While U.S. President Donald Trump continues his anti-science campaign to grease the wheels of American greed, the rest of the world relies on science and facts and a genuine concern for the future well-being of this planet and all who inhabit it.
On May 17, the European Commission on Climate and Health, an independent group set up by the World Health Organization, issued a call to action to address the impending climate crisis.
“Over the past decade, global warming has accelerated significantly, and the European region is the fastest-warming region on Earth,” the report said. “Temperatures are rising twice as fast as the global average. Rapid warming increases the likelihood of sudden ‘tipping points’ in the climate system, where significant changes occur in key Earth systems. Time is running out to prevent irreversible damage.”
What a concept: prioritizing health, equity and the sustainability of the planet over the profits of Big Oil.
On this side of the Atlantic, on April 22, Trump fired all 22 board members of the National Science Foundation. Facts such as global warming are anathema to Trump’s promise to pay the petro-pollution industry for windfall profits in exchange for campaign donations.
Reporting for Iceland’s online newspaper Visir, Silja Rún Sigurbjörnsdóttir summarized the findings by pointing out, “Government leaders are called on to put climate and health issues on the agenda of national security councils and to mobilize all relevant ministries. It is pointed out that air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across Europe every year.”
Over here, on May 14, Lee Zeldin, administrator of the misnamed Environmental Protection Agency, proposed “postponing enforcement of vehicle emissions standards enacted during the Biden administration, a move that critics warned will worsen air pollution, one of the leading risk factors for premature death in the United States and around the world,” according to Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams, who added later that, “More than 100,000 people die prematurely in the United States each year due to breathing polluted air.”
Similar scenarios, completely opposite reactions, the indifferent inaction of the U.S. reflecting the Trumpian viewpoint that most of us are expendable pawns as long as he and his pals pack their pockets.
The European committee points out that, “As European governments are now redirecting public spending on security in response to growing international pressure, the committee argues that climate change is in itself the main security threat.”
Sigurbjörnsdóttir reported, “First and foremost, the committee calls on the World Health Organization to declare climate change a public health emergency of international concern. It also makes specific recommendations to improve the climate resilience of health systems and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, for example through mandatory training for health workers on climate change and health.”
And Europe is not alone in embracing scientific facts.
In late April, representatives of 57 countries met in Columbia for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which Common Dreams’ Wilkins characterized as “a hopeful summit that comes amid a worsening global climate crisis and fossil fuel-producing nations’ efforts to block a clean energy transition.”
This conference was a thumb-nosing response to the continued cop-out conclusions of the United Nations COP meetings, where oil company lobbyists regularly outnumbered delegates.
Oil producers such as Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway and the United Kingdom attended. The U.S. did not, nor did China or Russia. Nor were the petro-pushers on hand.
Wilkins reported that Colombian Environmental Minister Irene Vélez Torres was OK with our absence. ““We are not going to have boycotters or climate denialists at the table … This is not the space for them.”
Detailing the Trump destruction of American science productivity, Martina Igini of Earth.org reports “Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has executed a broad assault on science, erasing scientific data and slashing billions of dollars in funding for climate research.
“In the early months of 2025, tens of thousands of federal workers were abruptly fired from agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID], the EPA, the Forest Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]. Many of these employees were engaged in vital climate-related research and conservation work, as well as providing essential services like weather forecasting and wildlife monitoring.”
But climate research is only “vital” to those concerned about people and the planet, which led the European commission to suggest:
“Gross domestic product [GDP] counts fossil fuel consumption as economic growth but ignores the health costs of pollution, the economic burden of climate disasters, and the well-being of future generations. The committee urges governments and the international community to build monitoring systems that use metrics that prioritize health, equity, and environmental sustainability in decision-making.”
In an earlier Earth.org article, Igini reported that a federal report calling for the overhaul of the country’s disaster response standards “only mentions ‘climate’ once.”
Katrín Jakobsdóttir, chair of the European committee and former Left-Green prime minister of Iceland, told the Guardian: “The climate crisis may not be a pandemic, but it’s still a public health emergency that threatens humanity’s very health and survival. And if we don’t act more quickly and comprehensively, many millions more people could die or face life-changing illness.”
