The new president of the United States, Donald Trump, took the oath of office last Friday, just after taking office, an information page referring to the climate change was eliminated from the official website of the White House, as well as any mention of climate change and global warming.
America First-Energy Plan
This section has been replaced by another called «America First Energy Plan»(Energy Plan-America first) that warns that the Climate Action Plan and the water regulation of the United States (Waters of the US rule), are harmful to society.
These regulations that the new administration considers so "harmful" have as their main goals the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change in the case of the Climate Action Plan and the protection of American aquifers in the case of water regulation in the United States. In this regard, it is important to consider how climate change is affecting various countries, as can be read in the article on Germany and climate change and how this relates to the health effects.
Official White House website after Trump's inauguration
You can also read statements such as "for too long, our energy industry has been stagnant due to burdensome regulation," due to policies such as those indicated and which are Trump agrees to eliminate them considering them harmful and unnecessary. This is in line with the tendency of many governments to identify environmental regulations as obstacles to economic development, even though renewable energy could provide more job opportunities, as mentioned in the analysis of adaptation of species to climate change and in the context of green infrastructures. Furthermore, this radical change in Trump's energy policy contradicts the need to address the man-made climate change and could lead to floods in the future.
Shale Oil and Shale Gas
As if this were not enough, the matter gets worse when he goes on to say that the Trump administration will focus on revolutionizing the unconventional hydrocarbon industry such as shale oil and the shale gas to create jobs and bring prosperity to millions of Americans. Both fuels in which the extraction technique is none other than the destructive and controversial "fracking«.
These last statements are dismantled by several recent studies, which indicate that the renewable energy sector provides employment more people than the oil, coal, and gas industries combined in the United States. In this regard, it is crucial to consider the plant adaptation to climate change and how these changes can influence the local economy, as well as the situation of crops in climate-affected regionsIn this sense, it is relevant to mention that forest fires will increase as a result of inaction on climate change.
We are before the Trump style, which has traded refuted evidence and the scientific method for retroactive logic (deciding on the results and then looking for the logic behind them), denying what most scientists have proven through years of detailed study and work. This denial of climate change has led to increased global concern, especially in regions sensitive to warming, as detailed in the article on deserts threatened by global warming y cities that could disappear.
Reactivation of the American Coal Industry
The new website tries soften the tone with statements such as “today our energy needs must go hand in hand with a responsible stewardship of the environment. Protecting clean air and water, preserving our habits of respect for nature and conserving our reserves and natural resources will continue to be a priority ”, but at no point does he mention renewable energy. Instead of talking about them, include a plan for what they call "clean coal»(Clean coal), which is nothing other than a coal that is very rich in fossil fuel, extremely harmful to the environment.
Furthermore, the Trump administration "is also committed to making coal technology cleaner and reviving the American coal industry, which has been mistreated for too long." Let's not forget that coal is a fossil fuel, and new energy policies aim to reduce its use as much as possible in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has been shown that the green economy can offer alternative solutions, as mentioned in the analysis on and its relationship with emerging solutions.
As is well known, President Obama has been an avid defender of greenhouse gas reduction policies, among other actions, signing the Paris AgreementWith the arrival of Trump, the outlook for climate change, its research, and mitigation in the United States is unfortunately not very encouraging.
