A "natural instinct for science" by @BloggersRUs

A "natural instinct for science"

by Tom Sullivan


Photo by Greenland Travel via Flickr.

Mocking laughter erupted in the conference room as a White House adviser promoted burning coal before 200 people gathered at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland on Monday, the Washington Posts reports:

Monday’s presentation came after a weekend in which the U.S. delegation undercut the talks by joining with major oil producers Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in blocking full endorsement of a critical U.N. climate report. The report, by some of the world’s leading scientists, found that the world has barely a decade to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming.
Vanuatu foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu called out the United States and other developed countries for climate denialism and for frustrating efforts to address climate change that threatens not just the economies of small island nations, but their very existence:
Regenvanu was part of a cohort of small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans that urged greater global action on limiting global warming to 1.5C; leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands and the Maldives argued their countries faced an impending existential threat from climate change.
On Tuesday, the 13th year, NOAA's Arctic Report Card warned rapid changes in the Arctic are "driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted and, also, unexpected ways." A sampling: NOAA acting administrator Tim Gallaudet could not tell reporters whether anyone at his agency had ever briefed the sitting president on climate change.

Trump, who claims a "natural instinct for science," told CBS's "60 Minutes" in October, "I think something's happening. Something's changing and it'll change back again. I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference. But I don't know that it's man-made."

As Vanuatu and the others sink beneath the waves.