Trump is a ‘threat to the planet’, says world-leading climate change scientist
‘We are facing a make-or-break election as far as climate change is concerned,’ says Professor Michael Mann, who produced the famous ‘hockey stick’ global temperature graph
Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent Wednesday 5 October 2016
In an article on the EcoWatch website headlined, Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to the planet, Professor Mann, of Pennsylvania State University, wrote: “In just a matter of weeks, we will be confronted with a critical decision.
“It is not mere hyperbole to assert that we are facing a make-or-break election as far as climate change is concerned.
“In the current presidential contest, we could not have a more stark choice before us, between a candidate who rejects the overwhelming evidence that climate change is happening and a candidate who embraces the role of a price on carbon and incentives for renewable energy.
“If you care about the planet, the choice would seem clear. If the appropriate catch-phrase for the 1992 election was ‘It’s The Economy Stupid!’ then this time around it ought to be ‘It’s the planet stupid!’”
He said the US had to choose whether to continue Barack Obama’s “successes” on climate change or “retreat back into the energy-equivalent of the stone age, continuing to degrade our planet through the profligate burning of increasingly dangerous fossil carbon even as the rest of the world moves forward, embracing the renewable energy revolution destined to be the hallmark of the 21st century”.
