As luck would have it, today is World Environment Day, which melds perfectly with what’s on my mind, which is President Trump’s announcement that he wishes to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. I say “wishes to” because it turns out it’s a little more complicated than just saying “I want out”- something Trump himself appears to be completely unaware of, but I digress.
Although it probably shouldn’t have, I was surprised (and saddened) by the sheer volume of comments on social media praising Trump for this decision. There are 3 main themes of the supporters and they are all, simply put, crap. And here’s why.
#1 “Climate change isn’t real” or its BFF “God won’t let us ruin the planet”. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. It’s real, stop being an idiot. Stating the God won’t let anything bad happen is clearly silly because bad things happen all the time. Also, God never promised Noah he would never wipe out humans again. He only promised he would never do it with a flood. Revelations goes in depth about the world ending with fire, storms, war etc. So, that argument is over.
#2 “It will cost us people’s jobs to say in it”. First off, if you can’t breathe the air i don’t think your job is going to be a pressing concern. Second, there are less than 100,000 coal miners left in the US. Solar and wind energy added that many new jobs in 2016 alone. Never mind that being a coal miner is a terrible job anyway. Argument over.
#3 “It’s unenforceable and other countries aren’t going to follow the rules anyway”. So, if everyone else jumped off a cliff would you too? Same premise. Assuming that you want the United States to continue to be the Leader of the Free World, we need to be the leader in every area. That includes the environment. Argument over.
So there you go. The argument is over, Trump is wrong. Just admit it. It’s OK. Nobody’s perfect.
Have a nice day. While we still can.