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      in US Politics

      A second Trump term would be 'game over' for the climate, says one of the world's top climate scientists

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      This article is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of 400-plus news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. The Guardian is the lead partner of CCN.Michael Mann, one of the most eminent climate scientists in the world, believes averting climate catastrophe on a global scale would be “essentially impossible” if Donald Trump is re-elected.A professor at Penn State University, Mann, 54, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers, testified numerous times before Congress and appeared frequently in the news media. He is also active on Twitter, where earlier this year he declared: “A second Trump term is game over for the climate – really!”, a statement he reaffirmed in an interview with the Guardian and Covering Climate Now.“If we are going to avert ever more catastrophic climate change impacts, we need to limit warming below a degree and a half Celsius, a little less than three degrees Fahrenheit,” Mann said. “Another four years of what we’ve seen under Trump, which is to outsource environmental and energy policy to the polluters and dismantle protections put in place by the previous administration … would make that essentially impossible.”None of Mann’s 200-plus scientific papers is more famous than the so-called “hockey stick study”, which Nature published on Earth Day of 1998. With two co-authors, Mann demonstrated that global temperature had been trending downward for the previous one thousand years. Graphed, this line was the long handle of the hockey stick, which surged abruptly upwards in about 1950 – represented by the blade of the stick – to make the 1990s the warmest decade in “at least the last millennium”.In 1999, Mann became an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, where he was targeted by the climate denier crowd, an experience detailed in his 2012 book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. He received death threats, he says, and had emails stolen. Virginia’s former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, a hard-right Republican, subpoenaed documents related to Mann’s research funding in an effort to prove fraud. A Washington Post editorial blasted Cuccinelli for “mis[using] state funds in his own personal war against climate science”. In 2014, affirming a lower court’s decision, the supreme court of Virginia ruled against Cuccinelli, who now serves as a top official in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.Mann denies that it’s a partisan statement to say that four more years of Trump would mean “game over” for the climate. More

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      in US Politics

      What does the first climate question at a US debate in 20 years reveal?

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      The long-awaited climate question in last night’s presidential debate broke a 20-year silent streak from moderators on the crisis – thrusting it into prime time but also revealing just how stuck in the past much of the US is on the issue.After more than an hour of chaos as the candidates talked over each other, the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked Donald Trump: “What do you believe about the science of climate change and what will you do in the next four years to confront it?”Former vice-president Al Gore – who was the last candidate asked directly about climate change in a general election debate, in 2000 – praised Wallace in a tweet for “asking serious and well-researched questions about the climate crisis”. In 2008, the vice-presidential candidates were asked to debate what is true and false about the climate crisis and the presidential candidates were asked about reducing US dependence on foreign oil.The exchange was the most substantive discussion yet of the climate crisis in a general election presidential debate, said Bracken Hendricks, co-founder of the climate group Evergreen Action. But, that is not necessarily saying much, given the previously low bar.“However, Chris Wallace also fell into several common traps of asking whether climate change is real and discussing the cost of action without the crucial context of the cost of inaction,” Hendricks said. “The moderators of future debates should build on this foundation and investigate the candidates’ divergent plans on the climate crisis.”The debate could have focused on the starkly contrasted futures Americans must choose between – tackling the crisis that global leaders call the biggest ever threat to human rights, or fueling it.Instead, Wallace framed the existence of a human-made climate crisis as something that is for some Americans still debatable, asking Trump “What do you believe about the science of climate change” and “[Do] you believe that human pollution, gas, greenhouse gas emissions, contributes to the global warming of this planet”.Science unequivocally shows humans are the predominant cause of global warming.Trump fell back on his common refrain that he wants “crystal clean water and air”, argued we have “the lowest carbon” and said China, Russia and India send up “real dirt into the air”.Wallace pushed Trump to explain his views on climate science, asking if he believes human pollution contributes to global warming of the planet.“I think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent, yes,” Trump said.Despite that response, Trump refused to acknowledge the impacts of climate change, which include worse wildfires. And he said climate action would drive energy prices “through the sky”.Trump proudly cheerleads fossil fuels. His administration has torn down essentially every federal climate action the US has ever undertaken. And his position on climate science waffles from thinking it’s a flat-out “hoax” to questioning that humans are the main cause and confusing it with air pollution.Biden, on the other hand, has laid out a $2tn plan to invest in green infrastructure that will try to eliminate US climate pollution by the middle of the century.Wallace queried Biden on his climate plans, and the former vice-president spoke at length about his proposal. He said it would create “millions of good-paying jobs” and that the cost of inaction is more severe weather. He took a jab at Trump for suggesting dropping a nuclear weapon on hurricanes – which are intensifying because of the climate crisis.Biden said he does not support a Green New Deal – a vision for large-scale spending to fight the climate crisis and inequality that has become a buzzword for Republicans who see Democrats as radical.“You just lost the radical left,” Trump said.Biden would put 40% of climate investments toward environmental justice, including in communities of color that are more likely to be surrounded by polluting fossil fuel infrastructure. But it stops short of progressive calls for Medicare for All and a federal jobs guarantee, two key components of the Green New Deal.While many climate advocates were elated that a climate question was asked at all, others were disappointed.“Hot and unpopular take: I would have been OK with Wallace skipping,” said RL Miller, political director of Climate Hawks Vote. “He asked a very shallow question with limited follow-up.” More

