In the past week and a half, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a slew of controversial candidates to serve in his administration and cabinet. Among them is Myron Ebell, a libertarian think tank member whom Trump has selected to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team. Ebell’s fellow transition team members include lobbyists, former policy wonks and industry experts all bound together by a common thread—staunch denial of climate change.
Unfortunately, their denial of the truth will not make its conditions go away. As of 2016, global temperatures have risen nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. Although that might seem insignificant, it is having large impacts in the United States. Summer heat waves are setting records in the south and Midwest as wildfires on the west coast burn increasing intensity. Meanwhile, droughts across the country are lasting longer resulting in low crop yields. Outside the U.S., low-lying islands countries are at risk of a watery demise as rising waves erode coast barriers, sweeping their way ever inwards. Across the world, people’s lives and livelihoods are being put at risk as the planet heats up. It is a time to be scared, especially for those who live in vulnerable places. It is certainly not a time to toy around with EPA and play games with environmental policy.
In the past eight years, the United States had made significant progress towards climate solutions. Trump’s EPA appointments promise to all but erase it. Their calls to leave the Paris send a message to the world that the United States neither cares about global warming nor respects the sacrifices that 112 countries have made to solve it. In their isolationist climate policies, Trump’s new EPA advisers seek to pursue an “America First” climate platform that would provide short-term benefits to some in the US, but almost guarantee a failure to solve a global collective action problem that threatens all of us. “America first” should stand for our country leading the charge against climate change, not backing off from it.
It’s easy to understand why some detest the idea of forcing the U.S. to abide by energy restrictions: it will cost them their jobs. They will effectively be told that their livelihoods are worth less than an idea that to them, might be nebulous. Some already have been told so. Approximately 191,000 mining jobs have disappeared since September 2014. Under the Paris Agreement, more would likely go. But that does not necessarily have to be bad. With proper subsidies, the rise of green energy could lead to employment for wanting energy workers. That is where the EPA should come in—designing energy policies that use carbon/dirty energy tax revenue to subsidize clean energy and retrain workers.
It likely will not, though. There is no reason to think that Myron Ebell and his band of energy lobbyists sill suddenly begin advocating for green solutions. The burden will instead be on us: on an individual level, we must all be vigilant about our everyday actions. Energy efficiency and recycling must become more than buzzwords—they must a natural part of our lives. If change will not come from the top of our nation, it must come from the bottom—from people altering lifestyles, joining environmental groups and advocating for local policy changes. None of that is much fun, but ultimately, if we fail to solve problems of climate change now, we forsake our collective home.
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