Trump, however, has called this spending wasteful and vowed to erase it.

The reasoning of Trump for this:
I’m 78 years old, spending money on the safety of climate and the earth in the future, will not benefit me, a sociopathic malignant narcissist, in any way.

USA is polluting 4 times the global average per capita, meaning about 5% of the global population is producing about 20% of the world pollution.
If USA decide to do nothing, it’s a huge setback for the world, and very irresponsible.

I consider myself a staunch democrat (notice the lower case “d,” I am not a liberal), in that I am a strong advocate for democracy. But, maybe I, and others, need to rethink our positions on democracy. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to have people who are generally ignorant of climate science, or science in general, deciding what US climate policy should be. We shouldn’t put questions like, “is climate change real,” to a vote. We have the scientific method for determining that, and It works so much better than popular opinion.

My defense of democracy generally comes down to: “yes, there are some ignorant people out there, but most people are well enough informed and reasonable enough.” Maybe that’s not always true.