The most significant peril we face
Perhaps the most egregious (and least reported) lie the convicted felon Trump told during Tuesday’s speech to Congress concerned climate change. “I withdrew from the unfair Paris climate accord,” Trump droned, “which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”
The only true part to that statement was that Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord. It wasn’t “unfair” and it wasn’t costing the United States “trillions of dollars.” The Paris Agreement, which was agreed in 2015, requires countries to periodically submit goals or plans to reduce heat-trapping pollution. Wealthy countries, including the United States, were sometimes slow to comply with this vague requirement.
Again, the US wasn’t spending “trillions” on Paris protocols. That was Trump bullshitting. Like a child, Trump thinks that huge numbers and outrageous claims are impressive. They are not, especially when you have long established a reputation for bullshitting.
However flawed and underwhelming, Paris was a start, and all nations signed up to it. Trump’s withdrawal from Paris was a gesture done on behalf of his radical base, most of whom believe climate change to be a hoax. Meanwhile, every succeeding year is hotter than the previous, and that is how things will proceed from now on. One day earth’s average temperature will reach a point where it will be impossible to ignore. That will be the point when it’s too late.
If the last 44 days have proven anything, it is that not only do we, as a species, not learn from history, we are incapable of it. Appeasing dictators, believing tariffs are economically advantageous, giving tax breaks to the rich, indiscriminately firing government employees, are all mistakes America has made before.
But we’ve never ignored global warming before these recent generations, so there is no precedent for it. We can’t even make the useless appeal to the tired adage about ignoring history. Since we don’t learn from history anyway, how are we supposed to learn from threats that are new? We can’t, and we won’t.
As a species we have survived insane leaders, from Caligula to George III to Hitler. We have survived economic setbacks, such as the Great Depression and the recession of 2008. Democracies come and go, and we have survived that. We will not survive the end of the habitability of our planet.
Compared to the health of our planet, all other issues recede to insignificance. Trump, who is old and too stupid to take care of himself, won’t live to see the day when the excesses of people like him will become an immediate and daily threat to survival. We will have to wait four years and hope that the next president understands that global warming is the most significant peril we face.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.