This past Monday President Trump attended a wildfire briefing concerning the recent wildfires ambushing California. After a Californian environmental official urged Trump to consider the science behind the rapid climate change threatening our earth, Trump responded with "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch." The official responded, "I wish science agreed with you." This short but important exchange of words is very telling of our president stance on climate change. Clearly, he does not take the rapid decline of our environment seriously and does not plan on making any of the serious changes required to save our planet if we wish to continue to live as we do. With no new policies greenhouse gases are expected to increase by 50% by 2050 and the global average temperature is expected to rise by 3-6 degrees Celsius (the goal was to stay under 2) by the end of the century. These are just a few of the many concerning scientific facts and data that prove climate change is real and very dangerous.
In the wake of this event Scientific America, America's oldest continuously published magazine, has publicly endorsed Joe Biden marking the first time they have made a presidential endorsement ever. They stated that they are making this endorsement on the grounds that Trump "rejects evidence and science" and because he has "attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges." It is very difficult to have hope in the future when a president refuses to believe cold hard facts and clear consequences of our negligence.
Climate change is certainly not going to fix itself and I find it very doubtful President Trump truly does not believe in science. I think that he simply does not wish to address these problems because it would involve regulating big businesses responsible for great amounts of pollution and potentially slowing the growth of the economy which would greatly hurt his votes. Essentially, there can be no economy without a normal functioning earth, and we need to make fighting climate change a priority while we can still do something about it.
