Summary

The science on both the warming of the planet, and the extent that this is caused by human activity, is clear. The predicted impact is becoming ever more alarming, and near - it is people alive today who will suffer the ever worsening impact, not just some future generation. Since 1990 the need for action has been growing, and other developed countries responded, whilst in the US emissions have still risen. The threat is sufficiently apparent to respected leaders in the US (e.g. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella) that they are allocating funds and/or taking action independently, but we cannot rely on this alone without national leadership. Europe has shown that it is possible to have economic growth, and reduced emissions, so the ‘sacrifice’ we need to make to address this is small (or indeed even offers economic opportunities in new technologies).

So for the nation as a whole, the current course offers little upside (avoiding the short-term cost of moving to cleaner power) with a frighteningly large downside (economic disruption & property damage from fires & floods, disruption to water and food supplies, mass migration, mass extinctions). It’s a stupid and irresponsible bet to make.