Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
On the last day of the United Nations climate summit in Bonn, Germany, we get a wrap-up on negotiations. This year is the first COP since President Trump vowed to pull the United States out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal, a process which takes four years.
Two Pennsylvania children and a Philadelphia-based environmental organization filed suit on Monday against the Trump administration for its gutting of climate regulations, laws, and policies—actions which show the government’s “reckless and deliberate indifference to the established clear and present dangers of climate change.”
Juliana will mark the first time federal fossil energy policy and climate change will be argued together in open court. The hyper-partisanship darkening the skies above Capital City, the one-sidedness of most mainstream news outlets, the enmity exhibited in public forums like town-hall meetings and elsewhere, suggest Their Honors Aiken and Coffin are right. The venue best suited to host and manage such a debate would indeed seem to be a court of law.
The Trump administration is consciously choosing to reject climate science in its plan to rebuild from superstorms Harvey and Irma. And that means their reconstruction of Houston and Florida will squander billions of taxpayer dollars and put Americans who rebuild at risk in the future.
On Tuesday, the president signed an executive order to improve what he called the country’s “badly broken” infrastructure, which he likened to what could be found in a “third world country.” The order calls for a $1 trillion revitalization package, though no legislation currently exists for this upgrade. The order is intended to eliminate and streamline some of the permitting regulations needed to construct federally-funded roads, bridges, pipelines and other infrastructure.
New York Magazine has stirred up a firestorm of debate by publishing a worst-case scenario for climate change this week, “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells.
This month we’re going to talk about the current pace of anthropogenic climate change. That’s perhaps the most massive story of our time; it’s happening a good deal faster than I expected — though in all fairness, a great many climate scientists have been caught flatfooted by the pace of change as well.
What does this downgrading of likely carbon emissions mean for climate change modelers, climate activists, policy makers, and concerned citizens? According to Ritchie, the implication is clearly not as simple as “don’t worry, fossil fuel depletion will solve climate change for us.”
President Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2018 threatens to increase the U.S. government’s carbon footprint, primarily because it shifts federal funds from non-defense to defense spending.
If there’s a single consistent aspect to Donald Trump’s strategic vision, it’s this: U.S. foreign policy should always be governed by the simple principle of “America First,” with this country’s vital interests placed above those of all others.
I don’t doubt the nation’s transition to a clean energy economy will continue after The D is inaugurated in January. Economics, a rapidly growing number of companies owning responsibility for their carbon emissions and ordinary people acting on behalf of future generations underpin the trend towards environmental sustainability.
President Obama has announced what amounts to a ban of offshore drilling in huge swaths of continental shelf in both the Alaskan Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, a decision which came after years of pushing by environmental groups.
