Climate Activists Issue Call to Action for Trump Times
Author: Alastair Bland | Published: January 4, 2016
If President-elect Donald Trump really is concerned about immigration, perhaps he should be talking about ways to slow global warming.
Rising sea levels, caused by the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps, will probably displace tens of millions of people in the decades ahead, and many may come to North America as refugees.
Climate change, arguably the most pressing issue of our time, will cause a suite of other problems for future generations.
Just over a year ago, world leaders gathered in Paris to discuss strategies for curbing greenhouse gas emissions as scientists around the globe confirmed that humans are facing a crisis.
But that crisis is being ignored or denied by too many Americans and by the many right-wing politicians they elect — including Trump.
He has threatened to reverse any commitments the United States agreed to in Paris.
Trump even selected a well-known skeptic of climate change, Myron Ebell, to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team.
“We are in this bizarre political state in which most of the Republican Party still thinks it has to pretend that climate change is not real,” said Jonathan F.P. Rose, a New York City developer and author of The Well-Tempered City.
Rose said progress cannot be made in drafting effective climate strategies until national leaders agree there’s an issue.