Donald Trump denies climate change as he speaks to reporters on the White House lawn, November 26, 2018

In a series of statements, Donald Trump rejects the US Government’s climate change report, continues his lies about immigration, and adds to the political troubles of UK Prime Minister Theresa May.

Trump needed only four words to bury the environmental study by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists: “I don’t believe it.”

He insisted he had read “some” of the report.

The study, the second of four annual studies commissioned by Congress, concludes that human activity is contributing to the rise in global temperature. It warns of “substantial damages to the US economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades”.

[Climate change] is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us.

The report says the US economy will lose hundreds of billions of dollars, with the agricultural sector hard hit. It outlines declining air quality, disease transmission by insects, and effects on food and water will “increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people”.

The conclusions followed last month’s report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which found that there is only a dozen years for global warming to be restrained to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), beyond which temperature rises will worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Suspicions about the Trump Administration’s motives were raised when the release of the US Government’s report was moved from next month to last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Critics asserted that the administration was trying to bury the findings.

Trump is a long-time climate change denier.

Last week he repeated his scientific observation that there must be no climate change because it is sometimes cold:

Trump Continues Immigration Lies

A day after US officers fired tear gas on migrants trying to cross the Mexico border into California, Trump put out a series of lies about immigration, downplaying his role in the crisis, exaggerating Sunday’s confrontation, and stigmatizing women and children.

For the second time in two days, Trump lied that it was President Barack Obama who instituted the policy of separating children from immigrant parents — in fact, it was the Administration’s April 2018 “zero tolerance” measures that mandated the practice until it was blocked by courts.

EA on CNN: Firing on the Migrants — “Donald Trump Created This Crisis. Donald Trump Wants This Crisis.”
TrumpWatch, Day 675: Firing Tear Gas on Migrants on US-Mexico Border

Trying to dismiss Sunday’s images of mothers and their children fleeing tear gas, Trump argued that they were hoaxes.

And, at rally in Mississippi on Monday night, he converted the official Customs and Border Protection report of three personnel hit by stones into four officers seriously wounded.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry has presented a diplomatic note to the US government calling for “a full investigation” into Sunday’s use of tear gas.

And the cost from the incident, with the halt for four hours of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, is estimated at $5.3 million for San Ysidro, California businesses and $6.9 million for those in Tijuana, Mexico.

Trump Trashes UK Prime Minister’s Brexit Deal

Trump damaged UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s hopes of a Brexit deal with the European Union, as he called on Britain to detach itself completely from the EU’s economic arrangements.

On Sunday, May and the leaders of the EU’s other 27 countries endorsed a Withdrawal Agreement for March 2019. However, the Prime Minister faces a likely defeat in the UK Parliament when it votes on December 11.

Trump’s hardline economic advisors may object to any outcome — such as a “Norway-style agreement” — in which the UK and the EU retain ties under jointly-agreed rules and regulations. That could preclude Britain’s pursuit of a separate, bilateral deal with the US.

Critics say the Trump Administration will seek arrangements which do not adhere to the existing health, safety, and investment regulations of the UK and the EU, with effects in areas from food safety to the environment and the National Health Service.