Nothing should surprise Americans when the president is asked if he is required to uphold the Constitution and he answers, "I don't know." That is where we are, barely 100 days after the president swore, a second time, to do just that.
On Sunday, when that jaw-dropping exchange aired on "Meet the Press," the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at 430.89 parts per million — a 50-percent increase since the start of the Industrial Revolution and well above the 350 p.p.m. scientists believe is the maximum concentration if we are to avoid dangerous climate tipping points and irreversible impacts.
It is sadly unsurprising that the Trump administration dismissed all of the scientists who were, on a voluntary basis, compiling the National Climate Assessment. The report, mandated by Congress, was an increasingly important document that states, municipalities, and the private sector used to plan for the impacts of climate change since the first assessment was issued in 2000. The assessment considered the impact of climate change on matters of importance throughout the country, including fisheries, water supplies, and energy production.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, included the ominous observation that, "In coastal areas, sea level rise threatens permanent inundation of infrastructure, including roadways, railways, ports, tunnels, and bridges; water treatment facilities and power plants; and hospitals, schools, and military bases." This makes the report of the greatest importance here as local policy is revised to meet the increasing risks.
The White House's move to abandon the climate assessment follows a raft of other moves that collectively are an immense setback to the urgent transition from fossil fuel combustion to clean and renewable energy. In promoting fossil fuel extraction, challenging state-level climate initiatives, and halting construction of the Empire Wind 1 project, an offshore wind farm that was to power half a million New York residences — while claiming a national energy emergency — this administration remains steadfast in its denial of settled science. In time, we will all pay a heavy price, but the cost to a coastal community such as East Hampton Town will likely be particularly hefty.
Given our predicament — a federal government hostile to science, clean energy, even due process — it is incumbent on every other level of government, on nongovernmental organizations, and even on individuals, to circumvent the administration's destructive policies wherever possible. We were therefore gladdened to learn, four days after the scientists and experts working on the National Climate Assessment were dismissed, that the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society offered to publish the work meant for that document in their own journals.
In November 2015, one of the president's more articulate predecessors spoke at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. "I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late," President Obama said. "And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us."
Ten years on, the hour is later still. While the independent scientific organizations' valiant action will not replace the National Climate Assessment, the example they have set should be followed across the land, from sea to rising, warming, acidifying sea.