Donald Trump’s biggest danger to the world may be his disdain for climate change – The Irish Times

As the US elections approach, it appears that there is a real possibility that Donald Trump could be elected to the White House again. This result is incredible in itself (at least to observers outside the US), but equally striking is the lack of media coverage of the likely impact of a second Trump presidency on the looming climate crisis.

After all, there is a very big difference between a presidential candidate who pays any attention to the concerns of climate scientists and a candidate who dismisses global warming as a hoax. (Trump’s later statements do not suggest a better understanding of this topic).

However, the very real issue of climate change has received almost no attention in the media coverage of the race for the White House. While one might expect journalists to at least question candidates about the marked increase in extreme weather events such as devastating hurricanes in North Carolina cause floods in Floridasuch issues were barely covered during the elections.

( US climate change goals are under threat from surge in technological energy from artificial intelligenceOpens in a new window )

Of course, this indifference to the climate change crisis is not limited to the media or the United States. For example, the last round of the European elections saw a clear shift away from Green Party candidates and policies across the continent.

Unfortunately, this shift does not reflect any change in global warming; Surface temperatures continue to rise in tandem with rising greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, most climate scientists now suggest that the Paris target of staying within 2 degrees of pre-industrial average levels is no longer realistic, and this disruption will almost certainly have serious consequences for populations in many parts of the world.

How did such a gap occur between the predictions of scientists and the views of politicians and the public? In my opinion, much of the problem stems from post-truth media, that is, the growing tendency of the media to fail to distinguish between preconceived opinion and established facts.

This rise in misinformation is often attributed to social media, but I would argue that many traditional news outlets—from tabloids to broadsheet newspapers—have long condoned the same behavior. For example, I could count on one hand the number of times I have read a reasonably accurate article about climate change in prominent publications such as the Sunday Times, Telegraph or Wall Street Journal. What these publications have in common is a strong conservative editorial outlook that consistently ignores the inconvenient findings of modern climate science.

It is for this reason that Donald Trump is such a dangerous candidate for a second presidential term. What worries most scholars is not his outlandish statements, his narcissism, or even his penchant for fascism. Instead, it is his sheer corruption and clear determination to put the interests of his business friends above the public good at every turn.

( A second Donald Trump presidency will undermine global efforts to curb climate changeOpens in a new window )

It should not be forgotten that during the first Trump administration, key employees of federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were replaced by political appointees with little experience, and these replacements led to widespread rollbacks of important environmental regulations. . Worse, Trump’s recent statements make it clear that such behavior will become even more pronounced in a second term.

It can be argued that the United States, and indeed the entire world, has already survived the Trump presidency. However, Trump himself appears to have become more restless and more dictatorial in recent years. Meanwhile, the climate crisis looms large, with surface temperatures, sea levels and polar ice melt rising just as feared.

At the very least, one would expect a second Trump administration to lead to the repeal of all US legislation related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously increasing the number of new oil and gas drilling licenses. In addition, Trump has promised to exclude the United States from all international climate agreements, and this exclusion could provoke similar actions among other major countries.

Overall, it seems clear that a second Trump presidency could be extremely detrimental to climate change efforts. Unfortunately, there has been little coverage of this danger in the US media, and the lack of interest could have real consequences for the world.

Dr Cormac O’Reiferty is Senior Lecturer in Physics at South Eastern University of Technology (Waterford) and Research Fellow at the Institute of Physics.