In recent news, Donald Trump still doesn’t believe in climate change. Per usual, he’s used his power to mock those who do and has further proved himself to be uneducated and naive (not to mention unable to spell). This was his tweet reminding the country his disbelief in something scientifically proven:
Photo from Donald Trump’s personal twitter.
So while it’s easy for our president to just simply ignore the reality that our planet is cooking itself because of human activity, it’s just as easy to explain how global warming, which is causing climate change, is still real despite the fact that it still gets cold outside in places like the Midwest of the United States. So, let’s tear this tweet apart.
On the most basic level, weather and climate are not the same. Weather is typically measured in temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility and wind, with typical questions asked like “is it going to be hot in my town today?” Climate involves looking at weather patterns and averages of weather activity over long periods of time, usually 30 years, with questions asked such as “why is sea ice melting drastically compared to in previous decades?”
So, Mr. President, saying these “coming days” are going to be some of the coldest and equating that to global warming not existing, therefore implying climate change doesn’t exist either, doesn’t make sense considering the comparison is between two entirely different things. And while he likely won’t be around in the next 30 years to see this, these extremely cold days will become less and less often due to the planet warming.
With extensive scientific evidence proving that climate change and global warming are real (NASA does a great job explaining it very simply) the consequences for not acting to stop global warming are vast. These resulting disasters, including but not limited to the global temperature rising, ocean acidification and having its water levels and temperatures rising, and a decrease in sea ice, glaciers, and snow cover, are all effects of global warming and demonstrate how climate change is not something to be joked around about.
So while it’s nice to laugh and joke about people of the Midwest needing global warming given the very cold temperatures, the reality is our planet is running dangerously close to the irreversible effects of climate change. So to mock the scientific evidence is insulting to the planet that we are destroying because ignorant policymakers are ignoring the science.
To claim us Midwesterners could really use some “Global Waming” is to imply we would rather speed up the destruction of our planet than simply bundle up or miss work for a day or two, which is also insulting.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather wear more layers than wish for the planet to continue to warm and for the climate to continue to change. Thanks for the thought though, Trump!