Trump on Climate Change Report: ‘I don’t believe it’

President Trump yesterday said that he doesn’t believe the findings of a major climate report released by his administration last week. The report predicted dire consequences for the United States if it doesn’t take drastic steps very soon to deal with the negative impacts of climate change.

“Yeah, I don’t believe it,” Trump responded when asked about the climate report by members of the press. As he was leaving the White House to go to Mississippi to campaign for Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith he said that he is not concerned about the predictions of economic devastation from climate change..

“I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, and it’s fine,” Trump said of the shocking report which came out on Friday.

What was released was the fourth National Climate Assessment from the multi-agency Global Change Research Program of the federal government. The program was set up by Congress several years ago and requires an annual climate assessment.

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Critics charged that Trump was trying to bury the findings by releasing the report on “Black Friday” when most Americans are not paying attention to the news.

In fact former Vice President Al Gore harshly criticized Trump for trying to bury the report by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving. He tweeted a statement with his reaction:

Hundreds of highly respected scientists involved in the research concluded that climate change would likely cost the United States billions of dollars annually in the near future if greenhouse gases aren’t dramatically reduced.

“Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century,” the report found.

The report’s conclusions agree with the scientific community’s consensus on climate change. They are nearly unanimous in their assessment that human activity, via greenhouse gas emissions, is the chief cause of global warming and its impacts.

Trump has always been a climate change “denier” and has always cast doubt on the scientists’ conclusions on climate change.

In one particularly stupid tweet in 2012 he wrote:

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Trump’s environmental policy since becoming president last year has been in total alignment with his attitude of skepticism and denial. Through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies, he has tried to roll back or repeal nearly every climate policy adopted by former President Barack Obama.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.