Reading the news just now, that Donald Trump is “Dismantling US Climate Efforts” in the face of all the evidence that the world’s climate is changing for the worse not just for us humans, but for all God’s creatures, shows that he has zero understanding of what is actuality happening outside his golden palaces, and is also deep in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, especially coal, for some reason.
“I don’t see it” was his statement about the existence of these global changes after the recent Climate Report was released. Well, what I don’t see is a president with the ability to see the future… and it sure as hell doesn’t include coal.
I guess he didn’t grow up watching the Jetsons or Buck Rogers, ‘cause there is no coal in the future. It’s a dirty job that destroys the land and the water. People die extracting it, and mountains are literary blown up or bulldozed down into valleys, leaving behind wastelands where there once was amber waves of grain.
What is it with Republican presidents? Why the lack of imagination? Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House. Reagan pulled them down. Clinton joined us to the Kyoto Protocol. Bush pulled us out. Obama joined us to the Paris Climate Accord. Trump pulled us out.
OK. You don’t trust scientists? Fine. Go ask your local insurance agent. Ask them about the increase in claims due to acts of nature over the past 30 years. Go ahead. This is not just a “save the polar bear” issue, but an economic one. California is burning, while sea levels are rising. Streets and parking garages in Miami now flood twice daily with the tides.
They’re spending $100 million a year building sump pumps and walls to keep the ocean out. It’s happening, now, despite the bag over your head.
There are alternatives to dirty oil and coal that release no harmful chemicals into the air we breathe, and which inherently have the side effect of advances in technology and energy industry safety.
Solar and wind farms don’t cave in, blow up, pollute our drinking water, or spill sludge into our seas. These are safe, high-paying, above-the-ground, 21st Century jobs… not 19th Century technology. I mean, really. Coal? It’s almost 2020 already.
If we had a president who trusted science and saw the future of new energy, we would be way ahead of China. If we had a president who supported new energy technology to the point where they’d insist on hybrid fuel vehicles for their fleet and solar panels for the White House, the country would fully get behind the effort and we would generate more jobs and more money being a global leader in safe, clean, cheap, zero-emission energy technology.
I’m sure the oil and coal companies will be happy to invest in that and move away from fossil fuels. Especially if there’s less demand for it.
Mik Muller
Greenfield