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      in World Politics

      Climate Disruption and the American Obsession with Control

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      For this week’s debate between US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the moderator, Chris Wallace, has ambitiously proposed six topics. They presumably represent what he believes are the most important and urgent issues to clarify for the two candidates. The topics are: Trump’s and Biden’s records, the Supreme Court, COVID-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election.

      John Branch and Brad Plumer may feel that something is missing in Wallace’s list. They are the authors of a lengthy New York Times article that appeared last week under the title “Climate Disruption is Now Locked In. The Next Moves Will Be Crucial.” Perhaps Wallace reasoned that attempting to debate climate change would make no sense since everyone knows Trump simply denies that there is an issue to debate. In such a debate he might just follow Jordan Peterson, who in five minutes dismissed the entire climate issue as “an absolutely catastrophic nightmarish mess” on which it is not worth wasting our precious time.

      The Extinct Race of “Reasonable Viewers” in the US

      READ MORE

      But there may be another reason for Wallace’s hesitation. It raises other more important issues, too complex to evoke in the type of reality TV show we call a presidential debate. Branch and Plumer describe the severity of the problem: “Managing climate change, experts said, will require rethinking virtually every aspect of daily life: how and where homes are built, how power grids are designed, how people plan for the future with the collective good in mind. It will require an epochal shift in politics in a country that has, on the whole, ignored climate change.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Epochal shift:

      The one type of historical event that modern democracies have no means of dealing with and no hope of addressing even if the entirety of their voting populations acknowledged the need.

      Contextual Note

      After listing some of the types of disasters — droughts, fires, tropical storms — that are observable today and whose frequency is increasing, the authors raise the most fundamental question that concerns “humanity’s willingness to take action.” In other words, like politics itself, it is all about the resolution to act. The proverb reassures us: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The problem the authors evoke but never really address lies in identifying the agent with the will and how it might be empowered to act.

      The article claims that “climate disruption” has now appeared on “center stage in the presidential campaign.” Trump denies there is a problem, but Biden has announced the measures he would take to address the issue. They include “spending $2 trillion over four years to escalate the use of clean energy and ultimately phase out the burning of oil, gas and coal,” building “500,000 electric vehicle charging stations” and “1.5 million new energy-efficient homes and eliminate carbon pollution from the power sector by 2035.”

      Sophie Austin reports for Politifact that most environmentally sensitive commentators have expressed approval of Biden’s plan. But she adds that “some climate activists say his plan doesn’t go far enough to reduce carbon emissions and protect Indigenous lands from fossil fuel pollution.” Dan Gearino notes on the Inside Climate News website that, while the Biden plan is praiseworthy on paper, it doesn’t appear to be the candidate’s highest priority: “This doesn’t mean climate change and clean energy are top-tier issues for the candidates,” Gearino writes. Branch and Plumer call the next moves “crucial.” Biden appears to consider talk about the next moves crucial.

