Since November 9th I'd avidly avoided really broaching the topic of Donald Trump's election night upset and the consequences of what a Trump Presidency will mean for this nation. I've avoided it for many reasons because besides having refused to listen to sound evidence from a few people I personally knew, I could never really fathom the thought of Mr. Trump walking into the Oval office and sitting down in the chair that so many great men have presided over before.
Besides my latest article, I've altogether sulkily resigned to the fact that the American people decided to elect Donald Trump, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote to Clint and only won the election due to the outdated (in my opinion) electoral college vote. But enough on his upset, the reason I've broken my silence is to address a specific issue of resentment that I cannot overlook or stay silent on over these next four years (god help us all). That issue is the environment and what a Trump Presidency will do to it.
If there is absolutely one thing I cannot stomach to understand, it is Donald Trump's promised positions on environmental research and scaling back from clean energy alternatives that have worried me. It's his promise to scale back NASA's climate change research and put fossil-fuels back on track as the primary way we consume energy, which has left numerous scientists and climate change experts nervous at the prospect of just how much Trump will derail the progress we've slowly been moving towards.
Climate change is a very real problem, and while it is not the United State's burden to handle this issue by itself as the country that many look towards for direction it bodes ill that our next President-elect has in the past seemed to reluctant to admitting that global warming is a human-caused phenomenon. In fact, Donald Trump has in numerous tweets stated that he believes climate change to be a hoax. To believe that a man who clearly cannot look at the data and see for himself that in the past few decades greenhouse gases caused from industrialization and the burning of fossil fuels have been the primary causes of global warming is frightening. This tendency to ignore such clear data also speaks negatively of his ability to at least attempt to understand bigger issues such as climate change, and of his commitment to global problems.
Assuming his isolationist view of what the United States should look like removed from the world, Mr. Trump has also promised to renegade on the United States's commitment to the 2015 environmental conference COP 21. In this isolationist move, not only does Donald Trump set back the United States from a path to a cleaner, greener future but also creates a precedence for other countries to go back on their COP 21 commitments. Guess that Paris accord should have been binding, huh?
To assume that he won't also scale back on Obama's Clean Power Plan is folly, given his current positions considering that humans have had no direct influence on global climate change, and as the pieces begin to fit together the US's environmental future begins to look grimmer. With a Republican Senate and House to back him up, it's almost ensured that Trump has the ability to not only cut back on the United State's global promises but to ensure that fossil-fuels and special interest groups will continue lining the pockets of our politicians and media.
The current situation in North Dakota involving the Dakota Acces Pipeline being resolved under Trump? You can forget all about that, because I can assure you once Donald Trump sees the green that accompanies the black gold he won't be giving too many second thoughts on what his actions will be.
The election is over, and many can still argue that a Trump Presidency won't ruin our nation's economy and military standing. But what of our mother earth? Should we consider Trump's isolationist policies in a sense that the United States will somehow isolate itself from global warming? The United States has a crucial role in preserving it's environment and acting as a model for developing countries to follow in step.
It's like a domino effect, once one country goes down you can rest assured that many other countries will go down with it.
