Did they just not bother to read it?
WASHINGTON — The Earth is experiencing the warmest period in the history of civilization and humans are the dominant cause of the temperature rise that has occurred since the start of the 20th century, according to an exhaustive scientific report unveiled Friday by 13 federal agencies. The report was approved by the White House, but it directly contradicts much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change.
From the appointment of a rabidly anti-science, climate change denialist Scott Pruitt as head the Environmental Protection Agency, to the fossil-fuel embracing Kathleen Hartnett as the Administration’s top environmental advisor, to naming someone who blames the Sun for global warming to head of NASA, this Administration has demonstrated complete and utter disdain for the established scientific principle of human-induced climate change.
And yet, they allowed the most comprehensive report on Climate Change to be issued without any substantive changes, with none of those agencies nor the White House moving to stop the report’s publication, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy signing off on the final release, despite fear among some scientists involved in the research that the Trump administration would block it or seek to water it down. That, researchers said, now creates a bizarre situation in which government policies are in direct opposition to the science it is producing.
The simple reason for the Administration’s lack of action is that any attempt to change the report’s findings would have simply drawn more attention to it. And that could get in the way of their plans:
The report comes as President Trump and members of his Cabinet are working to promote U.S. fossil fuel production and repeal several federal rules aimed at curbing the nation’s carbon output, including ones limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, oil and gas operations on federal land and carbon emissions from cars and trucks. Trump has also announced he will exit the Paris climate agreement, under which the United States has pledged to cut its overall greenhouse-gas emissions between 26 percent and 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.
The findings from the National Climate Assessment, a multi-volume, 500 page analysis mandated by law every four years, and considered the most “definitive statement by the United States on climate change science," underscore the complete disconnect between this administration’s policies and the climate havoc they are all-but-certain to wreak on the human population:
The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of potential sea level rise as high as 8 feet by the year 2100, and enumerates myriad climate-related damages across the United States that are already occurring due to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming since 1900.
“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” the document reports. “For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”
And yet, this administration remains willfully heedless of the consequences:
[T]he Environmental Protection Agency has wiped references to climate change from its website and barred its scientists from presenting scientific reports on the subject, and its administrator, Scott Pruitt, does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to warming. Rick Perry, the energy secretary, asserted Wednesday that “the science is out” on whether humans cause climate change.
This is tantamount to knowing fully well that cigarettes cause cancer and continuing to blow smoke into a baby’s face. It’s not that those in this administration don’t know the truth—it’s that they simply don't care. The Times article notes that a federal scientist involved in the drafting of the report advised that Trump’s appointees made no effort to change the scientific findings after being briefed on them.
They just sat, and nodded, and went back to their offices to continue executing the policies demanded by the fossil fuel industry.
[The Report] affirms that the U.S. is already experiencing more extreme heat and rainfall events and more large wildfires in the West, that more than 25 U.S. coastal cities are already experiencing more flooding, and that seas could rise by between 1 and 4 feet by the year 2100, and perhaps even more than that if Antarctica proves to be unstable, as is feared. The report says that a rise of over 8 feet is “physically possible” with high levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but there’s no way right now to predict how likely it is to happen.
Fifty years from now when the coasts are inundated or underwater, when cities like Phoenix and Dallas are uninhabitable, and when summer for the rest of the country lasts for nine months out of the year, those unlucky enough to still be alive are going to look back and consider this moment in time, when deliberate, willful disregard of science was elevated to official government policy. They are going to look for someone, anyone, upon whom to place the blame.
But it will be too late. Everyone in this administration will already be dead.
Note: The source article from the Times was rewritten to provide further detail regarding the Administration’s knowledge of, and reaction to, the report, and some of the language was changed from the original (quoted above). The revised article included this gem:
Mr. Trump was barely aware of the report’s existence, several White House officials said.