      Historical Note

      The Times authors maintain that the only solution will be an epochal shift. That means reversing historical trends embedded deep in the culture. They should be looking well beyond politics toward changes in culture, lifestyle and the rules that govern economic relationships. But, as often happens with The New York Times, its perspectives never seem to go beyond national policies and politics. “Nations,” they write, “have dithered so long in cutting emissions that progressively more global warming is assured for decades to come, even if efforts to shift away from fossil fuels were accelerated tomorrow.”

      Nations cannot cut emissions. They can legislate by establishing quotas. They can tax certain activities and commodities to discourage emissions. But, apart from, for example, reducing the size of their bloated militaries, champion consumers of fossil fuel, nations and their governments do not have the power to cut emissions. People have that power. But at the very minimum that means, as the authors have insisted, “rethinking virtually every aspect of daily life.” 

      Thinking and rethinking may be enough to satisfy journalists, but if it doesn’t lead to action. It serves no other purpose than to provide copy for the media. Don’t journalists spend most of their ink transcribing what politicians “think” before agreeing that nothing ever gets done? Thinking things through, Hamlet style, can sometimes aggravate the problem, creating the equivalent of social melancholia.

      Doing rather than simply thinking implies radically redefining relationships with other people and the environment, including reframing our dependence on technologies and consumable goods most people may not be ready to relinquish. The authors insist that while the problem is grave, it’s not too late. Something can be done. They reassuringly quote an environmental historian: “It’s not that it’s out of our control. The whole thing is in our control.”

      Some analysts of US culture have identified establishing and maintaining control as the culture’s dominant core value. This nevertheless creates an unsustainable paradox. For three-quarters of a century, Americans have used the dollar to establish control over the global economy. When President George W. Bush pulled out of the timid resolutions for climate control of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, he cited as his compelling reason that “mandates in the Kyoto Treaty would affect our economy in a negative way.”

      Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party have never veered from Bush’s logic, justified with this specious line of reasoning: “We do not know how much our climate could or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.” In other words, Americans don’t like to think about what they can’t control. They prefer to focus on the one thing they believe they control: the economy. Of course, those who observed how well Bush controlled the economy in 2007-08 or Trump did in 2020 may object that if that’s what they mean by control, maybe they should just give up their global military empire, retreat to their bunkers and let Adam Smith’s invisible hand retake control.

      Embed from Getty Images

      After reassuring readers that everything is “in our control,” the article makes its own “epochal shift” when it tells us that “climate scientists have shown that our choices now range from merely awful to incomprehensibly horrible.” The authors reassure us that even if control isn’t total, we can be satisfied with partial control, which could be deemed a good enough solution for control-obsessed Americans: “The best hope is to slow the pace of warming enough to maintain some control for humanity.” By invoking “humanity,” they also seem to be admitting that it is no longer about the US running the show on its own. Returning to the theme, largely neglected in the article, of accepting to change our lifestyle, the authors then pinpoint the real problem: “Whether Americans can adopt that mentality remains an open question.” The rest of humanity has no choice because, unlike Americans, they have no reason to believe in their capacity to control everything.

      Unsurprisingly, The Times article ends with a reassuring conclusion, though in this case it retains a timid touch of ambiguity. After admitting that “climate change’s biggest problem may be the sense that it is beyond our control,” the authors cite a climate scientist who offers this philosophical wisdom: “What’s beautiful about the human species is that we have the free will to decide our own fate. We have the agency to take courageous decisions and do what’s needed. If we choose.” In other words, endowed with free will, we are beautifully free to retake control. The only remaining question is this: Who precisely is the “we” with the “agency to take courageous decisions”?

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Trump at the UN: A Failure to Lead

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      True to himself, US President Donald Trump completely failed to address any of the issues confronting the global community in his keynote speech to the 74th General Assembly of the United Nations. Instead, he used the platform to criticize China, to excoriate Iran, to boast of how big and dangerous the US military has become, and to urge every nation to close its borders to even the most hungry or persecuted migrants. He did, however, think it appropriate to support the right of all Americans to own as many guns as they want.

      In the same speech, Trump made headlines with his words urging the world to hold China accountable for having “unleashed this plague on to the world,” in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for deliberately encouraging the coronavirus to spread. The White House cut these words from the transcript posted on its website. Perhaps even the administration’s press office did not have the stomach to publish such libel.

