Opinion | Trump's heated, bogus blame game on climate change
President Donald Trump says the United States is, thanks to him, the hottest country in the world. For once, he's probably right, but not for the reasons he thinks. As record heatwaves roast Americans this. . .
President Donald Trump says the United States is, thanks to him, the hottest country in the world. For once, he's probably right, but not for the reasons he thinks. As record heatwaves roast Americans this summer, much of the rest of the northern hemisphere is sweltering through record-shattering temperatures. France and Spain have experienced temperatures reaching 113 degrees, while Britan reached the highest temperature ever recorded in June. Germany and Switzerland suspended some passenger trains out of fears the tracks might buckle. Air-conditioning-averse Paris has experienced dozens of heat-related deaths. Even the normally cool Sweden has had to issue heat warnings. And here in Trump's "hot" America, it's been hot alright. There's no snow in Colorado's mountains, so the Colorado River is drying up, leaving homes and farms on the brink of rationing their supply. The heat is causing wildfires to break out everywhere and they're polluting the air like we've seldom seen before. The northern half of our country has been covered with smoke and haze that have drifted south from Canadian and northern Minnesota wildfires. These forests that have been ablaze for weeks this summer. As outdoor events were cancelled, Americans found new use for the face masks left over from the COVID-19 crisis. It's been enough to convince even the skeptics that perhaps this crazy weather — the heat domes, the tornados, the floods and the draughts — is being caused by the heating of our planet. Except, of course, the president of the United States, who continues to insist that climate change is a "hoax," and we don't need to do anything about it. In fact, according to him and the bright lights he's appointed to guard the environment, we need to pump even more carbon into the air and suck more oil out of the ground. That smoke wafting over U. S. territory? It's all Canada's fault for doing such a poor job keeping its forests tidy. Never mind those lightning strikes that keep igniting the trees. Scientists were incredulous after Trump accused Canada of “poisoning” the United States’ air and threatened to retaliate with sanctions against our northern neighbor. Trump boasted that he confronted Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney during the World Cup finals and told him, "You've got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air. ” He added, "But maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs. ”Sure enough, a couple days later, he announced 50% tariffs on several Canadian products. Another bright light among Trump's supporters, Ohio Republican U. S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, announced he was introducing the “CANADA FIRE Act,” which in addition to declaring a national emergency, strips Canadian officials of their visas and expels the Canadian ambassador until the smoke clears. “Ohioans across the state are being subjected to hazardous conditions – we will not tolerate this incompetence,” Moreno declared. Michigan Republican U. S. Rep. Lisa McClain joined in, claiming that Michiganders were “breathing Canada’s negligence,” because Canada is “exporting” their smoke “into our skies. ”Meanwhile, a coalition of congressional Trump acolytes sent a letter to Carney threatening military reprisals. They warned that if Ottawa didn’t act, the U. S. military and agencies would “act on our own” by physically crossing the border to perform unilateral logging and fire suppression. But, countered Marshall Burke, an environmental policy expert at Stanford University, “The main cause of worsening fires in Canada is not mismanagement — most Canadian forests are remote and haven’t been managed at all, unlike the U. S. — but instead a warming climate that has made large and extreme wildfires more common. ”“These fires are not the result of Canadian action nor inaction, but instead largely the result of forces outside their control. So, punishment here would do nothing,” he added. Attacking Canada over the fires is “unfounded, uninformed and even insensitive to people losing homes and firefighters putting their lives on the line,” said Lori Daniels, an ecologist and wildfire expert at the University of British Columbia. And Carney noted that “fighting climate change is the responsibility of all countries, including the United States. ” While Canada is investing in clean energy, Carney added, Trump is doing the opposite by pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Indeed, as columnist Sabrina Haake pointed out, Trump has systematically rolled back almost every clean air protection passed in previous administrations, directly accelerating emissions and global warming. Aside from withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, he has consistently promoted climate disinformation and once claimed black air from burning coal is good for you — apparently not as bad as the smoke from Canada. He has halted all federal permitting for offshore wind, closing deals with energy companies to abandon wind farms off California, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina in exchange for investing in fossil fuel projects. Other climate-change actions he has taken include revoking the scientific declaration that greenhouse gases threaten public health, eliminating federal tailpipe emissions and efficiency rules for cars and trucks, weakening methane regulations and enforcement codes that required fossil fuel companies to fix gas leaks, and freezing billions of dollars in incentives for renewables while paying over $2. 6 billion to cancel wind farms already under development. All of which means, of course, that we've taken several steps back from doing our part in meeting the challenge that's in front of all of us. Yes, America is hot and it's going to get hotter.