"America first" will lead us all into the abyss

Since the installation of Donald tRUmp as executive director in the White House, we have been overwhelmed by a barrage news (often in the form of tweets) conveying attacks om truth, society and science. While many executive orders have been issued, little leadership has been shown with the political fiasco regarding the new health care bill as tRumps low point so far. Every day, there is also new information uncovered that shows the deep personal and economical ties between the tRump campaign and Russia. This is not a story that will end well. 

What we must not forget during all this drama is that obscured by politics, climate disruption continues at full speed and this week, tRump signalled his intent to drag us all with him into the climate abyss. 

Surrounded by a group of all white men tRump signed his executive order to roll back environmental legislation and climate regulation, instead promoting coal as his way of making “America great”. But regardless of the effects of tRumps policies on the global climate (more on that below), another victim will be the American clean energy industry. Or as Tom Friedman wrote in NY Times; tRump must be a Chinese agent with a secret plan to crash US industry. Because if not:

The only other explanation is that he’s ignorant and unread — that he’s never studied the issues or connected the dots between them — so Big Coal and Big Oil easily manipulated him into being their chump, who just tweeted out their talking points to win votes here and there — without any thought to grand strategy. Surely that couldn’t be true?

Coming back to the real physical world, thermodynamics couldn’t care less about politics. It’s really very easy to understand; more greenhouse gases in atmosphere will mean more heat trapped; more heat trapped means melting ice and disruptive weather effects. In both the Arctic and the Antarctic, sea ice is at a record low, which is bad news for the glaciers. 

Melting ice caps on both the top and bottom of the globe will naturally lead to increasing sea levels. Long term this will mean many meters increase in sea level, but already mid century many cities along the US coast may be faced with up to one metre higher ocean levels. The golf club in Florida where tRump pretends to be working every weekend will have easy access to the waterfront in a not to far future. 

The tRump-Putin link comes back to play also in the climate area, as they both have reasons to avoid any serious attempts to curb the use of fossil fuels. For Putin, the income from oil and gas is essential in order to be able to invest in weapons and keeping the Russian population reasonably content. Trump is beholden to his billionaire friends and their links to the oil and gas industry. Together tRump and Putin has every reason in their world to resist the renewable energy transition. 

This inaction will come with a hefty price tag.  All signs are that not only will climate change lead to immense suffering, it will also be an economical disaster. 

“Historically, people have considered a 20 percent decline in global Gross Domestic Product to be a black swan: a low-probability catastrophe,” Hsiang warned. “We’re finding it’s more like the middle-of-the-road forecast.”

Recently I was in Stockholm at a conference on sustainable health care. While there, I hade the opportunity to both listen and talk to Kevin Anderson (@kevinclimate). He is a climate scientist that divides his time between Manchester UK and Uppsala Sweden. When travelling between these cities, he chooses the train since he sees the necessity to "walk the talk". We in the rich part of the world have both the resources and the knowledge to change, thus it is our moral obligation to do so. You can listen to Kevin in this video. 

What Kevin as well as other scientists have shown is that the time for nice and slow transition was in the past. Hade we started out transferring to a low carbon economy 20 years ago, when we already had the knowledge, it would have been a smooth journey. But, as this graph shows, now we need drastic cuts starting today. 

We are no longing talking about climate change in a far away future, it is here and now and it's about humans, not polar bears: 

"When scientists worry about cataclysmic weather chaos, they’re worrying not about distant unknowable generations. They’re worrying about the kids all around us: the ones on their way to school, playing in the park, asking for a bedtime story”

So where do I start myself? On the personal level by planning next vacation trip by train, instead of via air. And on larger level, it's political action that is needed by resisting the liers and nay-sayers. We can still change the path we are on but not without fighting for a better future.