Today will live in infamy for all of us that take to heart what science is telling us about human-fueled climate change. The President will order the United States government to ignore the science and accelerate fossil energy production and consumption in this country. This deliberate attempt to destroy the quality of life for future generations will be called the “Energy Independence Executive Order.”
Here is a brief summary of this executive action:
The order will instruct all agencies to identify all policies that “serve as obstacles or impediments to energy production.” The White House provided no timeline for implementing the order, but said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was “ready to hit the ground running.” Huffington Post
You can find a detailed description of Trump’s Energy Independence order here.
The White House also made sure to tell everyone that it does not care what impact this will have on carbon emissions.
“We have a different view about how you should address climate policy in the U.S., and we’re going in a different direction,” a senior White House official told reporters Monday evening. “I can’t get into ultimately what that means from an emissions standpoint. I have no idea.” Huffington Post
It is an action that is nothing short of reckless. We all know this administration is not good with numbers, but here are few relevant numbers. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere once averaged 280 ppm prior to heavy use of fossil fuels. Those levels have now risen above 400 ppm with a corresponding increase in global temperatures of nearly 1 degree Celsius. Without drastic reductions in carbon emissions, the increase in global temperatures could easily hit 4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The impacts of that climate change are expected to be severe. Children born today will likely live long enough to experience the worst of those impacts during the last half of this century.
The Trump administration has decided to increase our extraction of carbon energy sources and increase carbon emissions from every sector of the economy. These actions will make it all but impossible for the United States to meet its commitment to reduce carbon emissions by more than 25% from 2005 levels by 2025 as part of the Paris climate agreement. As the second largest carbon polluter in the world, that failure will have far-reaching consequences, setting the worst possible example for the rest of the world. It is only fitting that Trump and company have also decided to declare war on climate science.
Trump is far from extreme in today’s Republican Party, but he is the captain of this ship of fossil fools. So when your grandchildren ask why we ignored science and doubled down on carbon emissions when there was still time to prevent future climate hell, tell them tales of Trump.
Welcome to the Dark Ages 2.0.