Yup, he's done it again.
Every single day during the life of this particular administration, you wake up in the morning, bracing yourself for what the next hugely disappointing bit of news coming from the White House will be.
And you have to give this much to this president - he consistently produces that kind of news. The kind that makes thinking adults with any sense of responsibility towards the country, and towards the future, just absolutely cringe.
Surely by now, everyone knows the latest news. The overgrown child, who somehow got to play president for real, pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. It is not official yet, although that now seems a mere formality.
By withdrawing the United States out of the accord, Trump made the United States stand out, although predictably, for all of the wrong reasons once again. Only two other countries are not members of the Paris Accord - Nicaragua and Syria.
In the case of Nicaragua, they did not join because they did not feel that the Paris Accord went far enough, that it was too voluntary, and lacked teeth against offenders.
As for war torn Syria, so many sanctions have been placed upon them, that they can hardly go anywhere outside of their own country.
Which leaves the United States, standing alone once again, for all of the wrong reasons. Once again, relying on so called expertise from the tiny minority of scientists who deny human involvement in climate change, and who are being funded by the oil industry and other major corporate polluters, the United States took the de facto position that this whole crisis is overblown, and that the only thing that matters in this world are more profits for corporations.
Leave it to the billionaire, man child president to proudly hail this position. He even had the audacity to suggest that the whole world was laughing at the United States, although he implied that this was because America had accepted such a bad deal for them to begin with. In reality, the entire world is laughing at the United States, that much he is right about. But they are laughing precisely because such a man child is now in charge, and so clearly separated from reality.
Despite this being seriously terrible news, there are certain things that are encouraging.
One thing that I personally take heart in, though, is that more than ever, there are signs that he does not represent the entire country, or even close to it. Immediately after Trump made his announcement, three states - New York, California, and Washington - decided to make a pact together to continue complying with the Paris Accord. Add to that a whole score of cities across the nation that also are defying Trump on his climate change agenda - not to mention in other areas, such as immigration - and it is definitely encouraging.
I was listening to an NPR news story very recently about the crisis of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where most of the northern parts of it have died in the last two years due to bleaching. One guy that they had on that story was a scientist and expert, and he was also an environmentalist with high hopes for the Paris Accord. When asked if he was worried about Trump pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord, he said that he was not. He, an Australian, had noticed that many of the states (he singled out California) were determined to go ahead and meet climate change goals on their own, regardless of what Trump had to say about things, and he also suggested that many companies are doing the same thing, developing clean technology of their own accord, because they understand what Trump clearly does not: this is the future, while coal is not. Also, he reminded everyone that Trump is blessedly temporary, and will eventually leave office, and another president would come in. More than likely, he said, the United States would eventually rejoin the Paris Accord, which actually is true. So, we cannot despair, because Trump cannot and will not be able to undo all of the positives that have been created on this issue.
I was listening to an NPR news story very recently about the crisis of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where most of the northern parts of it have died in the last two years due to bleaching. One guy that they had on that story was a scientist and expert, and he was also an environmentalist with high hopes for the Paris Accord. When asked if he was worried about Trump pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord, he said that he was not. He, an Australian, had noticed that many of the states (he singled out California) were determined to go ahead and meet climate change goals on their own, regardless of what Trump had to say about things, and he also suggested that many companies are doing the same thing, developing clean technology of their own accord, because they understand what Trump clearly does not: this is the future, while coal is not. Also, he reminded everyone that Trump is blessedly temporary, and will eventually leave office, and another president would come in. More than likely, he said, the United States would eventually rejoin the Paris Accord, which actually is true. So, we cannot despair, because Trump cannot and will not be able to undo all of the positives that have been created on this issue.
The second thing that seemed encouraging was that also immediately following Trump's announcement, other countries seemed to only dig the trenches deeper and recommit to the fight against climate change. China and Europe reaffirmed their commitment to work together on this matter, and in Europe, the leaders of Germany, France, and the Netherlands made announcements denying that they will work with Trump to make some kind of a special, separate deal for the United States to remain in the Paris Accord. This makes sense, because this deal took 10 years. It is not perfect, but it is a first step - and a serious step - by almost all of the world's nations to address combating climate change. It breaks my heart that my country, the United States, has decided to leave it. However, that is their choice, even if it is clearly the wrong choice, and the rest of the world cannot, under any circumstances, encourage the United States - one of the world's biggest polluters now for many, many decades - to feel itself to be an exception to the sacrifices that other countries are making. The United States is not exempt from what will happen to the world with climate change, and no separate deal should be made to accommodate this delusion. This is the time to stand up to a man, a so called leader, like Trump, rather than appeasing his idiocy and his delusions of exceptionalism, for himself and for his country.
California, New York, Washington unite to back climate pact by Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press, June 2, 2017:
Why Nicaragua and Syria didn’t join the Paris climate acc by Adam Taylor, May 31, 2017:
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