Editor's Note: (John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN who focuses on climate change and social justice. Follow him on Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook or subscribe to his email newsletter. )
(CNN) Donald Trump's decision on Thursday to abandon the Paris Agreement is apocalyptic. That's not overstatement when the very health and survival of the planet is at stake.
This could be the US President's most lasting and damaging policy decision -- a moment that reverberates from the present through future generations, who will be left with the unjust burden of cleaning up the mess we are making of the Earth. The best hope, as I heard again and again at recent climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, is for the rest of the world to rally toward a 100% clean energy future in spite of the United States and the current administration. China and the EU appear poised to take the lead there. And if that fails, there are always the 21 young people who are suing Trump and his administration in federal court over the climate crisis.
But right now -- in the immediate wake of the news that the United States plans to join Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries who aren't parties to the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius and avoid climate catastrophe -- I don't want to emphasize the thinnest of silver linings. I want to help you understand what's at stake here and just how nonsensical this move is for Trump. To that end, I've compiled a rapid (and by no means exhaustive) list of 31 of the MANY facts Donald Trump is ignoring in deciding to walk away.
The Earth has warmed about 1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution.
Burning fossil fuels, raising cattle and chopping down rainforests all create heat-trapping gases.
More than 97% of climate scientists agree. It's peer-reviewed science.
Rising seas, mass extinction, super droughts ... it's not good.
Already, Miami Beach, Florida, is raising street levels and installing pumps.
The Marshallese word for hello also means "I love you" and "You are a rainbow."
A home fell off the thawing coastline in Shishmaref, Alaska.
Rising seas, drought, conflict -- all are expected to displace people.
On average, they're two months longer than in the 1970s, according to the Union for Concerned Scientists.
In India, 2,330 people died in a 2015 heatwave. Scientists say we probably contributed.
A crack in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf grew 11 miles -- just this week.
"We're as good as dead," a young mother in Madagascar told me.
Warming is a driver, and 75% of species could disappear in coming centuries.
Much of that is attributable to coal-fired power plants and cars.
It's the biggest historical climate polluter. And currently the second-biggest per year.
That's nearly 40 billion metric tons per year, says the Global Carbon Project.
Even if it probably doesn't seem that way right now.
Stanford's Mark Jacobson says the US can do it with existing technology.
Eating beef is bad for the climate, as is clearing the rainforest.
The country is also the world's biggest solar market, and renewable energy investor.
The third biggest annual polluter is considering all new electric cars by the 2030s.
One analysis says solar could be cheaper than coal in a decade.
There are now many more US jobs in solar than coal, for instance.
Iowa produced almost 37% of its electricity from wind in 2016.
More than 750,000 of them, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
It's been called the "north star" for climate action, a global peer pressure effort.
Trump could have pursued his own energy agenda while staying in the accord.
India and China are doing better than expected, possibly offsetting an increase in US pollution.
It's not just Apple -- ExxonMobil, too.
That's according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
CNN's Fareed Zakaria: "The United States resigned as the leader of the free world."
Want to add to this list? Tweet links/maps/data to me. I'm @jdsutter. (Also: A big thank you to Ed Maibach at George Mason University for help with the framing of several of these.)