Freedom, sovereignty, and climate action

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump emphasized freedom and U.S. sovereignty while dismissing the threat posed by climate change.

The principle of equal liberty calls on us to maximize our own freedom without interfering with the freedom of others. Human-induced climate change is causing sea-level rise by warming the oceans and melting land ice. Consider that millions of Bangladeshis are farming on land that is within a meter of high tide. Their freedoms should be meaningful as well.

Have we forgotten the horrific flooding in Nepal, where climate change has eroded glaciers and melted mountain permafrost, triggering a catastrophic collapse? These rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers feed rivers that sustain two billion people, many of whom live in India, Pakistan and China, which are nuclear powers.

How might President Trump’s view on climate change be different if he was the head of a small island nation, whose survival is threatened by climate change, even though it has contributed very little to global carbon dioxide emissions? What about the sovereignty of Fiji and the Marshall Islands?

Climate change helps create the very refugees Trump condemned in his U.N. speech. His militarized immigration policies have turned the United States into what investigative journalist and author Christian Parenti calls an “armed lifeboat.” Instead of cooperating globally or addressing the root causes of climate change, rich countries protect their own resources while shutting out the rest of the world.

Although liberty is a fundamental right, the flip side of every right is a responsibility. Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva points out that the “separation of rights and responsibilities is the beginning of any destructive enterprise.”

America has extraordinary power to shape the world, and the U.S. should embrace that responsibility through climate action.