Trump's 100th day in office
Last weekend, April 29, was Donald Trump’s 100th day in office
as the POTUS. Protest rallies were held in many parts of the USA. Tens of
thousands of demonstrators also assembled in the U.S. capital for the latest
installment of the regular protests that punctuate the Trump era. Alarmed by
what they saw as a perilous attack on the environment by the Trump
administration, multiple rollbacks of environmental protections and Obama
climate policies, they poured into the capital city to sound warnings about the
earth’s warming climate.
The temperature reached 91 degrees F at D.C.’s National
Airport at 2:59 p.m., tying a heat record for April 29 in the district set in
1974 — which only amplified the movement’s message.
Here are some facts about our planet’s climate:
1.
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our
atmosphere, as of 2016, was 400 ppm, which was the highest in 3 million years.
2.
NASA and NOAA data show that global averages were
1.78 degrees F (0.99 degrees C) warmer than the mid-20th century average,
making 2016 the third year in a row with record-setting surface temperatures.
2016 was the warmest year on record.
3.
Some 800 million people (11% of world population)
are currently vulnerable to climate change impacts such as droughts, floods,
heat waves, extreme weather events and sea-level rise.
A search of the NASA website revealed a statement on climate
change from 18 scientific associations (including NASA), which read: "Observations
throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and
rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by
human activities are the primary driver." (2009)
Climate scientists have concluded
that widespread burning of fossil fuels is releasing heat-trapping gases that
are warming the planet. While this will produce a host of effects, the most
worrisome may be the melting of much of the earth’s ice, which is likely to
raise sea levels and flood coastal regions. Such a rise will be uneven because
of gravitational effects and human intervention, so predicting its outcome in
any one place is difficult. But island nations like the Maldives, Kiribati and
Fiji may lose much of their land area, and tens of millions of Bangladeshis
will be displaced.
Leading climate scientists now believe that a
rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperature, which is considered to be
the “tipping point”, is now very unlikely to be avoided if we continue with
business-as-usual; other leading climate scientists consider 1.5 degrees
centigrade to be a more likely “tipping point”. This is the point considered to
be the threshold for catastrophic climate change, which will expose yet more millions
of people and countless other creatures to drought, hunger and flooding. The
brunt of this will continue to be borne by the poor, as the earth experiences a
drastic increase in levels of carbon in the atmosphere brought on in the period
since the onset of the industrial revolution.
In the brief period since the industrial revolution, human
beings have consumed much of the non-renewable resources which have taken the
earth 250 million years to produce – all in the name of economic development
and human progress. Per capita consumption of resources combined with the
rising human population, let alone the multi-national scramble now taking place
for more fossil fuel deposits under the dissolving ice caps in the arctic
regions are bound to accelerate our own destruction through these processes.
So, seemingly there should not be a single doubting Thomas
about the climate change. And yet, the sad fact is that there are millions of
Americans, esp. within the ruling Republican Party of President Trump, who deny
climate change. They
think it is all a big hoax, and that the Democrats and the environmental
fundamentalists are making too much of a fuss for no reason at all.
Starting at the foot of the Capitol, the protesters marched to
the White House, surrounding the mansion while President Trump was inside. The
marchers in Washington included Hollywood celebrities and stars of the
political left like former Vice President Al Gore and the business magnate
Richard Branson. The front of their ranks, though, was reserved for ordinary
people: the immigrants, indigenous people, laborers, coastal dwellers and
children, who are most vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate.
Since taking office, President Trump has appointed one of the
chief antagonists of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, as its
administrator and proposed slashing its budget by nearly a third, more than any
other federal agency. He has signed several
executive orders aimed at rolling back President Barack Obama’s Clean Power
Plan, a set of regulations intended to close heavily polluting coal-fired power
plants, and restrictions on vehicle emissions, among others.
Lately, Trump signed orders intended to
initiate reviews aimed at opening certain protected lands and waters to
drilling, mining and logging. His advisers were still debating whether the
United States would remain in the
landmark Paris climate accord. On April 28, the Environmental Protection
Agency announced that it had taken down several agency web pages that contained
climate data and other scientific information relating to climate change.
It is also alarming that despite all the warnings and
predictions, the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which should have been in
place by 2012, has been delayed. It is essential that all countries, especially
the more developed nations, increase their efforts and adopt the pro-active
approach needed to halt and hopefully eventually reverse the damage being
wrought.
Many Muslims participated in the Washington rally, even
traveling from far-away places like California. After all, in Islam, human
beings as God’s vicegerents on earth are entrusted with the duty and
responsibility for protection of the environment.
Muhammad (S), the Prophet of Islam, stated, “The world is
sweet and verdant, and verily Allah has made you stewards in it, and He sees
how you acquit yourselves.” [Hadith related by Muslim from Abu Sa‘id Al-Khudrī
(R)]
One of the great sages of Islam, Bahauddin Naqshband (R),
said, “If a withering leaf says by its appearance that it needs water, because
you have the power to provide it, you also have the duty to do, as these
"words" of the leaf are the manifestation of the command of the
Creator of the leaf, and are addressed to you.
If you insist upon a personal command from the Originator, ask why the
means of communication has been placed before you. Is it there for you to neglect?” [See this
author’s book “Islamic Wisdom” for this and similar
citations.]
