.
"These animals were searching for water to stay alive. In the process, they
unfortunately burrowed themselves into the mud and couldn't escape because they
were so weak," Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez said in a
statement on Thursday.
May 20: Global sea levels are rising at an
alarming rate, posing a serious threat to human and animal populations around
the world. Scientists attribute a big chunk of this rise to melting ice at the
world's poles, which lose
several hundred billion tons of ice each year due to
rising
global temperatures. But on Wednesday (May 16), Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks
proposed an alternative hypothesis: Perhaps the White Cliffs of Dover are to
blame?
"What about erosion?" Brooks
asked in a meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on
Science, Space and Technology. "Every time you have that soil or rock or
whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to
rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is
moving up."
https://www.livescience.com/62613-erosion-causes-sea-level-rise-mo-brooks.html
May 30: Many Republican mayors are advancing
climate-friendly policies without saying so ...
May 31: Did
Donald Trump Claim Global Warming Is a Hoax?
Donald Trump and his campaign refused to acknowledge instances of his referring
to global warming/climate change as a "hoax." What does the public record show?
Donald Trump’s stated views on global warming have changed
over the past seven years or so ... as exemplified, on the one hand, by his
endorsement of a 2009
letter urging the U.S. government to invest in a “clean energy economy” and
pass legislation addressing the “immediate challenge” of climate change, and, on
the other, by his November 2012 tweet
stating that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese
in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (Contrary to
rumor, Trump did not attempt to delete that tweet years after the fact.)
Trump’s current position, as clarified by his campaign manager, Kellyanne
Conway, in a 27 September 2016
interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, is that climate change exists but is
“naturally occurring".
July 30: Berlin court demands far-right
party correct claim that German funds went to Clinton campaign
A far-right political party in Germany must issue a correction after asserting
German funds were indirectly funneled to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016
election campaign, according to a Berlin court order.
July 30:
Georg Pazderski, leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party,
was ordered to scrub its website of the accusation and issue a correction
stating that the German ministry "paid no money whatsoever to support the
election campaign of Hillary Clinton,” Deutsche
Welle news reported Monday.
July 30: The [AFD] party had claimed
[millions of] German government funds intended for climate-related projects in
Africa overseen by the charitable Clinton Foundation had gone to Clinton’s
election campaign.
Alternative for Germany, which welcomed Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory and
wants international sanctions against Russia lifted, didn’t immediately respond
to a request for comment.
https://apnews.com/c73194c256ee4265a1e7032f8f6dfa81
August 16:
White House Orders Up More Logging To Combat Wildfires
The Trump directive makes no mention of climate change.
The Trump administration announced a new policy to fight wildfires, doubling
down on its assertion that the best response is better forest management rather
than focusing on climate change.
September 24: [From "why do people love -or
hate- Trump? Here Are The 20 Top Reasons "]
12. He didn’t sign the Paris Climate Accord.
While the earth is warming and the seas are rising and nearly every climate
scientist on Earth insists all nations have to come together to solve a problem
that threatens to render the human race extinct, Trump ignored all the experts
and voted to choose death and cancer and pollution.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/jeremy-london/2018/07/why-do-people-hate-trump/
September 26: How a massive wall in
Antarctica could hold back rising seas
October 25: The White House requested a
PowerPoint presentation for President Trump from a group devoted to attacking
climate science.
During the transition period after Trump's electoral victory, senior White House
aides reached out to the Heartland Institute, a think tank that works to cloud
the findings of scientists, to request a presentation on climate change, said
James Taylor, the organization's senior fellow for environment and energy
policy.
Taylor said the PowerPoint was similar to the group's publication, "Climate
Change Reconsidered." The publication, which drew insights from 117 scientists,
economists and others, including many funded by the energy industry, concluded
that the world needs more fossil fuels and that climate change isn't a problem.
The world's major science academies determined long ago that there is no
legitimate academic debate about whether humans are driving climate change.
Countless studies have traced how humans are warming the planet at an
unprecedented pace through the burning of fossil fuels. Also, global warming is
permanently changing parts of the planet, and it won't "go back," as Trump
claimed last week.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060104341
November 22: President Trump used the
freezing temperatures forecast for much of the country on Thanksgiving Day to
throw cold water on fears about “Global Warming.”
