The Climate Report

To hide its dramatic findings, the government quietly released its mandated Climate Assessment Report on Black Friday 2018. Now, this full color reproduction is the definitive edition of ”the most comprehensive assessment of the effects of climate change on the United States” (The New York Times), which every citizen should own. The US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is mandated by law "at least every four years ... to submit to the president and the Congress an assessment regarding the findings of ... the effects of global change, and current and major long-term trends in global change." The report was released by the Trump administration without fanfare in the wake of a series of some of the most devastating hurricanes in American history, as well as the horrific California wildfires. As the report says, "The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid." Detailing not only the destructive toll of global warming on the environment, but also the related health issues leading to tens of thousands of deaths per year, and economic losses of tens of billions of dollars, the report concludes that "The evidence of human-caused climate change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen, that the impacts of climate change are intensifying across the country, and that climate-related threats ... are rising."