Recently in my Environmental Science class we discussed the debate surrounding our ever rising population growth rate. One side argues that our population is exceeding the amount of sustainable resources we have. Meaning, we will eventually run out of resources and worldwide famine will end the human race. The other argues that our population growth rate is fine, as we have plenty of room in the world to house humans and actually we have plenty of food. As long as we distribute food around the world more evenly we will no longer have a problem. I personally believe that our population growth rate is indeed a problem, as there is more exact science behind it. The other side uses anecdotal evidence and is unrealistic in its implications. Our population growth rate coincides with climate change, as more people means more production of carbon dioxide which further worsens climate change.

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Keeping all of that in mind, we have a president that arrogantly denies climate change even though a vast majority of climate scientists around the world unanimously agree that we are destroying our planet. I think he actually believes in climate change, but he would rather gain political brownie points by lying than address an issue that will eventually destroy the planet. It is irresponsible to have a president that spews unscientific rhetoric as it could affect the outcome of future generations and how we handle environmental problems. As long as we have someone like this in office, our work and efforts to resolve climate change come to a crawl. Trump recently disbanded the climate change advisory panel, which was tasked to measure the current and future outcomes of climate change. If we don’t respect our climate change scientists as being an important part of government, then we will never develop effective solutions.

 

On November 6, 2012, Donald Trump tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Not only this untrue, one of the initial pioneer’s of climate change science was NASA which is obviously an American organization. It is dismissive of the hard work of NASA by saying the Chinese “invented” climate change as a hoax to mess with our manufacturing. Knowing this, it is apparent that Trump’s opinion is farcical and merely a ploy for political points. That, or he is extremely misguided and uneducated. Either way, his actions and attitude towards climate change science seems to be getting worse and worse. Climate change should not be up for debate, we are actively destroying ourselves. We are getting to a point where climate change will become irreversible. If nothing is done soon and impactfully, we will continue down a path of destruction.