The World is Getting Hotter and Trump Doesn’t Care
Climate change is terrifyingly real, and the President-elect is hardly addressing it
By Bennett Stillerman
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
THE CONCEPT OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A NEW ONE; scientists worldwide have been urging society to revamp its energy consumption tendencies for over a decade. Despite these pleadings, no serious actions were taken to mitigate the crisis until recently. On April 22nd, 2016, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) drafted a deal where no less than 194 signatories agreed to limit production of greenhouse gases and contribute to global efforts dedicated to saving the planet from climate destruction. This is known as The Paris Agreement. The United States was one of these signatories.
Unfortunately for those who wish to take action against climate change, the American public isn’t in agreement on climate change’s existence, cause, or severity. According to the Pew Research Center, as high as 25% of people outright deny that the Earth’s climate is changing. Even still, the amount of people who agree that the issue is either not a problem, or not that severe is higher than the amount that say it is a pressing issue. Of the people who acknowledge its existence, as high as 18% believe that humans have not played a role in climate change. Regardless of what side of the line you fall on, it’s clear that there is no consensus on this issue.
This, however, does not mirror academic attitudes. As most of you have probably heard, a 2013 metastudy performed by the Environmental Research Letters found that of 4,014 abstract scientific papers, 97.1% acknowledged human-caused, severe global warming.
So why does this matter?
Humanity is running out of time to deal with the crisis. Solutions to climate change will not be implemented, nor will they actually cause any impacts overnight. One does not simply alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere on a mere whim, and it takes a concerted effort to have any hope of mitigating this issue. A huge complication to any proposed solution is the fact that it is global climate change, not solely the US climate. There simply must be international cooperation on the issue if we have any hope at all of fixing it. A second complication was touched on above, and the public is not in agreement — and it needs to be. It will take actual effort to make a change. The sooner Americans recognize this, the better off we will be.
In the words of MLK, “there is such a thing as being too late.”
To his credit, President Obama made great strides in readying American infrastructure to take on such an immense challenge. Since the President took office, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 9% under his leadership alone. Sweeping economic reforms by the President also put into place standards that held businesses accountable for their impact on the environment — be it fuel economy standards by 2025 or carbon pollution standards for power plants. Under the Obama administration, everyone was responsible to the world around them.
However, these initiatives must be continued to form a safeguard against future climate change, and new initiatives must be created to paint our economy and society green — and adapt to a changing world.
Our orange-faced friend in the White House is yet another roadblock in the way of progress.
And it only gets worse from there.
Trump has repeatedly, on record, stated that he wishes to dismantle the Paris Deal. He believes that the US should not waste financial capital on this “Chinese hoax.” He has vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form,” as well as vowing to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s climate change legacy.
Scientists warn that while Trump can’t unilaterally destroy US green infrastructure already in place, he can slow down current efforts to a grinding halt. This would make it very unlikely that the Paris Deal will be able to foster enough international cooperation to stave off global warming to 3.6 Fahrenheit. This is the point that is theorized to have irreversible and extreme impacts on the Earth.
All of this sounds very gloomy — and we aren’t even finished yet.
To round out his band of three stooges, Trump has appointed two more to keep him company.
The first is Scott Pruitt, former Oklahoma attorney general, the new head of the EPA. Pruitt hails from one of the most oil and gas-intensive states in the union, and much of his legacy has been spent fighting the very thing he has been appointed to lead. Pruitt’s rallying cry is that the EPA’s “unnecessary regulations” have been costing the U.S. billions of dollars, and vows to reverse that trend. An avid climate change denier, he joined a coalition of state attorney generals to sue the Obama Administration over the Clean Power Plan. He also sued the EPA over its curtailment of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
This attitude that the EPA has no business in protecting the environment is kryptonite for legitimate solutions to climate change. His appointment to lead the EPA will surely spell its destruction, or at least a gutting with surgical precision to make sure it cannot ever hope to do the job it was created to do.
The third stooge is Rick Perry, a former presidential candidate who famously forgot the Energy Department’s name when asked to list the federal agencies he wished to abolish. “Oops.”
Now he is the Secretary of Energy. He is a fellow climate change skeptic like the other two in this band of merry men, and has promised to do whatever he can to reform the DOE to match conservative wishes of a symbolic office that represents big oil and other market titans. Following this appointment, the Trump Transition Team asked for a list of DOE officials who worked on Obama’s climate initiatives, a sign that any and all employees who dare acknowledge that climate change is a real phenomenon have no place in the Trump Administration.
This is not a problem America can afford to dawdle on. Conservative estimates on the impact of climate change have lasting damage occurring as quickly as 2050, and some as early as 2030. The Trump Administration comes at a focal point in American history. His policies will shape the lives of our children, their children, and if we still exist as a species, their children as well.
An old Greek Proverb states that “society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Its time to plant the trees of progress. We must water it and nurture it so that our children may enjoy the same benefits we grow up in. We must trim its leaves to keep society functioning. We must ensure its growth so that it may give our children the shade that we so jealously enjoy.
Everyone needs a break from the heat — after all, it is getting hotter by the year.
