Al Gore: The Trump Administration’s Environmental Policies Are Reckless and Indefensible – Futurism

In his 2006 documentary,An InconvenientTruth,Former Vice President Al Gore quoted author Upton Sinclair in regards to those who refuse to believe, or even acknowledge, the reality of climate change. You know, more than 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote this, that Its difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.'

Gores choice of quote could not have been more precipitous: a decade later, the current presidential administration has positioned itself unapologetically in the climate changeskepticism camp. In fact, several members (arguably even President Trump himself) have alignedin toto with those who deny climate change entirely even in the face of blatant evidence, regarded as fact by the vast majority of the scientific community. A community whose job it is to understand and to help the rest of us understood irrespective of any fiscal interest or compensation.

In the first six months since taking office, the Trump administration made drastic changes to several of the United States environmental policies with many of those decisions coming within the presidents first hundred days. The appointment of Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the administrations decision to remove the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, set the tone and intention.

The rollbacks to come, predominantly inthe form of slashed funding and repealed regulations, dealt a major blow to the integrity of the U.S. climate strategy, much of which was developedunder the Obama administration. The gamut of repeals included rules that protected land and water supplies from toxic chemicals (like arsenic and lead) being dumped there to the lifting of regulations that were designed to track, and ultimately reduce, emissions by oil and gas companies. Criticism of standards abounded, including those that have guidedvehicle fuel efficiencyand are aimed atreducing pollution.

The rewriting of the EPAs clean power plan, which began in March, ended a moratorium on coal mining and effectively ended requirements for climate change considerations when approving projects. Moratoriums put in place to prevent drilling on federal land were also lifted, and the Trump administration was quick to approve the controversial Keystone and Dakota access pipelines.

The policies are are really reckless and indefensible, Gore said in an exclusive interview with Futurism. But in spite of that were seeing a big movement in the U.S. to pick up where Donald Trump is leaving off. He added, referring to the grassroots movement in several cities, driven by state and municipal governments and citizens, to uphold the Paris Agreement at the citylevel efforts which Gore praises and believes will prevail. Were going to meet the commitments. [It]looks like the U.S. will meet the commitments made by former President Obama regardless of what Donald Trump says.

Gores sequel to An Inconvenient Truth aptly titledAn Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power drops this week, and it couldnt come at amore prime moment.When the first film came out ten years ago, it informed an entire generation of the real-time and longterm consequences of global warming. More importantly, it demanded that we confront our own action (and inaction) in the face of it. The sequel, then, will hopefully invigorate and further mobilize this action if not at thefederal level, than the local level.

And really, thats been the message Gore hoped to convey all along: thatthe fight against global warming has to happen where it started: with us, in our communities, our workplaces,and our homes. I dont even like to think about the prospects for humanity if we fail to act, Gore said. I think we will act. The remaining question is, how long will it take to really cross this political tipping point where we get bold action.

Read the original:
Al Gore: The Trump Administration's Environmental Policies Are Reckless and Indefensible - Futurism