Donald Trump has been president for just over a year now, and his reign has been just as horrible as any reasonable person would expect: there's been non stop bragging and lies, (over 2,000 since he took office, according to the Washington Post) openly racist comments, (defending white supremacist marchers, referring to African countries as "shit holes") attacks on any media coverage that doesn't worship him, chaotic cabinet decisions that saw multiple firings, and his blatant use of the white house to line the pockets of himself and his family. He has been, quite simply, a complete and utter embarrassment to the country, lowering our prestige around the world.
In the midst of all this insanity, there is one thing that he has done as president that stands out to me: his assault on the nation's environment and rejection of climate change science. Trump once tweeted out that climate change is nothing but a conspiracy by the Chinese government to destroy the American economy(!), and his actions as president have shown that he believes that. In the past year, Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate change agreement, rolled back mileage goals for the auto industry, brought back the Keystone oil pipeline, opened national parks to developers and called for oil drilling off our coastlines. This is completely shameful.
The worst part of this is that Trump is only doing what any Republican president would do; ever since the sainted Ronald Reagan claimed that trees caused air pollution, the Republican party has been the party of stripping away environmental regulations. When climate researchers first began warning the world about the possibility of climate change, the Republican party ignored them. When those warnings got louder, the party moved towards outright denial, so much so that there are now only a handful of Republican politicians who believe that climate change is happening at all. This despite the fact that a whopping 97% of the world's climatologists believe that climate change is real. Sadly, this is no big shock, rejecting the science of climate change is easy for a political party that has a significant number of people in it who reject the science of evolution. Add to that the fact that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, oil and coal companies donate to Republicans over Democrats at a 15 to 1 ratio, not to mention the tens of millions of dollars more spent by conservative oil barons the Koch brothers attacking climate change research, and you can see why the Republican party in America has no problem being the only major political party in the world to deny climate change.
This all gets very upsetting when you look at what happened in America in 2017: two massive hurricanes hit Houston and Puerto Rico, making last year's the most expensive hurricane season ever, and terrible brush fires shot through the state of California. Ten years ago, climate change researchers warned the world about these very kind of things happening. And this may only be the beginning: Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said human influenced climate change “is expected to lead to a greater incidence of high-intensity hurricanes”. America is the second highest emitter of carbon in the world after China, for us to continue our burning of fossil fuels in the face of more years of environmental chaos is madness. This is not just a policy disagreement, the future of the world as we know it is at stake. How Republicans can live with leaving such a heavily damaged world to their children and grand children is beyond me.
To add to this insanity, clinging to oil and coal production is also foolish economically: last year the US Department of Energy released a study showing that the solar power industry now employs 374,000 people, while only 187,117 workers are employed at coal, oil, and natural gas power plants. Clean fuel production is not only better for the environment, it's also the wave of the future. After all, a energy source that doesn't have to be drilled or mined for, and that never runs out, is obviously superior to ones that do. The green energy movement is an emerging economy that is better for the environment, rejecting that obvious truth for a few red state votes and big money donations is despicable, and the worst thing Trump has done in the past year.
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