The phrase climate change says it all. There is a change in climate. Could it be simpler? Nevertheless, for the past two decades no newscast fails to update us on the impending death of our planet, due to a catastrophic breakdown of our ecosystem resulting from man’s failure to control greenhouse gas emissions.
The question is why and what contributing role, if any, do humans have in the change. There are two facts that everyone on all sides of the climate change debate agrees must be addressed if we are to avoid a planetary disaster: The burning of fossil fuels must be drastically reduced, and the rise in global temperature must be held below 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle many of the climate change policies enacted by outgoing President Barack Obama. Time will tell what Mr. Trump’s environmental policy will be. He has said that he sees “some connectivity” between humans and climate change, and that he would “keep an open mind” on whether to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. That is good. I recommend he not only remain a party to the accord, but that America continues to take on a leadership role.
For America to be great again on a global scale, it must team up with China to ensure that the Paris Agreement is ratified. Together, they can lead the way to find solutions for a cleaner, cooler planet.
Mr. Trump should not follow in the footsteps of former President George W. Bush, who withdrew American support for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The protocol had been enthusiastically supported by the Clinton administration. The Paris Agreement, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, is strongly supported by China (China Signed The Kyoto Protocol In 1998.) America can’t afford to back out and let China lead the climate change charge alone. China can’t be allowed to claim the high moral ground honoring its commitment of support while America reneges again.
Climate change is one of the few achievements reflecting U.S.-China cooperation. It is mutually beneficial and engages the leadership of the world’s two leading economies, along with the leaders of the developed and developing world. Together they can also explore other mutually beneficial global and regional partnerships.
Planet Earth is reaching dangerous levels of warming. Two glaring examples are Greenland and Florida. In Greenland, sea ice is forming two months later and melting one month earlier than just a few decades ago, resulting in new fish species. On land, the melting ice is set to reveal a wealth of zinc, iron, uranium, gold and rare earth elements, changing the Greenland’s export income from fishing to mining.
In South Florida, salt water is breaching the sea walls and seeping through lawns and manhole covers. It is predicted that by 2100, sea levels could swell high enough to submerge 12.5 percent of Florida’s homes, including Trump properties.
Climate change in Greenland, America, China and globally, as well as the dire warnings issued by the U.S. Department of Defense about global warming, are subjects I discuss at length in my book Feasting Dragon, Starving Eagle.
China has its own serious human-made climate change – smog. More and more often, smog-shrouded cities in China are cancelling school classes and airline flights, shutting down factories and taking cars off the road due to extremely low visibility. Pollution indexes have been known to soar to more than 10 times safe levels.
The world, like Greenland, America and China, has to adapt to climate change. America and China must lead the way.
The I Ching is the oldest surviving text on how to deal with change and uncertainty, dating back more than 4,500 years. It predates the Axial Age, the period of creative civilizations in the eighth to third century BC in Greece, Babylon, India and China. The I Ching is considered the source of Chinese cultural behavior and practices, a book I highly recommend President-elect Trump and his foreign policy team read to ensure no misunderstandings, not only about climate change, but future geopolitical alignments.
Now is the time to change the focus of the climate change debate blame game and work together to find solutions to make sure we prevent a planetary disaster — Climate Armageddon — and survive!