Climate Change: An Issue That Should Defeat Donald Trump

Climate Change: An Issue That Should Defeat Donald Trump

In what could be the most consequential election in US history, former President Trump must be defeated. Among the many reasons is his longtime denial of climate change, which is increasingly seen as an existential threat to Israel, the US, and, indeed, the entire world.

There is a very strong consensus, composed of 97% of climate experts, all the major science academies that have taken a position on the issue, and most importantly, over a thousand peer-reviewed articles in respected scientific journals, that climate change is a major threat to humanity, caused mainly by human activities.

Every decade since the 1970s has been hotter than the previous decade. All 24 years in this century are among the 25 hottest years since temperature records were first recorded worldwide around 1880. 2023 was the hottest year worldwide, and 2024 will likely surpass it. All 13 months, from June 2023 to June 2024, broke monthly temperature records.

As a result, glaciers, ice caps, and permafrost are rapidly melting, seas are rapidly rising, and lakes and rivers are drying up in many regions. There has also been a very significant increase in the frequency and severity of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other climate events.

 Israel is especially threatened by climate change because the Mediterranean area is warming up much faster than the world average. Climate experts project a hotter, drier Middle East that will increase instability, terrorism, and war. The rising Mediterranean Sea could also inundate the coastal plain that contains much of Israel’s population and infrastructure. 

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization composed of climate experts from many countries, warned that “unprecedented changes” were needed by 2030 for the world to have a chance to avert a climate catastrophe. Despite that warning, atmospheric carbon dioxide has continued to increase, indicating that the world is still heading in the wrong direction regarding climate change. 

 Because of  many dire warnings, like the one above, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that the climate situation is a “Code Red for Humanity” and that “delay means death.”

As devastating as recent climate events have been, prospects for the future are even more frightening for four very important reasons:

• While all the recent severe climate events have occurred at a time when the global temperature has risen about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the Industrial Revolution, climate experts project that this will at least double by the end of this century, triggering far worse climate events.
• While climate experts believe that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide is a threshold value to avert the worst effects of climate change, the world has surpassed 420 ppm, and it is increasing at 2 – 3 ppm per year.
• Climate experts fear that self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles) could result in an irreversible tipping point, causing global warming to rise uncontrollably, with catastrophic results. One example is that more air conditioning will be used as the world gets hotter, meaning that more fossil fuel will be burned. This will release more greenhouse gases, heating the atmosphere even more, resulting in still more use of air conditioning, etc.

Everything possible must be done to avert a climate catastrophe. Yet, despite everything mentioned above, Trump has often claimed that human-induced climate change is a hoax and has pledged to expand oil and gas production from already record highs. If elected, he would likely appoint other climate deniers to key environmental posts and make every effort to roll back regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as he did during his administration. He told a meeting of fossil fuel executives that he would continue doing their bidding if they collectively donated a billion dollars to his election campaign.

This alone should be enough to reject  Trump’s election bid. However, there are many additional reasons to oppose him.

A Trump presidency would be a threat to US democracy. He said that if he is reelected, he would like to be a dictator on day one; he sparked a rebellion at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by having the vice-president refuse to certify the results..

Trump is a serial liar. He made over 30,000 false and misleading statements during his administration and about 30 more during the presidential debate. Also, he is still telling the big lie that he won the US 2020 presidential election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  

Trump hosted two notorious antisemites for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, forwarded antisemitic posts from neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and called white supremacists shouting, ”Jews will not replace us,” “very fine people.” He also made antisemitic statements such as that US Jews care more about Israel than the US and that Jews who do not support him are disloyal to Israel and Judaism.

Character and values matter. Throughout his adult life, including his four years as President, Trump has been totally unprincipled and unscrupulous. He has shown no loyalty to people, organizations, or any set of values. In pursuit of self-gratification and self-aggrandizement, he has cheated countless people and institutions, including friends, wives, contractors, and banks. Despite his massive legacy of sexual assault victims, ruined careers, and bankrupt corporations, he has somehow convinced a sizable part of the American population that he is concerned about their well-being. There is no reason to believe that he has any concern for the welfare of Israeli citizens or the existence of Israel as a Jewish state beyond the degree to which those concerns affect his fortune. One should expect Trump to abandon Israel in a heartbeat if it suited his interests

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