This election has been among the most controversial in history. Seldom before have we seen the kind of division among the American people that we see today. Despite the popular vote, we have elected Donald J. Trump to be the next president of the United States. The concerns have been raised about this man’s qualifications, morals, and even his possible tax evasion. However, among this banter there is an issue that has seemingly been left out of the spotlight, Donald J. Trump’s environmental and energy policies.
It is no secret that Donald J. Trump has been a skeptic of climate change for several years. In an interview Donald Trump gave to Fox news in 2014, he called climate change a hoax. His twitter feed also expresses his disdain for the concept:
NASA has advertised that “ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position”. Donald Trump will or cannot accept mainstream science. Although his reasons are not clearly expressed, his disclosed financial report shows he has invested money in Phillips 66 and Energy Transfer Partners, both companies which stand to lose from climate change media.
To add insult to injury, President Elect, Donald J. Trump has appointed Myron Ebell to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition. In this position Ebell will play a large role in hiring personnel and shaping the future of the EPA as it deals with climate and environmental policies. According to the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) website, Ebell is a leading contrarian of global warming. He also heads the libertarian advocacy group, Competitive Enterprise institute which is financed, in part, by big oil. Finally, he sits as chair of the Cooler Header Coalition which describes its mission as “dispelling the myths of global warming." He has consistently described the concept of global warming and climate change as “phony” and “not based on science” even though 97% of climate scientist agree that climate change is very likely a product of human activities. The graph below shows the rise and fall of CO
(Credit: Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.)
The baseline of Donald J. Trump’s environmental action plan is to increase America’s use of fossil fuels and truly has little to do with the protection of our resources, land, water, air or wildlife. According to his official website, few of the key “vision items” Donald J. Trump has declared include: tapping into shale, oil, coal and natural gas reserves; open onshore and offshore leasing of federal lands; and reducing all barriers to energy production. This list equates to funding non-renewable resources, hindering public use of public lands and getting rid of regulations that help protect our water, soil and air.
Furthermore, in an interview with Fox News in 2015, when asked if he would cut any departments as president he replied, “Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations.” The interviewer then asked Mr. Trump who would protect the environment and he stated, “We’ll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy business.” In his own 100-day plan he explains his intent to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline, cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
The notion that Donald Trump’s stance on these issues will increase jobs is highly unbacked as in the U.S. alone over 3.2 million people are employed by green industries according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. Furthermore a new study conducted by the United Kingdom’s Energy Research Center found that moving to renewable resources and increasing energy conservation would create more jobs than the fossil fuel sector at a rate of about one job per gigawatt hour of electricity saved or generated by a clean energy source because, in general, renewable energy is more labor intensive. Instead of moving to sustainable resources that will improve the health of the environment and has the potential to create more jobs, Donald J. Trump has repeatedly provided his support for nonrenewable resources.
Despite your beliefs on other issues, there can be no denying that Donald J. Trump’s energy and environmental policy decree a level of disregard for the health of people, our water, air and land. By refusing to believe in mainstream science, appointing a climate skeptic to lead the EPA transition and by rejecting progress both economically and morally to move in the direction of renewable resources, he has negatively impacted the sustainability of the United States.
