• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Science and Tech

US Government: Climate Change Is Real, Despite Trump Denial

  • A man walks along the dried-up bed of a reservoir in Sanyuan county, in China's Shaanxi province.

    A man walks along the dried-up bed of a reservoir in Sanyuan county, in China's Shaanxi province. | Photo: Reuters

Published 3 November 2017
Opinion

The report is starkly at odds with the position of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called global warming 'a Chinese hoax' and hired a fossil-fuel promoter to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The U.S. government has released a major scientific report insisting climate change is not only real but "extremely likely" to be caused by human activity, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.

RELATED:
Climate Change Will Displace Tens of Millions in Next Decade: Report

"The Climate Science Special Report," released Friday, spans more than 600 pages and is part of a larger report entitled "The Fourth National Climate Assessment."

Based on "a large body of scientific, peer-reviewed research," the average annual air temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by about 1.0 Celsius over the last 115 years (1901–2016), the report notes. "This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization," write the authors. 

The substantial dossier was compiled by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, with contributions from NASA, the Department of Energy, and other federal agencies.

Since the last similar report was issued in 2014, "stronger evidence has emerged for continuing, rapid, human-caused warming of the global atmosphere and ocean," the new report notes.

"It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," write the authors, noting there "is no convincing alternative explanation."

After examining long-term climate records and data going back thousands of years, the report concludes that in the modern era "average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more."

The findings came as no surprise to climate scientists. "This isn't new," Peter Gleick, president-emeritus of the Pacific Institute and a member of the U.S. National Academies of Science, posted on Twitter. "This is news only because Trump couldn't censor it."

RELATED:
Carbon Dioxide Levels In Earth's Atmosphere Hit Record High, Drastic Action Needed: UN

The Trump administration has repeatedly downplayed the role of fossil fuels in causing climate change. Newly appointed Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt shocked scientists earlier this year when he argued that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming.

The NOAA, meanwhile, has said the report "serves as the foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-making about responses."

Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and eight of his colleagues sent a letter to Trump this week asking "what safeguards are in place to ensure that the National Climate Assessment and the Climate Science Special Report give fair and accurate summations of the latest climate science without political interference?"

The senators also asked how the Trump Administration plans to address the report's findings. The president has yet to respond. 

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.