EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.

Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.

Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?

The Trump administration’s announcement that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement is a largely symbolic move, but it is nevertheless another reminder of President Trump’s greatest folly: his disgraceful denial of the threat posed by catastrophic climate change. No matter who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, Trump’s open hostility toward any action on climate will elevate it to a defining issue in the 2020 campaign. Voters will choose between a president and Republican Party proud of systematic resistance to any action on climate, and a challenger and Democratic Party dedicated to historic efforts to limit the already costly threat to life as we know it. Ad Policy

This stark divide will occur against the backdrop of metastasizing wildfires, blackouts and mass evacuations in California, floods in the Midwest, and intensifying hurricanes from Texas to the Eastern Seaboard. And that’s just the start: The damage caused by global warming has been consistently worse than the scientific projections, which are themselves terrifying. Recently, a study by Climate Central concluded that revised measurements of land elevation show that even if global warming were limited to 2 degrees Celsius—a goal that four more years of Trump would render virtually impossible to meet—150 million people will be living on land below high-tide level in 2050. Most of southern Vietnam, with 20 million people, will be underwater, as will much of Bangkok, Mumbai and Shanghai. Indonesia’s president has already announced plans to move the capital from Jakarta to higher ground in Borneo. Forget Trump’s border wall; we’ll be building walls and dikes on the shores at historic scale.

Against this real and escalating threat, Trump—aided and abetted by Republicans in Congress—has pushed to roll back regulation after regulation to curb fossil-fuel emissions. The president has deep-sixed President Barack Obama’s climate plan, rolled back automobile mileage standards and opened federal lands to fossil fuel companies. Trump has staffed his administration with former lobbyists from Big Oil and other fossil fuel interests. In a truly Orwellian crackdown, the administration has even sought to purge the words “climate change” from government reports.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.