Trump Threatens Us with Climate Disaster
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 14 Nov 2016
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service
9 Nov 2016 – By sabotaging Bernie Sander’s primary campaign, the Democratic National Committee seems to have committed suicide and destroyed the Democratic party. USA’s mass media were also responsible for the stolen primary, and for Trump’s election to the US Presidency. Bernie was the people’s choice, and he would easily have defeated Donald Trump. Americans suffering from economic hardship would have been given the reforms that they crave. But faced with a choice between Hillary and Donald, they chose Trump, who seemed to promise something other than the arrogance that they had been experiencing at the hands of the Beltway establishment.
Donald Trump’s worst characteristic is his denial of anthropogenic climate change. The participants in the current UN climate talks in Marrakesh are extremely worried about the effect that his election will have on the viability of the Paris climate agreement. Trump has stated in his campaign speeches that, if elected, he would pull the United States out of the Paris agreement.
The problem with mobilizing public opinion on the climate issue is that the worst effects of a disastrous increase in global temperatures lie in the distant future; but to avoid them, action must be taken immediately. The huge subsidies currently given to fossil fuel companies must be abolished, or, better yet, shifted to the support of renewable energy.
In the long-term future (in several hundred years) climate change threatens to produce ocean level rises which will drown most of the world’s coastal cities, and which will wipe out countries such as Bangladesh and Holland. At the same time, increases in temperature will make large parts of India and Africa uninhabitable.
Hope that catastrophic climate change can be avoided comes from the exponentially growing world-wide use of renewable energy and from the fact prominent public figures, such as Pope Francis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Elon Musk, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Al Gore, are making the public increasingly aware of the long-term dangers. Short-term disasters due to climate change may also be sufficiently severe to wake us up.
We must work with dedication to save the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren, a future which we share with all other living creatures on earth. We must accept our responsibility for the long-term future of human civilization and the biosphere.
Some suggestions for further reading:
http://eruditio.worldacademy.org/issue-5/article/urgent-need-renewable-energy
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2012/07/limits-to-growth-and-climate-change/
https://www.amazon.com/Need-New-Economic-System/dp/1326557629
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55486#.WCLDTdEX5wE
http://www.countercurrents.org/avery270414.htm
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-hottest-year-84f2a2cbc3f9#.3hp4aw4ir
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John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent book is Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century (pdf).
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 14 Nov 2016.
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It is NOT in hundreds of years- the effects are well in action NOW, and the USA kept out when the agreements were being organized and the USA did not want its “economy” damaged, as if an economy can exist without the parts of earth that are natural.
Now there are still Trump and ALL his fellow-Repugs who care not at all about the earth- money now for the few of “us” now in power is all that matters.