SILO-GlobalWarming-adobe
Polar Bear and global warming
Global Warming
While the overwhelming majority of scientists across the world not only accept that climate change is happening and that carbon emissions are increasing the rate at which climate change is occurring, an alarming proportion of Americans refuse to believe that global warming is real. Some climate change “deniers” have a vested interest in adopting the beliefs that they do, such as those involved in the carbon-based energy industry, who face incurring costs and increased regulations as a result of climate change.
However, what is more worrying, is the percentage of ordinary American citizens who reject the notion of global warming. One particular poll conducted in the United States in 2013, found that 37% of those polled believed that “climate change was a hoax.” 41% of respondents in another poll stated that it is “definitely or possibly true that global warming is a myth concocted by scientists.” A study conducted in 2013 by Lewandowsky, Gignac et al. found that 20% of respondents believed that climate change is a “hoax perpetrated by corrupt scientists who wish to spend more taxpayer money on climate research.”
And it appears that this conspiratorial thinking is not limited to ordinary Americans. On November 6, 2012, Donald Trump tweeted that, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” A few months previously, Mr. Trump tweeted that “In the 1920s people were worried about global cooling – it never happened. Now it’s global warming. Give me a break.”
On June 1, 2017, U.S. president Donald Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. President Trump cited the Paris accord’s “draconian, financial and economic burdens” as reasons for withdrawing from it, and that the agreement was not tough enough on countries like China or India. The United States joined Syria and Nicaragua as the only non-participants of the Paris accord.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement in response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw, “Even in the absence of American leadership; even as this administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.”
The European Union and China have pledged to continue to adhere to the Paris accord despite the withdrawal of the United States. The United States is the world’s second-largest carbon emitter after China.