Following reports that President Trump may try to suppress an alarming report by federal scientists warning of the drastic impacts of climate change, DNC Spokesperson Francisco Pelayo released the following statement:

“This report should sound the alarm for the Trump administration that climate change is the defining challenge of our time. Floridians are experiencing the first-hand effects of climate change, while Trump is willfully denying and misleading Americans on an urgent threat to our national security, our economy and our well-being. Democrats are fighting for a clean energy economy to help create good-paying jobs and make clean energy accessible to all.”

New York Times: Government Report Finds Drastic Impact of Climate Change on U.S.

By Lisa Friedmanaug

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times.

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote.

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