Katie Hèbert, Staff Writer |
The Trump Administration has been vocal about their denial of climate change. However, this past week has only reiterated such claims with President Trump’s most recent decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a global policy to protect the planet, and this has, consequently, stirred up the media yet again.
The G20 Summit, a meeting with 20 world leaders, left out the twentieth member, President Trump, as they pledged to work to fight climate change, in addition to editing and working on a trade agreement and the Paris Agreement.
Despite all scientific evidence, Trump has again refused to believe the climate reports, as he explains, “You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and when you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including — just many other places — the air is incredibly dirty. And when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean, we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific, it flows, and we say where does this come from. And it takes many people to start off with.” The G20 meeting which focused on environmental protections was held shortly after Trump shared this with the Washington Post.
We’ve seen how America, alone, has been impacted by climate change greatly within the past year. The West Coast is facing terrible droughts and devastating wildfires, and we’ve been experiencing debilitating hurricanes connected to the rise of sea levels. As the climate gets worse, scientists are becoming increasingly concerned over the anticipated increase of global temperature, which can be drastic even if it’s just 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist, adds, “As the Earth warms due to the continued burning of coal, oil, and gas, climate-related disasters that include high-intensity hurricanes, floods, droughts, extreme precipitation, forest fires, and heat waves, pose rising dangers to life and property. Hurricanes become more destructive as warmer ocean waters feed more energy to the storms. Warmer air also carries more moisture for devastating rainfalls, while rising sea levels lead to more flooding.” Our country has seen terrible damage, as well as countries and areas around the world, such as the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria, a natural disaster that has left Puerto Rico without electricity or clean water for months.
Even though evidence has proven climate change to be an urgent and pressing issue, Trump still purposely works to perpetuate negative environmental tactics, as Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, is now the stand-in administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
To honor the Paris Climate Accord despite Federal Politics sign the petition at: climatescorecard.org/paris-petition/
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