President Donald Trump has said that climate change is a hoax, but in a 500-page report issued last month, his administration asserted it’s indeed real—so real, in fact, that it foresees a seven degrees Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures by 2100. Still, it seeks to reverse the Obama-era fuel economy standards aimed at averting such this catastrophe, according to The Washington Post. Great.
The unbelievable admission came in an environmental impact statement issued by the Trump administration to justify its proposal to freeze fuel economy standards at levels set in 2020. The plan would be a drastic departure from previous levels set by former President Barack Obama, in an effort to combat climate change.
On the current course we’re on, the report asserts, Earth will warm seven degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. In case you need context on how catastrophic that will be, the Post offers some immediate clarity:
A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.
[...] If enacted, the administration’s proposals would give new life to aging coal plants; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere; and prevent new curbs on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air-conditioning units. The vehicle rule alone would put 8 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year’s worth of total U.S. emissions, according to the government’s own analysis.
Here’s the kicker, though: It wasn’t as if Trump’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offered this forecast under the assumption that everyone will fail to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. “Just the opposite,” the Post says, “The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.”
The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed. From President Trump. Who believes climate change is a hoax.
While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.
“The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society,” said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002. “And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it.”
Why not, right? Automakers want an easier time to make gas guzzlers that the people are yearning to drop gobs of cash on, so if climate change can’t be reversed and Manhattan’s going to fall into the Atlantic anyway, fuck it, make it rain.
The Post reports that Trump’s analysis presumes global temps will rise by about 3.5 degrees Celsius in the coming decades, even if Obama’s tailpipe standards went into effect.
And so, the story goes on to say:
The world would have to make deep carbon cuts to avoid the kind of drastic warming envisioned in this 2100 scenario, the analysis states, which “would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today’s levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible.”
But we’re not, as the analysis concedes that Trump’s rule would dump an additional eight billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere this century, “more than a year’s worth of total U.S. emissions,” the Post reports.
See you in hell, everybody!