Islamic scholars
have long recognized
the corruption (fasad) that humans
have caused on the earth due to their relentless pursuit of economic growth and
consumption. Its consequences have been global climate change, contamination
and befoulment of the atmosphere, land, inland water systems, and seas; soil
erosion, deforestation and desertification; damage to human health, including a
host of modern-day diseases.
The Qur’an states, “Corruption
has appeared on land and sea because of what people’s own hands have wrought, so
that they may taste something of what they have done; so that hopefully they
will turn back.” [Qur’an 30: 41]
The present climate change catastrophe is a result of the
human disruption of and disturbing the balance or equilibrium (mizan) set by God. [Qur’an 55: 7-10]
=----------=
President Donald Trump used the occasion of his first 100th
day in office to hold a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His
speech was vintage, campaign-era Trump. He started with a tirade on the media,
and checked off his favorite subjects throughout: immigration, the wall, trade,
coal and jobs.
He told a boisterous crowd of supporters that he was
"thrilled" to be far away from Washington D.C. where members of the
press were gathered for the annual White House Correspondents' Association
(WHCA) dinner. He spent the first few minutes of his speech criticizing his
treatment by the media, using his standard refrain of ‘fake news’.
As he has done many times in the past to convey his sickening,
bigotry-filled, anti-immigrant, fear-mongering message, President Trump also
read his favorite poem, "The Snake" written in 1963 by Oscar Brown
(died 2005) and recorded in 1969 by Al Wilson, which is based on one of Aesop’s
fables. [The poem is an allegory, which can be about a lot of situations where
one party unsuspectingly lets in an evildoer and then gets hurt.] Trump suggested
the song was a metaphor for what would happen if the US embraced refugees
fleeing the violence in Syria, whom Trump considers potential terrorists, and
immigrants and undocumented illegals.
The audience in Harrisburg was enraptured, as if they were
hearing a [rogue, hateful] priest deliver a homily. Pin-drop silence except for
the man himself and the quick breaths he took in dramatic pauses. The audience knew
that they were the tender woman, and that the refugees/immigrants [and the
illegal Mexicans] were the snake, simply waiting to be resuscitated so that
they could fulfill their life’s mission of killing.
Maggie Brown, daughter of the song writer Oscar Brown, has since
March of 2016 demanded
that Trump stop using the lyrics. "We don't want him using these
lyrics," said Maggie Brown, also a distinguished singer. "If Dad were
alive, he would've ripped (Trump) with a great poem in rebuttal. Not only a
poem and a song, but an essay and everything else."
For a man whose popularity is the lowest ever for a new
president, Trump’s speech was a quick reminder of his campaign that tethered to
vulgarity, and of a man who refuses to be a unifier. It is simply amazing how
quickly people forget their own history: how the ancestors of many European
Americans had fled war and famine and sectarian insanity over hundreds of
years!
Back in Washington D.C., as the WHCA dinner kicked off, Jeff
Mason, president of WHCA, pushed back against Trump's attacks. "It is our
job to report on facts and to hold leaders accountable," Mason said.
"That is who we are. We are not fake news. We are not failing news
organizations. And we are not the enemy of the American people."
Journalist Bob Woodward later echoed Mason's sentiment,
saying: "Mr. President, the media is not fake news."
Hasan
Minhaj was Saturday’s host at the Trump-less White House Correspondents’
Dinner. He was simply brilliant. He ripped everyone from Bill O’Reilly to
the 45th President. He also turned serious to acknowledge the importance of
free speech in America, a theme that echoed throughout the night at the annual
media meets the White House event.
“Only in America can a Muslim get on this stage
and make fun of the President,” Minhaj said.
He added: “The man who tweets everything the enters his head, refuses to acknowledge the amendment that allows him to do it.”
He added: “The man who tweets everything the enters his head, refuses to acknowledge the amendment that allows him to do it.”
Mr. Trump need to behave like a president and
stop complaining about ‘fake’ news.
He should seriously rethink the impacts of his
flawed climate policy, which are sure to have ripple effects and worsen
the dire situation everywhere
in our planet that is bound to produce more – and not less – refugees and
immigrants, something that he wants to stop pouring into the USA as ‘snakes’. He
should also know that apart from war ravaged countries (some caused by American
meddling), most of the migrants – economic or climate – are forced to leave their
country that may not have produced
more than 0.3
percent of the emissions driving the climate change.
For the sake of global justice,
is Trump Administration willing to compensate the poor countries for polluting
the atmosphere, which is often times the root cause behind the mass migration
of the refugees? If not, then why create a policy that is illogical,
unscientific and outright stupid that is bound to produce more ‘snakes’? His anti-immigrant
policies and walls may stop infiltration of the ‘undesirable’ snakes but what
about mutation of the self-radicalized in-house white or colored ‘snakes’ in
this age of social media?
If Mr. Trump is serious about
making America great again, it’s high time to reflect that such a goal cannot
be attained when America’s wins translate into everyone else’s loss. He needs
to adopt wise policies that are equitable and help to sustain the equilibrium (mizan) of our increasingly delicate earth.
Comments
Post a Comment