      This speech to the UN was a moment when the leader of the free world — as a US president might once have been seen — could actually attempt to lead. The speech was an opportunity to inspire and to set out a roadmap to a better future. Trump chose to do the reverse. The world is facing a triple crisis of an international pandemic, economic collapse and climate emergency. Trump could only reach out for people to blame: the Chinese, Iranians or Venezuelans. He failed to mention that the United States has the biggest coronavirus death toll of any country in the world, with over 200,000 dead and counting. 

      Nor did Trump comment on the millions out of work or that America’s west is burning at the same time that its southeast is inundated by hurricane after hurricane. These are not just America’s problems: Trump did not address the dire straits of billions of non-Americans impacted by these dangers. Why would he? This is the true measure of “America First.”

      The American leadership vacuum is a grave danger to not just Americans but to us all. Trump’s failure to act early to stem coronavirus infections — a deliberate decision he made to fatuously “avoid panic” — will likely cost the lives of tens of thousands more Americans on top of the current staggering death toll. The US withdrawal from the World Health Organization in the middle of the pandemic signaled that Trump wanted no part of the international leadership out of the health crisis. The resultant deaths will be beyond imagination.  

      Trump has employed the same approach to international economics. His regime’s policy has been to withdraw from trade agreements, set up sanctions barriers against competitors and allies, and complain that everyone else’s industrial policies are more successful than his. Trump has also embarked on a determined effort to weaken the international institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and so on — that have enabled the world economy to prosper for the past 75 years. The world is going to need a great deal of leadership to emerge out of the current economic wasteland, on a scale of what was done to repair the damage of the Second World War. We can rely on Donald Trump to be absent from that role, too.

      As for the climate emergency, Trump has chosen to deny it. More than that, he has proceeded to undo everything previous US governments and the international community had done to try to save the planet from disaster. All of these crises are going to produce millions of refugees across the world. Trump couldn’t care less.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Climate takeover: meet the first-time voters guest editing the Guardian US

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      Climate countdown

      Climate takeover: meet the first-time voters guest editing the Guardian US

      ‘We want to highlight environmental justice during this election season.’
      Composite: Courtesy climate editors

      Seven Generation Z climate activists from across the United States come together to curate a special edition of the Guardian US. Read their section here
      by Guardian guest editors

      Main image:
      ‘We want to highlight environmental justice during this election season.’
      Composite: Courtesy climate editors

