Trump Neglects Climate Change in State of the Union While Democrats Invite Scientists and Activists to Highlight the Threat

President Donald Trump delivered the State of the Union address Tuesday night, focusing on his signature issues like the economy and immigration and warning lawmakers that the ongoing investigation into his conduct posed a threat to national security, The New York Times reported. But there was one real major threat to the nation, and the world, that he declined to mention at all: climate change.
This silence was not unexpected. As Ishaan Tharoor pointed out for The Washington Post, Trump is famously skeptical of climate science and came under fire in January for confusing weather and climate when he responded to a brutal cold snap by tweeting, "What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!" His failure to address the issue Tuesday night, however, still earned him criticism from environmental leaders.
"For the third year in a row, President Trump has addressed Congress and failed to mention one of the biggest threats facing us—climate change. It was another squandered opportunity to show American leadership for the clean energy future," Environmental Defense Fund Senior Vice President Elizabeth Gore said in a statement.
For the third year in a row, President Trump addressed Congress and failed to mention one of the biggest threats fa… https://t.co/u65aJKTk8n— EDF Action (@EDF Action)1549424985.0
Gore pointed out that since the last State of the Union, the issue had only gotten more urgent. 2018 was a year of extreme weather events and saw the release of two major reports on the extent of the threat posed by a changing climate: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning that we have 12 years to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a dire warning from Trump's own government that he nevertheless dismissed.
Several Democratic lawmakers chose to respond to this sense of urgency—and the president's expected silence on the issue—by inviting climate scientists and activists to join them for the speech, The Washington Post's The Energy 202 reported.
Washington Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal explained her decision to invite University of Washington professor Lisa Graumlich, who uses tree rings to study climate.
"Instead of tackling the problem head-on, President Trump is burying his head in the sand and handing out favors to his friends in the coal industry," Jayapal said, as The Washington Post reported. "In fact, it's unlikely that President Trump will mention climate change or the dire need to protect our environment in his State of the Union at all."
Her Democratic colleagues Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin and Massachusetts Senator Edward J. Markey also invited both seasoned and up-and-coming climate activists. Raskin invited 350.org founder Bill McKibben, while Markey invited Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement that has led the push for a Green New Deal, an ambitious plan to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels while promoting green jobs and economic equality.
Thank you so much for inviting me to the State of the Union this Tuesday, @SenMarkey and for lifting up the efforts… https://t.co/JH9S7trvDn— Varshini Prakash 🌅 (@Varshini Prakash 🌅)1549316963.0
Markey is preparing to draft legislation for a specific Green New Deal proposal with newly elected New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
"These temperatures are actually caused by 'global waming,' sir." In my first @EcoWatch post today,… https://t.co/chYbMgGkKX— Olivia Rosane (@Olivia Rosane)1548854100.0
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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