As Scientists Warn of the Risk of a Hothouse Earth Trajectory, Trump Administration Cements Climate Denial as Official US Policy
EPA is eliminating its primary tool to rein in climate pollution at a time when scientists say urgent action is needed to avoid “unmanageable climate outcomes.”
Credit: Edward Kimmel via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0
Earth is entering a period of unprecedented climate change and the risks that the planet could be heading towards a globally catastrophic “hothouse Earth” trajectory are less remote than most people realize, top climate and Earth system scientists say.
The assessment of the risk of proceeding along such a pathway of irreversible global heating – essentially a point of no return – was published on Wednesday in the journal One Earth. The analysis synthesizes scientific findings on climate tipping points, or Earth system elements that become destabilized and may unleash additional warming thorough self-reinforcing feedback loops if critical temperature thresholds are passed. Research suggests that several of these elements may be closer to destabilizing than previously thought.
Rapid melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, boreal permafrost, and mountain glaciers and loss of parts of the Amazon rainforest, for example, suggest that that these Earth system features may already be destabilizing. As the study explains, “These processes could raise global temperatures, accelerate sea-level rise, release vast stores of carbon, and destabilize ecosystems. The precise threshold temperatures remain uncertain, but research shows that crossing one or more of these thresholds could trigger self-reinforcing processes that propel the Earth system onto a hothouse trajectory with long-lasting and potentially irreversible consequences.”
There is still a lot of uncertainty around the timing and precise nature of the risks of triggering these tipping points. But this uncertainty should not be an excuse for continued inaction or delay in mitigating the climate crisis, the scientists say. Instead, what is needed is an urgent course correction.
“Uncertain tipping thresholds underscore the importance of precaution,” said Christopher Wolf, study co-author and a scientist at the Oregon-based Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates. “Policymakers and the public remain largely unaware of the risks posed by what would effectively be a point-of-no-return transition. And while averting the hothouse trajectory won’t be easy, it’s much more achievable than trying to backtrack once we’re on it.”
Another concerning sign of destabilization, the scientists note, is that a key oceanic current system called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation appears to be weakening, which risks shifting tropical rain belts and drying out the parts of the Amazon.
“The AMOC is already showing signs of weakening, and this could increase the risk of Amazon dieback, with major negative impacts on carbon storage and biodiversity. Carbon released by an Amazon dieback would further amplify global warming and interact with other feedback loops,” said William Ripple, study lead author and a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University.
“We need to act quickly on our rapidly dwindling opportunities to prevent dangerous and unmanageable climate outcomes,” Ripple said.
The study notes that current climate action and commitments are nowhere near sufficient and that some major economies are even pulling back when it comes to climate policies.
“Policy shifts in major economies may block progress on emissions cuts, threatening climate stabilization. The window to limit global temperatures below critical thresholds may be rapidly closing,” the scientists warn.
The assessment of the risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory follows a grim warning from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the world is now the closest it’s ever been to an apocalyptic doomsday scenario, as symbolized by the Doomsday Clock – which was revealed this year to be just 85 seconds to midnight. The doomsday scenario is essentially an assessment of the global risks to humanity from threats such as nuclear war, the misuse of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, and climate change.
Here is how the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists summed up the current outlook in terms of tackling the threat of climate destabilization:
“The national and international responses to the climate emergency went from wholly insufficient to profoundly destructive. None of the three most recent UN climate summits emphasized phasing out fossil fuels or monitoring carbon dioxide emissions. In the United States, the Trump administration has essentially declared war on renewable energy and sensible climate policies, relentlessly gutting national efforts to combat climate change.”
On Thursday, this war on climate policies will reach a new level as the Trump administration is expected to announce the finalization of its repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, a move that will eliminate the agency’s legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from sources like motor vehicles. The EPA issued the finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare in 2009 based on a voluminous scientific record, which has only gotten stronger in the years since then. The finding was issued in response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and therefore the EPA must regulate them if it makes a finding of endangerment.
The repeal of the endangerment finding contravenes science, the law, and public opinion and lived experience of increasingly dangerous extreme weather and climate impacts. But it is in line with the position of President Trump that climate change is a hoax. Recall that Trump stood on the world stage at the United Nations General Assembly last September and literally claimed that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Climate and environmental groups put out statements ahead of Thursday’s repeal blasting the move and vowing to challenge it in court. The Sierra Club said that Trump’s EPA head Lee Zeldin, with the stroke of a pen, “will formalize climate denialism as official government policy.” The organization said that it and its partners are “exploring all legal options in response, including litigation.”
“The Trump administration justifies this assault on science and our health by falsely claiming that U.S. climate-heating pollution doesn’t matter and that it lacks the authority to cut it,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s Dan Becker. “That’s a lie, and any 6-year-old knows it’s wrong to lie.”
“Climate denialism will bleed the people dry,” 350.org executive director Anne Jellema said. “By giving Big Oil a license to pollute even more, the EPA is defying international law and piling more damage on communities in the US and around the world.”
“Removing EPA’s authority to limit deadly greenhouse gas emissions is as shortsighted as it is reckless,” said Sierra Club executive director Loren Blackford. “Communities will suffer as extreme weather continues to threaten us all, costs will continue to rise, and we will saddle future generations with a world that grows increasingly unlivable and endangers the life we know.”
The Trump Administration's "cementing" their Climate Crisis denialism into law should be viewed as crimes against Humanity of the highest order!
As multiple studies have indicated previously, the historical records show that the United States is responsible for approximately 25% of the climate altering chemicals in the Earth's atmosphere. They are the number one country historically responsible for the Climate Emergency that we are currently beginning to experience the worsening aspects of.
For an American Government to not only deny the scientifically proven reality of Climate Change but to also ramp up the emissions of the American economy on a grand scale is simply utterly inexcusable. They must be rejected as the Climate Crisis Criminals that they evidently are.