Government climate report warns of worsening United States disasters

Donald Trump has rejected a central conclusion of a dire report on the economic costs of climate change released by his own administration.

"When we have the flu, you have a fever - that's one symptom of the flu".

The president was responding to a stunning report released by his administration Friday that said climate change will cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, damaging everything from human health to infrastructure and agricultural production.

"You're going to have to have China and Japan and all of Asia and all these other countries, you know, it [the report] addresses our country".

The federal government's latest report on climate change warns of specific dangers to Midwest agriculture production, which comprises a significant portion of the economies of Kansas and Missouri.

Some findings are in conflict with the statements and policies of President Donald Trump.

It's not the first time that Trump has discounted the consequences - or cause - of climate change.

The president's reaction has made it tougher for already-reluctant Republicans to embrace a dramatic response to global warming.

Because there are VERY few coincidences in politics, the decision to speed up the release of the report to the day after Thanksgiving - rather than, say, today - was clearly a move by the administration to cover up what they see to be bad news.

The most obvious cry for help on global warming is coming right now from Northern California, where the fast-moving Camp Fire turned entire subdivisions in Paradise into grim rectangles of grey rubble in a matter of hours, as those surrounded by flames frantically called and texted their family members to say goodbye.

In addition, the report outlined the toll that declining air quality and disease transmission will have that is set to 'increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people'.

"Self-reinforcing cycles within the climate system have the potential to accelerate human-induced change and even shift Earth's climate system into new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past", the report notes.

And yet, the chances of Trump taking any of the advice from this report, which was conducted by HIS administration, are somewhere close to zero. Why? "And if we can't, that's fine", said Trump in June 2017.

Trump and several members of his cabinet have also repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change, arguing the causes and impacts are not yet settled. "If we're clean and everyone else is dirty, that's not so good'".

"I had breakfast this morning too, and that doesn't mean we alleviated world hunger - and that's what that logic is like". The report's release surprised even its authors and came shortly after Trump inaccurately tweeted that cold weather on a single day disproves the theory of climate change.

Under President Trump, the United States pulled out of the Paris-Climate agreement, which put America on track to reducing greenhouse gasses by 26% while handing over billions of dollars to the United Nations.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that he had read "some" of the report.

  • Anthony Vega