      Generation Z didn’t cause the climate crisis, but we’re paying for it. The damage caused by global heating is already doing untold damage to the entire planet, disproportionately hurting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color). For our generation, the toll isn’t just physical, but mental: solastalgia, the stress caused by environmental changes to one’s home, is on the rise.
      We are seven first-time voters from diverse backgrounds across the United States who have come together to curate a special climate edition of the Guardian. We want to bring attention to the physical and mental burdens that our generation is saddled with due to the negligence of past generations. We want to highlight environmental justice during this election season. And we will be keeping environmental issues in mind when we all vote. – Alice Shinn
      Alex Perry, 18Atlanta, GeorgiaFreshman at Northwestern University
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      My Chinese Singaporean and African American heritage inspired me to constantly consider the global implications of local actions. I’m double majoring in journalism and international affairs, with a minor in economics. Post-college, I’m interested in writing about international politics with the goal of motivating others to be aware global citizens.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberI believe the climate crisis is the link that connects all countries. Setting our differences aside, we collectively exist in a bubble with finite resources, meaning that our actions at home have global implications. When I vote in November, I’ll support a candidate who forwards policies that mitigate climate change, making our home a safer and sustainable place to live.
      Twitter: @WhoIsAlexPerry Instagram: @alex.perr.y
      Cora Dow, 18Sitka, AlaskaFreshman at Bowdoin College
      [embedded content]
      I’m never not thinking about the climate crisis. It’s something that guides the decisions I make, from whether I take reusable silverware with me, to which classes I take in college. I discuss it with friends, advocate for its solutions at work, read about it in my free time. I’m interested in environmental studies and history. In the future, I hope to move back to Sitka and continue advocating for the rainforest I grew up in.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberThis November, I want candidates who live this issue as much as so many young people have been forced to. I don’t want the responsibility of fixing the climate crisis after it’s already too late. I don’t want sympathy from older generations, and I don’t want to be told again “I have so much hope for today’s youth.” I just want someone who hasn’t given up yet, who is willing to recognize the problem and take responsibility – and now I finally have a chance to vote.
      Instagram: @ak_c.d
      Jessica Díaz, 21Houston, TexasSenior at Michigan State University
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      As a descendent of P’urhépecha people, I have seen the strong connections between cultural identity and the environment. I advocate for communities on the frontlines of climate change, such as in Houston, which is in the heart of the petrochemical industry. I’m majoring in fisheries and wildlife, and in the future want to support community initiatives to restore damaged ecosystems and correct environmental injustices.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberOur past leaders failed to be proactive when it came to the climate crisis, instead, they loosened environmental restrictions and allowed for BIPOC communities, like my own, to be unequally burdened with toxic air and water. I am voting with the climate crisis as my top issue because we can no longer afford a president and leaders who don’t believe that all people, regardless of their identities, deserve clean air, clean water, good jobs, healthy food, and a livable future.
      Twitter: @buenoss_diazzInstagram: @buenoss_diazz
      Devin Mullins, 19Boone, North CarolinaJunior at Appalachian State University
      [embedded content]
      I credit my passion for climate advocacy to attending a university with a reputation for sustainability. At school, I study political science and sustainable development, while staying actively involved in politics and advocacy. After college,I will be seeking an MPP or JD program that will prepare me to work on economic and environmental public policy that creates a more just and sustainable society for all.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberI’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in November because I have no other choice. Climate change is the most existential threat to a healthy and prosperous future for myself, my peers
      and the family I’d someday like to have. There are leaders in or running for office who are committed to that future, but they need our votes and our voices to be successful. Our future is on the ballot.
      Instagram: @mullins_dt
      Sofia Romero Campbell, 21Denver, ColoradoSenior at Smith College
      [embedded content]
      I’m a senior at Smith College studying government and Latin American studies with a concentration in sustainable food. After graduation, I plan on pursuing a career in environmental policy.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberMy generation is hungry for change and when I vote for the first time in the 2020 presidential election I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis because it illustrates the structural inequities within our government. This is a pivotal moment in history and by prioritizing environmental issues at the ballot box we can address a plethora of other pressing social, political, and economic struggles. Our future wellbeing depends on it and I can’t think of a better framework to enact the most meaningful and lasting change.
      Instagram: @goodmojo99
      Alice Shinn, 20Claremont, CaliforniaJunior at Pomona College
      [embedded content]
      I was born in Tokyo and raised in New York City. I am double majoring in english and environmental analysis, and have no idea what I want to do after graduating. But I plan to further pursue my interests in writing and reading creative non-fiction, and making sustainability not just a buzzword but something that is accessible to all.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberClimate change is the worst problem facing the world. Not racism and police brutality, the wealth gap or late-stage capitalism (although all exacerbate the effects of climate change). The climate crisis impacts all industries, all lifestyles and has a profound mental impact. Encouragingly, youths have been radicalized after George Floyd’s murder, but now we must ask ourselves: which candidate will respect and comply with climate accords? Who will crack the door open for decades of work by activists and scientists? We must – reluctantly or enthusiastically – vote for the candidate who is willing to even acknowledge the climate crisis.
      Instagram: @aliceshinn
      Allyson Smith, 19Memphis, TennesseeSophomore at Howard University
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      I am an activist, poet, all-around creative and political science major. I am heavily involved with politics and am a firm believer in youth political participation. I say “no” to the status quo and use my voice as a stepping stone to an equal society that reflects the people’s interest.
      Why I’ll be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in NovemberI will be thinking about the climate crisis when I vote in November because I look at all the people in my hometown who are in proximity to chemical plants and not heard due to the greed of capitalism. I think about how the sole resources of water worldwide are drying up and people are severely dehydrated due to this. This is an intersectional issue, this is racial justice. I have no other option than to think about the climate crisis because my life and wellbeing are at stake.
      Twitter: @senpaiversesInstagram: @allyn.smith

      Photograph by Sabrina Lucas

      Topics

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      US politics

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