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HERE’S MORE cute stuff from the Trump show you may have missed. The Washington Post has discovered, in the middle of a 500-page “environmental” report meant to justify Donald Trump’s removal of emissions standards for cars and light trucks, this remarkable declaration: not only is global warming real, but temperatures will reach a staggering 4C (7F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Keep in mind that those levels mean the end of society as we know it — already creaking from fire, drought, melting ice caps, rising seas and superstorms at a mere hike of 1.5C.

So why would this justify producing even more pollution, not just with auto emissions, but on a half-dozen other fronts — coal, fracking, etc. — upon which Trump is assaulting the environment by removing regulations?

Because — believe it or not — the report assumes that the planet’s fate is sealed anyway and the game is over. So why not pig out while you can, which is what the Boss wants and who cares about the planet if you can feed the “base” and infuriate “liberals”? It admits that Trump’s policies will increase greenhouse gases, but dismisses the effect as “a drop in the bucket.”

Turning warming around is impossible, the report says, “because it would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today’s levels and would require the economy and vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically or economically feasible.”

There are some staggering implications here.

First of all, the world’s scientific consensus is that temperatures will indeed rise to 4C in 80 years — if nothing is done. The Trump administration is basically saying not only that nothing will be done or should be done but that it’s quite willing to make things worse. And if this direction prevails much longer, the likelihood is that the prediction will come true.

Just as astonishing is the admission from within the Trump administration that global warming is actually real and human-caused. After all, the standing Trump pronouncement is that it’s a “Chinese hoax.”

The mere admission, however, might have some beneficial effect in at least damping down the denial industry, which has been increasingly mute as the obvious becomes more obvious — especially as this summer’s fires, floods and storms make it clear that the problem is not only here but will get worse.

Backed by coal and oil money, the denial movement has successfully prevented the problem from being dealt with ever since it became obvious to anyone who would look as far back as the 1970s — and the worse it got, the harder was the pushback.

Every mention of the fact of human-caused global warming brought a cascade of sneering, ridicule and devious argument from a regiment of internet bots and snots.

More damaging, major reports based on scientific consensus, and sometimes major scientific conferences, were sabotaged by handfuls of cranks, right-wing political dissemblers and the odd rogue scientist who were adept at hornswoggling the media (TV in particular) into giving them equal time and muffling the message.

The issue seems to be quickening in the public mind, but we’re not at the point of frank and open discussion yet. The fact that this news got limited play — after all, in the U.S. everything, much like the post-NAFTA agreement this week, gets swallowed by other sensations of the Trump circus — is nevertheless an indication of the reluctance to admit the extent of the challenge, which implies higher fuel prices and drastic cutbacks to our lifestyle.

On Monday, the International Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body of worldwide scientists, releases its latest report, outlining what has to be done to keep warming below 2C by 2100. It has been billed as “very bad news.”

I’ll be watching to see what coverage it gets, and what effects it has on our debates over pipelines and carbon taxes.

Whatever has to be done, the prelude to any action on climate change, as well as on trade and many other things, is clear: nothing useful can be done until Donald Trump has been unceremoniously disposed of.