Despite the clear and dangerous signs of the effects of climate change the world experienced in recent weeks, President Donald Trump remains determined to stop global efforts to slow down global warming. The category 5 Hurricane Dorian, one of the strongest ever, left a trail of devastation in the Bahamas; a raging wildfire wiped out a huge portion of the Amazon rainforest; millions of Americans experienced unprecedented extreme heat; and glaciers continued to melt down in the Arctic region, among others.
Just this week, the Trump administration threatened to revoke California’s legal authority to set its own auto emissions standards. For the last 50 years, the state of California has led efforts to reduce carbon monoxide emissions, which has been identified as one of the major causes of global warming.
Following former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which mandates that car manufacturers double the fuel economy of all new cars and light trucks, California has set high auto emission standards for all cars sold in the state.
Four of the United States’ biggest car makers agreed with California and signed a voluntary agreement with the state on fuel efficiency rules. Trump called the leaders of the four companies as “foolish executives” as he insisted climate change is a myth that could slow down the American economy.
Thirteen other states followed the lead of California and also set stiff auto emission standards, and even Canada is now using California’s standards for its own cars. And now, Trump wants all states, including California to toe his line, which we all know is good for the bottom line of his billionaire friends but disastrous not just for Americans, but for the rest of the world.
To the embarrassment and outrage of the American people, majority of whom have expressed concern about climate change in survey after survey, Trump seems willing to do it alone in his and his Republican friends’ crusade against the war against global warming.
Trump, who pulled out the US in 2017 from the Paris Agreement to globally reduce greenhouse carbon emissions, sat out the recent G-7 summit on climate change.
Instead, he bared plans to encourage more oil drillings. “I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth, the wealth is under its feet. I’ve made that wealth come alive,” he said. “I’m not gonna lose that wealth on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren’t working too well.”
That’s the problem when you elect as president a shrewd businessman whose narrow vision only looks at the bottom line, unmindful of the long-term ill effects of the methods used to make his business profitable.
In another controversial rule that goes against global efforts on climate change, the Trump administration announced plans by the US Department of Agriculture to roll back environmental review and public participation requirements for actions and projects that would have adverse impact on the country’s national forests.
“This proposed rule is a blatant attempt by the Trump Administration to rip out the backbone of our conservation laws in order to fast-track commercial projects on our National Forest land,” said Attorney General Becerra, who is leading other attorneys general in efforts to block the proposal. “These treasured public lands must be preserved for the safety and use of future generations, not stripped for profit.”
Trump has a surrogate in Brazil, where wildfires threatened to destroy the great Amazon rainforest and the populist-nationalist-ultrarightist Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro refused to act to stop the fires until French President Emmanuel Macron threatened to kill a major trade deal between France and Brazil.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro doesn’t care about climate change and wants to deforest much of the Amazon to pave the way for commercial and industrial development. Bolsonaro doesn’t give a hoot that Amazon, in its current state, produces a big chunk of the world’s oxygen and like other major forests, is responsible for catching some of the carbon emissions that would otherwise go to the earth’s atmosphere and worsen global warming.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro only cares about the wealth that the Amazon, without the forest, could bring to Brazil. These ultra-rightists and populists do not look way into the future, just at the bottom line.
The world’s scientists overwhelmingly agree that the climate is changing rapidly, and the planet has already warmed dramatically since pre-industrial times due to human activity. But the Trump wouldn’t listen.
In a clear rebuff of his position on climate change, 13 federal agencies released a report in 2017 that concluded the United States would warm at least three more degrees by 2100 unless the use of fossil fuels was dramatically curtailed. It also connected climate change to other environmental issues, like record-breaking wildfires and storms, and warned of negative effects on the economy and American livelihoods.
Still, Trump wouldn’t listen. Like most of his fellow Republican leaders, Trump is worried that efforts to combat climate change could “devastate” the economy. Never mind that hurricanes are getting stronger each year, that wildfires are becoming a common occurrence, that temperatures are rising rapidly, that sea levels are rising, and glaciers are melting.
Trump’s arrogance—and ignorance—is a threat to the future of the world, a future that wouldn’t look any better despite his “Make America Great Again” promise if global warming remains unchecked. To people like him, money is everything.
Mr. Abelgas is a former editor of Manila Standard. He now lives in the United States.