A representative from the Marshall Islands, a small archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia, called a lack of action on climate change equivalent to “genocide,” at the Paris climate accords in 2015. The international summit, which at the time seemed hopeful due to the high rates of participation from a variety of powerful world forces, now seems an aspiration of the past as we evaluate the minimal progress that has been made since the original gathering. In June of 2017, President Donald Trump infamously withdrew the United States from participation in the summit, which, according to the Washington Post, is bound to negatively influence the financial contributions of other industrialized nations towards climate change prevention methods, eventually causing a massive decrease in funding dedicated towards environmental preservation.

The prospects, however, were further degenerated by a climate report released by the Trump Administration on Black Friday, Nov. 23, titled the National Climate Assessment. The release, scheduled during the busiest shopping day of the year, seemed to many like an intentional move by administrative officials to “bury” the report amidst the hectic bombardment of Black Friday promotions. Though it is the requirement of an obscure federal law to release updated studies regarding climate change every four years, this publication certainly comes as a contradiction to the claims regarding climate change made by the presidential administration, considering that President Donald Trump once claimed, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

The climate report itself acknowledged the severity of climate change as it has already manifested in U.S. territory. According to the Washington Post, the report recognized that fiercely powerful hurricanes and widespread wildfires, which have recently dominated news stories throughout the past 2 years due to their severity, are a result of climate change. One would think this admittance would move the American stance on climate urgency into a stage of action, rather than passive ignorance.

Clearly, this publication is not necessarily in agreement with other aspects of the administration’s political and economic agenda. Capitalism and environmentalism are often polarized, as their goals are, theoretically, irreconcilable. While capitalism seeks to exploit the resources the earth offers as a means of producing as much as possible, environmentalism aims to protect those resources, as the primary concern is the preservation of the earth’s natural state.

Clearly, the objective of the presidential administration is not to demand environmental preservation, as no announcement followed the report, which was strategically released to avoid backlash from the president’s array of climate-change-denying supporters. Additionally, as a worldwide proprietor of enormous corporations, it is obviously doubtful the President will object to capitalist movements of environmental exploitation. No claim was made regarding the future steps the administration will take to protect the climate. Even more dismal is the history of the new EPA director Andrew Wheeler, who follows his predecessor Scott Pruitt, who once claimed that climate warming may help humans “flourish.” Wheeler, on the other hand, is a former coal lobbyist. However Wheeler’s policies are enacted, the truth is in the report: action on climate change is urgent and compulsory.