How bad can the climate crisis get if Trump wins again?

Climate pollution in the US is up under Donald Trump and threatens to undermine international efforts to stall the crisis, especially if he wins re-election this year and secures a second term in the White House.

A person wears a Donald Trump mask during the ‘March
 for Climate’ demanding action against climate change
 during the COP25 Climate Summit in Madrid, Spain, in December 2019.

While US climate emissions fell 2.1% in 2019, they rose significantly in 2018, according to estimates from the economic analysis firm Rhodium Group. On net, emissions are slightly higher than in the beginning of 2017, when Trump’s administration began enacting dozens of environment rollbacks aimed at helping the oil and gas industry.

Trump is still working to further weaken bedrock standards. This week he proposed to allow major projects like pipelines and highways to bypass reviews of how they will contribute to global warming. The draft rule is unlikely to become final before the November election, but it is yet another reason industries weighing climate choices might delay significant action.

Read the story from The Guardian by Emily Holden - “How bad can the climate crisis get if Trump wins again?”

Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming

It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.

The Earth had its 3rd-warmest April on record,
 both NOAA and NASA said. Red areas are
warmer-than-average. North America was the
one part of the world that saw unusually cool
 temperatures in April.

It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.

Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. 

The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. 

Read the story by Doyle Rice from USA Today - “Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming.”

Trump’s attempt to pull the USA out of the Paris Agreement: a personal reaction from Solaraid.

by Jeremy Leggett.

I was barely listening as he delivered his speech. I had heard most of his mantras already. I also knew that he would be unable to complete a US pullout, legally, until his second term. And he surely can’t aspire to one of those now, with all the skeletons that are rattling in his closet. I was thinking instead about what people can do in the face of madness such as this.

Donald Trump and Angela Merkel.

One of the options is to focus on projects that demonstrate, in a way that is impossible to ignore, that he is wrong. And more, that the belief system he is a symptom of is wrong: rottenly, suicidally, wrong.

I stared at the little solar light on my desk as the President pursed his lips and blustered his distortions and lies. Nothing that I know of shows how wrong Trump is on energy than that light. It captures the perversity of his world view in perfect miniature.

Read Jeremy Leggett’s thoughts - “Trump’s attempt to pull the USA out of the Paris Agreement: a personal reaction from Solaraid.”