Despite the Trump administration’s well-known hostility to science, and especially to acknowledging the existence and causes of climate change, it did not block publication of a report prepared by more than a dozen federal agencies.

The Fourth National Climate Assessment concludes that human activities are the primary causes of climate change.

This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” it says. “For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

“Globally averaged, annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 degree Centigrade, over the last 115 years,” David Fahey, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and one of the leading authors of the report, told reporters. “This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization.”

The report cites “thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world” that show evidence of a warming globe, including “changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor.”

It includes dire warnings about the impact of climate change on human activities.

Heavy rainfall, which causes flooding, is expected to increase over the rest of the century, and heat waves will become more frequent.

Severe weather events like forest fires and drought will grow more prevalent, and sea levels will rise “by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–to-4 feet by 2100.”

This underlines warnings from scientists around the globe who say the only way to get climate change under control will be to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide.

Emission growth has slowed in recent years, but the report concludes it’s not enough to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, the limit at which scientists expect the worst effects of climate change to be irreversible…

The report is mandated by Congress, with three federal agencies — NOAA, NASA and the Department of Energy — coordinating its publication. It uses research from thousands of scientists around the world.

Another way to look at climate change: by the year 2070, Mar-a-Lago might be underwater.

Rick Perry, Secretary of the Department of Energy, said a few days ago when interviewed on Meet the Press that fossil fuels were a deterrent to sexual assaults. When the lights are on, he said, bad things are less likely to happen. When Perry accepted the offer to be Secretary of Energy, he thought that his job was to promote the sale of fossil fuels; he didn’t realize that the main job of the Secretary is to oversee the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But he is nonetheless promoting fossil fuels. Not the brightest bulb in the Cabinet. Wonder what powers that bulb?