Donald Trump’s decision of cutting funding for climate change from the world’s largest space agency, NASA, will not only waste 13 years of ground-breaking research, but will put our entire planet at risk.
Under Trump’s administration, NASA’s climate research budget will be severely slashed, with the organization instead being forced to prioritize space exploration. Not only will this prevent scientists from learning about the hazardous effects of climate change that people are dealing with right now, but it will cause the planet to continue undergoing intolerable amounts of stress without a solution. Although it is difficult for most to realize, cutting funding to climate change can be compared to cutting funding on medicine, because here we’re dealing with the health of the entire planet.
What are the facts of climate change?
The Industrial Revolution that took place in the 18th century was no doubt the most productive period of time for the economy, which not only created millions of jobs with the shift to technology-driven mass production, but also elevated the standard of living for individuals everywhere. However, currently carbon dioxide levels are at their highest levels since 650,000 years ago. It is not a coincidence to see that human activity caused this tremendous change, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that an excess of carbon dioxide is literally killing our planet and the people in it.
Thankfully, our technological advances allow scientists to see the picture as a whole, and gain valuable information that can help us to better understand what we can do about the warming of our planet. However, the only way scientists are able to conduct this life-saving information is through funding. Because of Trump’s infatuation of making America’s economy as robust as it can possibly be, he fails to see the bigger picture and is forgetting the reason why economies strive in the first place. The root of an economy, no matter how complex it can be, is people. If carbon dioxide levels continue to raise at this current rate, they will reach a staggering level of 1500 ppm, which according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, is “immediately dangerous to life or human concentrations.” Does Trump really think he can “create the biggest economic boom in this country” and continue to sustain it amidst such conditions, let alone have an economy?
Donald Trump’s denial towards global warming can be seen through this tweet, in which Trump essentially calls climate change a hoax.
Not only is this tweet r incorrect, but I am unsure whether the President-elect is actually serious or joking, and he claims to have been doing the latter. However, this isn’t the first time Trump has called climate change a hoax, from saying “I don’t believe in climate change” on CNN, to saying it on Fox & Friends.
What Trump fails to understand is that facts and statistics don’t lie. Global warming is real whether he believes or not, and it’s going to affect our entire planet if we don’t do something to stop it. While it is important and fascinating to explore the universe, it is equally and perhaps more important to understand what is happening in our planet, for it is our home and we would not exist without it.
“The good news is, we have everything we need now to respond to the challenges of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed… But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.” – Al Gore