Trump has long been a skeptic about climate change, which a consensus of the
scientific community embraces as fact.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association points out that weather is what
you experience when you step outside and can quickly change – snow can turn to
rain, for example.
November 22: A top U.N. scientist on
Thursday shrugged off an online quip from U.S. President Donald Trump that
questioned global warming, saying a U.S. government report will show the
"fundamental impacts of climate change on the U.S. continent."
Officials at the World Meteorological Organization also said environmentally
minded efforts by the state of California, in parts of the financial sector,
among grassroots activists and others will have more of an impact to help the
fight against climate change than "political disturbance" and "discourse" will
impede it.
November 24:Climate report: Trump administration downplays warnings of looming
disaster
Democrats ramp up pressure to act in wake of most sobering government analysis
yet
The
Trump administration attempted to downplay the stark findings of its own
climate change assessment, as Democrats sought to pressure the White House to
avert looming economic and public health disaster.
The
US National Climate change assessment, the work of 300 scientists and 13
federal agencies, was released on Friday afternoon. It found that wildfires,
storms and heatwaves are already taking a major toll on Americans’ wellbeing,
with climate change set to “disrupt many areas of life” in the future.
November 25: The shores of Cape Cod, Mass.,
have seen a spike in the number of debilitated and dead sea turtles, with nearly
600 animals washing up so far this year, according to wildlife officials.
Scientists say that the naturally migratory turtles are heading farther north as
climate change warms the planet's oceans. Some are now summering in the Cape Cod
Bay, where they become trapped "by the Cape's hook-shaped geography," according
to the sanctuary.
"Stranding season" typically lasts from about Thanksgiving to Christmas. This
year's numbers have already passed what's typical for a year — and the total
might climb to 1,000 sea turtles before the end of December.
December 3: A major international climate
conference kicked off Sunday in Poland.
For the next two weeks, leaders from around
the world will meet to talk about how to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions
and support those communities that are already being affected by climate change.
It is the most important climate meeting since
195 countries, including the
U.S., signed the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015 and promised to set specific
emissions reduction targets. The
U.S. said it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent by
2025.
In 2017, President Trump announced his intention to
withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Trump has also systematically tried to
roll back national regulations that would keep the U.S. on track to reduce
emissions, including rules governing emissions from power plants, cars and
trucks.
Undated: We are not holding our breath that
President Trump will start backing up his administration’s environmental agenda
with scientific facts. But we are holding him accountable for what he says.
President Trump’s torrent of misleading statements and flat-out lies has an army
of journalists working 24/7 to set the record straight. To help those who focus,
as we do, on climate, energy, and other environmental issues, NRDC will call out
Trump whenever he distorts the facts about such matters. Here, we offer our
inaugural edition of Trump Lies. We expect to update it regularly. https://www.nrdc.org/trump-lies
December 14: Tax Return Shows Mercer Family
Funded Climate Skeptics Last Year With More Than $4 Million
The bill, called Intro. 1253
and introduced last Wednesday, sets an ambitious timeline for cutting emissions
from buildings of more than 25,000 square feet ― the city’s biggest source of
carbon pollution ― starting in 2022 and increasing steadily until meeting a 40
percent reduction by 2030. From there, the legislation gives landlords until
2050 to double those cuts.
May 3: Europe May Use Trump's Favorite
Economic Weapon to Punish His Inaction on Climate Change
The threat in French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks last week was easy to
miss. But if he follows through, its effects wouldn’t be.
More than 40 minutes into a meandering press conference, Macron reiterated his
goal to put fighting climate change at the center of his government’s policies
as well as those of the European Union, calling for a “carbon tax on borders”
for the bloc.
“The success of this transition goes through our European commitment, our
capacity to defend at the European level the need to achieve a carbon price,” he
said, according to a translation.
Macron did not get into specifics, but such a measure would likely mean a carbon
tax in E.U. member countries coupled with a fee on imports from non-E.U.
countries that don’t have their own carbon tax or another form of carbon
pricing.
http://time.com/5582034/carbon-tariff-tax-fee-europe-macron/
