BY TAYLOR FARNSWORTH
Staff Writer
The coal industry experienced a victory this past Tuesday with the signing of Trump’s new executive order to cancel out President Obama’s climate change efforts.
The state of the pressing issue of climate change has been in question by advocates with regards to Trump’s administration since the beginning of his campaign.
Most Democrats believe that the Trump administration is in denial when it comes to the state of our environment, or perhaps just simply ignorant.
President Trump argues in favor of denouncing any claim that climate change is a pressing issue and is deserving of government funding or attention. A tweet from Trump stated that he believed climate change was a hoax by the Chinese to destroy American industry. However, scientific evidence proves otherwise.
Trump made it apparent that his administration has no intentions of meeting the commitments Obama’s administration made to curb climate change. After Trump signed the executive order, the Environmental Protection Agency was advised to start the time-consuming process of reworking Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The plan would have closed hundreds of power plants, and stopped the construction of new plants, replacing them with wind and solar farms.
The Clean Power Plan was a long-awaited victory for scientists and environmentalists, only to be scrapped by Trump. The plan itself was part of the promise Obama had made that the United States would cut its emissions of greenhouse gasses by about 26 percent by the end of 2025. That promise was inevitably broken,
as Trump was more than pleased to be able to tell miners, “You’re going back to work,” even if it comes at the expense of our environment.
In 2016, “Before the Flood,” a documentary that brought awareness to the threat of climate change, was released. The documentary featured Leonardo DiCaprio meeting with scientists, world leaders (including Obama) and activists for advice on how we can prevent climate change from causing further damage.
In DiCaprio’s interview with Obama, they discussed the importance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also known as the Paris agreement. The goal of the Paris agreement is to prevent the planet from warming any more than 3.6 degrees. Through scientific research, it has been determined that if the planet is to surpass 3.6 degrees it will lead to inevitable droughts, flooding, species extinction, rising sea levels and food shortages.
Obama admitted that they needed to improve upon the agreement and said that the next administration to come into office should work towards tackling the issue.
“Of course we cannot reverse climate change, but we can work on preventing it,” he said.
But it can only be prevented if the sitting president is willing to admit the severity of the issue, and discover new ways in which we can combat it. Thankfully, Trump did not withdraw from the Paris agreement, but his actions are forcing America to lose its status as being a top supporter of fighting climate change.
After the signing of the new executive order, the fear of what’s to come with climate change has grown. Scientists have provided plenty of evidence that provides an understanding into the outcome of what would be instore.
Some advice to those residing in Florida: start packing.
