Trump Global Warming

By: Sydnee Henrie

With the recent discussion of the Presidential Elections and the personal rumors that have been discussed I wanted to look into something a little more interesting. For biology we looked into a topic we could fact check from the debates between Hillary and Trump. However, the debates have been so personal and there haven’t been many scientific discussions. I ended up researching some of the candidate’s statements on scientific issues. After reviewing several different statements from the candidates I found a very interesting statement made by Presidential Candidate Donald Trump.

In November of 2012 he made a statement, “ The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”  I read this and all I could think of was what kind of an influence the Chinese really have on global warming. I found this very hard to believe and I couldn’t understand the logic behind blaming a country for global warming. We’re all humans don’t we all contribute? After a little bit of investigating I realized how influential this kind of a statement could be. Imagine reading a statement from Abraham Lincoln at any point of his life when he blamed an entire country for something that affected everyone. I would probably believe it. So I decided to try to decode and understand what Mr. Trump meant. I didn’t think he was really in any kind of position to point blame at anyone. After doing a little bit of research, I realized it was perhaps more of a misunderstanding. I believe it had to do with the population in China and how that can affect global warming. In the end Donald Trump had some truth to what he said, and some falsehood to it as well.

The biggest question that I had after reading this statement was could one country really be blamed for global warming. According to the World Bank Group, “1.371 billion people populated China in 2015. So, approximately twenty percent of the world’s population was from China alone.” If one person can make a difference, and 20% of the world is contributing to the problem. Then that country has an influence on the impact that global warming has. I thought that the statement that Donald Trump made was ridiculous. However, he is a very public figure and a lot of people do look and listen to what he has to say. If nothing else he raised awareness to the topic of global warming. By raising awareness it caused a few people, at least those of you reading this blog post question what China has done.

A group of scientists made an experiment where they could at least test the influence that China has and this is what they found.

“Results of the control run (1 × CO₂) indicated that simulations of surface air temperature and precipitation in China by RegCM are much better than that by the global coupled model because of a higher resolution. Results of sensitive experiment by RegCM with 2 × CO₂ showed that the surface air temperature over China might increase remarkably due to greenhouse effect, especially in winter season and in North China. Precipitation might also increase in most parts of China due to the CO₂ doubling.”

In more simple terms there would be an increase in surface air temperature due to the greenhouse effect in China, especially during the Winter Season.

                                  

          It was definitely a bold statement to make on Trump’s end in some ways he was correct, because the Chinese have so many people living in China that they have an influence. However global warming is definitely a real issue and not just a smart business move. There is evidence that goes to show that China has a big influence due to population and everyone can make an individual difference. The falsehood in the statement made was that it was only China. Global warming is a very big issue; in fact I would dare to say that it is a global, or worldwide problem. So instead of pointing fingers like Mr. Trump was in fact wrong in saying that global warming was essentially made up.  But he was right in saying that China has a huge influence in creating. The more people there are the more factories are needed to employ people, the more cars there are to drive, or buses to be taken, and electricity to be produced. So the big population in China might have started something or raised awareness for global warming, but like I said this is happening all over the earth. It takes all of us to work on lowering the levels. Every single person on this planet can help or hurt global warming. Public transportation can be great because instead of 50 people driving separate cars they all take one vehicle. Turning lights off and not wasting energy can help. One of the more advanced ways to help is by creating energy efficient buildings, or converting buildings to be energy efficient. By raising awareness all over especially by sharing with more people, there could be a tremendous and exciting movement in the global warming project.

            In the end Mr. Trump was not right in stating that China made up global warming. It is a big problem that we all need to address. He was also wrong in blaming China for global warming becoming a problem. Politicians and business people don’t always get the facts right and Donald Trump was definitely off on this subject. Some things might sound nice, like blaming your problem on another country, but check the facts and see what adds up. You never know if what someone is saying is really true or not. As far as Trump’s statement on global warming goes he missed the target by a long shot. I learned that it’s important to check the facts on what you hear from not only politicians and business people, but people in general and that in the end Trump doesn’t trump in the global warming department.

                       

 Work Cited

Primary Source: Donald Trump, twitter, November 6, 2012, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

Primary Source: The World Bank, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN&year_high_desc=true

Tertiary Source: Courtney Somer, Examiner, August 29, 2008, Can one person make a difference to the environment? http://www.examiner.net/x359561879/Can-one-person-make-a-difference-to-the-environment

 Secondary Source: Gao Xuejie, Zhao Zongci, Ding Yihui, Huang Ronghui, Filippo Giorgi, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, April 10, 2001, Climate change due to greenhouse effects in China as simulated by a regional climate model, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-001-0036-y

 

Secondary Source: Melissa Chan, FORTUNE, September 26, 2016, Donald Trump Did Blame China for Inventing Climate Change, http://fortune.com/2016/09/26/presidential-debate-donald-trump-china-climate-change/