Trumping science - Village Magazine

7 2 December - January 2017

ENVIRONMENT

N 8 NOVEMBER Donald Trump was

elected the forty-fifth President of

the United States to be sworn into

office with ancient pomp on 20 Janu-

ary 2017. The power and influence of

the United States ensures that their presidential

elections attract worldwide media coverage.

This election got the studied interest of people

who but for Donal Trump as the Republican can

didate would not have been particularly

interested. Because Trump is a rule-breaker and

a showman. Much of the world, including you,

oh reader, was aghast and bewildered by the

electoral outcome. Sixty-one million people

voted for Trump.

This column focuses on Trump’s attitude

towards the biosphere whose health is critically

dependent on humankind radically reducing its

emission of global-warming gases.

Although in his New York businessman days

he once signed a petition calling for urgent cli

mate action Trump’s current view is that global

warming is a hoax. In November 2012 he

tweeted:

“The concept of global warming was created

by and for the Chinese in order to make US manu-

facturing non-competitive”.

In January 2014 he tweeted:

"Any and all weather events are used by the

GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher

taxes to save our planet! They don’t believe in

$$$$!"; and:

"This is very expensive GLOBAL WARMING

bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing,

record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck

in ice”.

Trump has appointed climate-deniers Rick Perry

to head the Energy Department and Scott Pruitt

as head of the EPA. Trump said that on assuming

office his number one environmental priority

would be to cancel the UN sponsored Paris Cli-

mate Agreement, not uncoincidentally the

number one environmental priority for environ-

mentalists, which aims to prevent the global

temperature rising above 2 degrees Celsius over

pre-industrial levels, with the aspiration of cur-

tailing the rise to 1.5 degrees. The global

temperature has already risen by 1.2 degrees

which means that the emission of global

warming gases needs to be on a steep down-

ward trajectory. Trump has also promised to

“end the war on coal”, cut funding for renewable

energy and neuter the effectiveness of the Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency which has a

country-wide environmental monitoring and

enforcement role. The reason his expressed pri-

orities are so subversive of environmentalism is

that he has decided that his populist appeal is

advanced by threatening the non-populist,

indeed of course entirely voiceless,

environment.

Some readers may be surprised to know that

Trump’s views on the environment are in sync

with the widespread rupture between citizens,

corporations and governments have and nonhu-

man nature. This is demonstrated by our treating

the biosphere as a warehouse of resources to be

used to ever increase our comfort, convenience

and amusement. It is demonstrated by our poi

soning of the soil, air, inland waterways and

seas. The disconnect is also underscored by the

enormous amount of food that goes uneaten, the

amount of redundant material, normally called

waste, that is burnt in furnaces and dumped in

holes in the ground as well as our historically

epic extinction of species. According to the

Worldwide Fund for Nature, the number of wild

animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years.

If you think Trump’s environmental ideology is

not that of most people, do an eco-audit. Ask

yourself how many car journeys and air flights

you decided not to take because of the contribu

tion they would have made to global warming.

When did you last forego a purchase because it

contained palm oil, usually described as vegeta-

ble oil? Palm oil, an ingredient in over 2,000

everyday products, is grown in Indonesia and

other tropical countries on land that was once

covered with rainforest. The forests and their

rich variety of flora and fauna were fire-bombed

and clear-felled into oblivion and the indigenous

peoples who lived in them expelled.

What percentage of your diet is composed of

Trumping science

The new American President is post-

science just as he is post-truth

by Laurence Speight

Trump ‘s number one

environmental priority

is to cancel the Paris

Climate Agreement, not

uncoincidentally the number

one environmental priority for

environmentalists

IS GLOBAL WARMING HAPPENING AND MOSTLY HUMAN CAUSED?

December - January 2017 7 3

Trump has decided

that his populist

appeal is advanced

by threatening the

non-populist, indeed

of course entirely

voiceless, environment

meat? Rearing animals for meat is a major contributor to

global warming. Agriculture is a significant driver of

global warming and causes 15% of all emissions, half of

which are from livestock. Beef requires 28 times more

land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more

water and results in five times more climate-warming

emissions. What are your plans to help heal nonhuman

nature this Christmas rather than harm it through extrav-

agant consumption? Will you plant a tree or cut one

down?

Most governments ignore the pro-environmental

agreements they sign. Ireland

plans to continue to expand dairy

and beef farming which will

increase rather than reduce our

emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is

fixated on facilitating the use of

private rather than public trans

port. In the UK autumn budget

statement the Chancellor of the

Exchequer did not mention climate

change once.

Given that the vast majority of

people do not directly work with nonhuman nature in

order to earn a living, and have little awareness about

the wasteful lifecycle of goods, it is understandable, per-

haps inevitable, that the level of empathy that exists for

nonhuman nature has not translated into sustained eco-

sensitive behaviour. The Herculean challenge is to

nurture positive environmental sentiments that are a cat-

alyst for behavioural change. This should involve schools

teaching pupils to base their views on evidence, think

critically, be aware of the place of humans in nature and

indeed in the universe, and have the confidence to

express their views, and change them, while respecting

people who hold alternative ones. This should be an inte-

gral part of civic culture. Faith groups have also an

important role to play in encouraging critical thinking

and eco-sensitive behaviour.

What appears to have happened in the US presidential

campaign is that voters heard what they wanted to hear,

confirmation bias, and did not test the policies and

claims of the contestants. What is disheartening about

the election of Trump is that as a herd leader in the global

arena, in a country that sets legal and normative stand-

ards for the world, he seems set to fail humanity and the

community of species we share the biosphere with. As

Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist of the US National

Centre for Atmospheric Research has brutally noted,

Trump’s election “is an unmitigated disaster for the

planet”.

Fortunately the power of the US Presidency is not that

of an autocratic monarch and the trend towards renew

able forms of energy in the United States and elsewhere

will continue regardless. Trump could become the Presi-

dent wearing no clothes, someone whose environmental

ignorance and narcissism is mocked, resulting in his

regressive attitude towards the biosphere melting as

fast as the ice in the Arctic.

In general Trump’s ego won’t allow him to think he has

been made a fool. The problem, for a man whose atten-

tion span and horizons are notoriously narrow and for

the rest of us, is that the consequences of his environ-

mental ignorance may not manifest during the

septuagenarian’s lifetime.