Trump’s infamous global warming comments have become common knowledge and are now shared anecdotes between most political scientists, politicians, or international relations students. This article analyses two similarly outrageous and/or ridiculous statements made by President Trump himself, selected in a personal evaluation, that illustrate the tangible effects of his irrational environmental policy – one irrelevant to the environmental reality of the 21st century.
Trump’s infamous global warming comments have become common knowledge and are now shared anecdotes between most political scientists, politicians, or international relations students. This article analyses two similarly outrageous and/or ridiculous statements made by President Trump himself, selected in a personal evaluation, that illustrate the tangible effects of his irrational environmental policy – one irrelevant to the environmental reality of the 21st century.
Mister Trump’s environmental policy has been ignorant, underdeveloped and inadequate concerning environmental issues – which some might even argue that he has been deliberately disregarding. This policy has even lead to some conspiracy theories among observers of world news. From renowned scientific minds in despair to the exasperated global citizenry, there has been speculation on whether or not the president is falsely assuming this arrogant, overconfident, eminently uneducated persona so that he can avoid spending budget dollars on an issue that he does not wish to deal with.
About right at the moment he decided that the Paris agreement was something Americans had joined so other countries could be at an economical advantage from their contributions. He said: ”I will say this. I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.” This moment of clarity endured when he stated that America could be at a ”tremendous economic disadvantage” were the Paris agreement to be endorsed.
Robert Watson, climate scientist at the Univeristy of East Anglia said that it was: ”totally ridiculous” and ”patently untrue” as no country had a play in what other countries would set their target at. A former negotiator for the US government said that: ”the US entered the Paris agreement to make progress on dealing with a rapidly warming planet. The commitments in the Paris agreement are voluntary.” In addition Stanford University researchers found evidence that if the goals in the Paris agreement were to be met, there would be a 60% chance that global gains would extend beyond $20 trillion.
On clean air Donald Trump claimed: ”I want the cleanest air on the planet and our air now is cleaner than it’s ever been.” Although air pollution has been on a steady decline since the 1970s, the continuous downward line of contamination has changed its course to a slight rise, after Trump’s ascension to office. The Environmental Protection Agency also reported a rise in soot and smog in 2017, saying that it was the ”least clean” year since 2012.
Nevertheless, the overall message of this article is to illustrate the nearly-dystopian effects that long-term ignorance (or ignoring) of environmental issues will induce in the future. Negative effects on the environment have been observed only within the short time-frame succeeding Trump’s ascension to power. One need not imagine the effects such a deficient environmental policy, if sustained, could have on the planet in the long-run.
To save our planet our collective action needs to be coordinated by our leaders. Our only remaining hope, despite the overall metamorphosis in Trump’s environmental line of action, is the rapid change of United States administration and the reversal of its long-term catastrophic effects.
The earth is our home, and will be the home of our children, our grandchildren. So, why should our generation be so egotistical as to deprive our successors of the opportunity to exist, evolve, and thrive in the same world that we could?
