11-04-2017, 08:47 PM
Put on the spot by the government report, from Vox:
- The Trump administration released the National Climate Assessment on Friday. It’s a new report on climate change compiled by the US government, and it contradicts many of the things members of the Trump administration have been saying about climate change. [Washington Post / Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin, and Brady Dennis]
- The biggest conclusion of the 477-page report is that humans are responsible for causing climate change, saying there is "no convincing alternative explanation." [US Global Change Research Program]
- The report examined the impact of a warming climate in the United States, and found that it is impacting air conditions, agriculture, and flooding as well as other adverse weather events in every part of the country. [CNN / Eli Watkins]
- The report was started under the Obama administration, and the Trump administration did not try to block its release. By law, such reports have to be released every four years. [Bloomberg / Joe Ryan]
- The overwhelming majority of the scientific community has said this for years, but members of the Trump administration have openly questioned this science and tried to minimize it. (It’s not just Trump’s administration that’s done this; there are plenty of other members of the Republican Party who have said the same thing.) [Vox / Andrew Prokop]
- Under Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the government's environmental agency has erased all mentions of climate change from its website and instructed its scientists not to present reports on global warming. (Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general, is a big friend of fossil fuel companies). [NYT / Lisa Friedman]
- Many scientists feared the Trump administration would try to block the report. It didn’t do this, and now it is in the uncomfortable position of opposing the scientific evidence of the government’s own scientists. [NPR / Christopher Joyce]

