Which Is More Dangerous, Ignorance or Climate Change

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

By Glen Reaux

In the midst of one of the most devastating winter storms in American history, on the night of January 28th, 2019, President Donald Trump tweeted: “In the be autiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!” In a time when it has become common knowledge to grade-schoolers, that climate change as a result of global warming is real and poses the greatest threat to the survival of mankind since the invention of the atom bomb, this statement, in the form of a tweet was the best that the most powerful man in the world had to offer the American people. This characterization by Donald J. Trump, out of his own “good, big brain that knows a lot of words” is beyond proof of his ignorance. It is an epitaph on the gravestone of an America and a planet that is surely doomed in his hands and the hands of other ignorant and greedy men. Their greed has created for them, an environment that has fostered crops of ignorance and contempt for the very planet that has given life to them and their future descendants. This ignorance and contempt is what they are now attempting to feed to the masses, in their continued attempts to enrich their pockets at the expense of our national and global security. This ignorance and in many cases greed by billionaires and multinational oil companies is endangering our future and immediate existence and should make the American people ask the question: Which is more dangerous ignorance or climate change?

The term global warming which means an increase in the earth’s surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases was first used in a 1975 science article by Columbia University’s geochemist, Dr. Wallace Broecker. This term due to its ominous sound, became popularized by the news media and set-off alarms which led to a great deal of scientific study. These resultant investigations, eventually led to the accepted conclusions correlating global warming to climate change. Knowing the history of global warming and its relation to climate change is not a requisite for becoming President of the United States, but being ignorant of its effects is not acceptable for the person who has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. This first-of-its-kind attempt to secure humanity’s future by saving the planet is within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this situation, his ignorance does not bring about perfect happiness or great joy (bliss).

While global warming may sound more threatening than climate change, let there be no mistake, climate change may kill us all, and not in the too distant future. The Coming Global Superstorm is a 1999 science fiction novel written by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. It was the basis the 2004 hit movie, The Day after Tomorrow. The movie depicts a series of devastating global catastrophes that decimate the planet and kills millions of people. Included in these catastrophes are sudden and extreme freezing of large cities, massive tornadoes and unprecedented groups or waves of tornadoes. In recent years, the tornadoes mentioned in the book have been devastating the nation’s central plains and have had unprecedented effects on several of the eastern seaboard states. During this same time period, many northern cities have experienced colder and colder winters. In the last week of January, the entire nation with the exception of a few southern states experienced a winter resembling the global superstorm mentioned in the book. This incident is what prompted Donald Trump to tweet “What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!” This is our fearless leader speaking. Not mentioned in the book or movie is the increase in the severity of hurricanes and the number of these storms that have begun to travel further and further north up the east coast. Despite this 2016 quote by Trump, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”, climate change is so real that in 2016 both the U.S. and China signed the Paris Agreement.

In spite of decades-old denials by the Republican Party and their presidents, in 2004 the Pentagon advised President George W. Bush, that climate change is a national security threat greater than that of global terrorism. In a Pentagon_Climate Change 2003 Report, titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, many of the events laid out in the movie The Day After Tomorrow were presented, as not only possible but very probable events by 2020. The report also spoke of droughts that would completely destroy crop production, mass migrations, and military conflicts leading to nuclear war, all caused by climate change.

The report which was commissioned by the Pentagon and authored by scientists Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall suggests that once temperatures rise above a certain threshold, abrupt atmospheric circulations could resort in temperature changes dropping in some areas by 5-10 degrees. The recent storms of January 2019 were caused by the polar vortex dropping as far south as the plains states. This is an example of abrupt atmospheric circulation change. What was once considered to be an unusual occurrence has now become a seasonal event. Terrorists are considered to be a threat to national security because of the sudden and unexpected destruction of property, disruption of commerce and deaths caused by their attacks. The recent extreme storms caused by climate change are just as terroristic. Right now, in every respect, climate change is an even greater threat to National Security. Sadly, in addressing this threat, our future is in the hands of a man that in 2015 said, “It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”

While in the media, a great deal of influence is given to the broader impacts of climate change, there are other impacts that are more evident and are of a more personal nature. Since its inception under the Nixon administration in1970, the Environmental Agency (EPA) has been tasked with the responsibility of protecting our water, air and other elements of our environment from pollution. Unlike the U.S., China does not and has not placed a strong emphasis on environmental protections. As a result, the people of China face an air pollution catastrophe on a daily basis.

As of January of 2013, China burns 47% of the world’s coal supply which is equivalent to the rest of the world’s nations combined. According to the EPAs air pollution scale, the air in Beijing passes the 300 threshold. It, on many occasions, surpasses the 886 mark (300 is considered to be unsafe to breathe). Beijing’s air isn’t even China’s worst: That honor goes to the city of Ürümqi in the nations far west. Incidents of lung cancer, emphysema, asthma and other respiratory illness are higher per capita in China than in any other industrialized nation. If the Trump administration continues to go down the traditional Republican path of placing corporate interest ahead of the interest of the people while at the same time denying the existence of climate change, America will become another China.

On August 21, 2018, the Trump administration released a plan to fight climate change. The plan would take the regulation of coal-burning plants out of the hands of the EPA and give that responsibility to each state independently. This act is illegal. A 2007 Supreme Court ruling found that under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to regulate pollutants that harm public health. This means that the EPA is required to try to cut climate change-causing gas emissions. It is evident that by Trump administration policies and initiatives, relieving oil and coal companies of environmental regulations is Trump’s priority. This administration will only hasten national and global climatic disasters. All Trump administration agency appointees responsible for environmental protection and climate change mitigation are pro-fossil fuel advocates and they reflect the unintelligible rhetoric of the President. The dangers represented by these quotes, foretell the direction in which our nation and planet are headed;

“Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. I know much about climate change. I’d be—received environmental awards. And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less. They have very—you know, their standards are nothing. But they—in the meantime, they can undercut us on price. So it’s very hard on our business.”

“ I’m not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming, and it’s going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling…They thought the Earth was cooling. Now, it’s global warming…But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we’re doing to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”

After deciphering the gibberish of President Trump’s quotes, one gets a sense of danger and impending doom. This danger is best explained by a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. –“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

After experiencing the January 2019 Polar Vortex event and understanding the danger presented by the Presidents state-of-mind as represented by his quotes, it is obvious that we can look forward to a great deal more climatic disasters in both the near and distant future. The January 2019, polar storm has been credited with 21 deaths. Other than the deaths, the human suffering and economic costs are yet to be determined. Unfortunately as the rate at which these storms increases, our very survival becomes tenuous at best. Perhaps when the death toll reaches a million people or when hell freezes over, the government will pay attention and do something. Then again, since lives don’t seem to matter, our future may be determined by which oil company or billionaire suffers the greatest losses. Maybe, that will happen “The Day After Tomorrow.”