{"id":24797,"date":"2017-06-23T09:25:35","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T13:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=24797"},"modified":"2017-06-23T09:25:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T13:25:36","slug":"letter-trump-turns-us-into-rogue-climate-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=24797","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Trump turns US into rogue climate state"},"content":{"rendered":"

To The Editor,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.\u00a0 Trump has turned the US into a rogue climate state.<\/p>\n

Trump is lying to us and the rest of the world about Global Warming\/Climate Change (GW\/CC) and the supposedly negative economic consequences to the US had the US not withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the US does have progressive, forward thinking, fact-based leaders at other levels in the public and private sectors to take the lead.\u00a0 \u201cWeAreStillIn\u201d is proclaimed by: 131 Cities and Counties, 9 States, 186 Colleges and Universities, and over 900 Business and Investors.<\/p>\n

These climate leaders know and understand the facts that Trump and his administration do not.<\/p>\n

The US has 25% of the world\u2019s GP, spends $1 Trillion\/year on our war machine, so contributing a couple $Billion to the Green Climate Fund to help poor countries mitigate the effects of GW\/CC is NOT too costly.<\/p>\n

The US has only 4.3% of the world\u2019s population, yet our cumulative emissions have created 29% of the GW\/CC problem.\u00a0 We have created far more than our fair share of the problem, but Trump says we will not help solve the problem. In fact, he\u2019s going to do his best to make it worse.<\/p>\n

This is a global issue and requires a global response.\u00a0 CO2<\/sub> emitted in the US does not stay in the US.\u00a0 It\u2019s everywhere; the atmosphere is well mixed.<\/p>\n

Earth\u2019s atmosphere is a common good.\u00a0 It belongs to every human walking the face of the earth.\u00a0 It is NOT our exclusive greenhouse gas dump.<\/p>\n

GW\/CC is not going away.\u00a0 It is irreversible.<\/p>\n

The rise in CO2<\/sub> is unabated, the consequent rise in temperature follows, and is unabated.<\/p>\n

The science is unequivocal. \u00a0Climate science is 193 years old.\u00a0 The first scientific paper introducing the concept of the greenhouse gas effect was published by Fourier in 1824<\/u>.\u00a0 James Monroe was president, our 5th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

The physics of the greenhouse gas effect is now well understood and standard textbook physics.<\/p>\n

In 1896<\/u>, it was known that if the atmospheric CO2<\/sub> concentration doubled (+100%), the average temperature would rise several \u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (IR), the atmospheric CO2<\/sub> concentration has risen from 280 ppm to 409 ppm (+46%) and the average temperature has risen\u00a0 ~1 \u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Isotopic analysis of the atmospheric CO2<\/sub> confirms that the increase is due to human emissions from fossil-fuel combustion. We humans ARE the polluters.<\/p>\n

We have the results and analyses from studies by thousands of scientists since 1824.\u00a0 Just since 1990, over 100,000 scientific papers have been published on GW\/CC.\u00a0 We have moved from early 19th<\/sup>-century measurement technologies and laboratories to sophisticated 20th<\/sup>– and 21st<\/sup>-century computer-based technologies, including remote-sensing satellite systems.<\/p>\n

The universally accepted goal is to keep the temperature rise to < 2\u00b0C, though many scientists have concluded that actually 1.5\u00b0C would be a far safer goal.\u00a0\u00a0 The rise is already at ~1\u00b0C, halfway to the limit.<\/p>\n

For a 66% chance of staying below a 2\u00b0C rise, the total human release of CO2<\/sub> since the beginning of the IR must be limited to 2900 billion tons.\u00a0 Humans have already emitted 2100 billion tons.\u00a0 That means we\u2019ve got ~20 more years at today\u2019s emission rates to get worldwide emissions to zero. \u00a0Fossil fuels must stay in the ground.<\/p>\n

Forty Presidents later, Trump and our government leadership are denying 193 years of GW\/CC science, believing \u2018alternative facts,\u2019 and acting destructively.<\/p>\n

As Upton Sinclair said: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole world will pay the price for our leaders who have been bought by BigFossilFuel.<\/p>\n

Dr. B. Gerard Bricks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kennett Township<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To The Editor, Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.\u00a0 Trump has turned the US into a rogue climate state. Trump is lying to us and the rest of the world about Global Warming\/Climate Change (GW\/CC) and the supposedly negative economic consequences to the US had the US not withdrawn. Fortunately, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9103,6900,9102,9104],"class_list":["post-24797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-climate-change","tag-donald-trump","tag-letter","tag-paris-accords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24798,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24797\/revisions\/24798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}