Climate clock: What a colossal waste of time the Trump presidency has been

What a colossal waste of time these Trump years have been. Look at California. Look at Oregon and Washington. Look at the weather maps. Listen to what the climate scientists tell us. Go back and review their warnings, their predictions. 

What a colossal waste of time the Trump years have been.

His first year in office, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, leaving other nations and their leaders to figure out a way forward without the cooperation of the world’s largest economy.

So here we are, three more years toward the day when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the planet will reach the dangerous threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, increasing the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people. The climate scientists said we could be there as early as 2030 unless we took drastic action.

And what happens?

Trump went golfing nearly 140 times. (That’s the latest from trumpgolfcount.com)

He talks about the threat from immigrants. He obsesses about his “beautiful border wall.” He gets tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporations. 

He never speaks of the climate crisis. You’d think he would be concerned about the future — on a personal level, for the sake of his children and grandchildren. But he just doesn’t care.

What a waste of time. 

Add on Trump’s denials and deceptions about the coronavirus and we have full dereliction of duty. It’s like having no president at all.

Sure, he made two Supreme Court appointments and numerous other judicial nominations.

But he cut regulations, many of them designed to protect the environment and public health. And when it comes to the climate crisis, Trump walked away.

What a waste of time this administration has been. 

So much more could have been accomplished on the climate front. Instead, Trump called climate change a manufactured crisis to give China the edge over the U.S. economically. He said dealing with it would be too costly (and it certainly would be if you’re also committed to giving tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires and corporations). Trump tweeted idiotic comments such as: “It’s freezing in New York. Where the hell is global warming?”

In January, he criticised “prophets of doom” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and called climate activists such as Greta Thunberg “alarmists” who “want to control every aspect of our lives.” On Monday, faced with the massive fires in the West, Trump said, “I don’t think science knows” of a connection between climate change and the infernos. He again rejected the expert consensus that human activity is changing the Earth’s atmosphere.

And remember his advice to California? Rake leaves to avoid wildfires. And he repeated the suggestion again at a rally last month in Pennsylvania, warning that he would withhold federal funds unless the California governor sent armies of rakers into the forests.

It was another in a long line of absurd suggestions by the worst president in American history.

Trump came into office at a critical time for the climate, and he walked away from the issue altogether. He went golfing.

What a colossal — and tragic — waste of time this presidency has been.