T.The air outside my window is yellow today. Yesterday it was orange. The air quality index is over 200. The Environmental Protection Agency defines this as a “health warning” in which “everyone can experience more serious health effects if exposed to it for 24 hours”. Unfortunately, over the course of several days the index has grown to over 200.
The west is burning. Wildfires inside California, Reg Reagan and Washington Washington are burning down homes, killing scores, making many sick, displacing hundreds of thousands, burning entire towns to the ground, consuming millions of acres of land, and the western third of the United States. Part thick, acid and hazardous smoke.
Yet the president has said and done almost nothing. A month ago, Trump wanted to protect lives Oregon And to California from “rioters and robbers.” He sent federal forces to the streets of Portland and threatened to send them to Auckland and Los Angeles.
Today, Portland is in danger of being burned And ak Cland and Los Angeles are under health alert. Trump will visit California on Monday, but he has said A little.
One reason: these states voted against him in 2016 and he still has evil.
He came close to rejecting California’s request for emergency funding.
“He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses have burned down because he’s so angry that people in the state of California didn’t support him.” Said Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.
Another explanation for Trump’s silence is that there is wildfire Tied Towards human-climate change, which Trump has done everything humanly possible to make worse.
Extreme weather disasters are rampant in America. On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest State of the weather reportIn August alone, the U.S. suffered a four-billion-dollar disaster. In addition to the wildfire, there were two tremendous hurricanes and one extraordinary event Midwest right.
These are inconvenient facts for a president who has spent most of his presidency trying to eliminate every major environmental and environmental policy he can control.
Trump has been the most environmental president in history, initiating his unilateral decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal.
He called climate change a “betrayal.” He claims, without any evidence, that windmills cause cancer. He has weakened the Obama-era limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide From the power plant And from Cars and trucks. He has withdrawn rules governing clean air, water and toxic chemicals. It has opened up more public land for oil and gas drilling.
He has specifically targeted California, Repeal of state power To set car emissions standards easier than required by the federal government.
Overall, the Trump administration has been ousted, repealed or otherwise reversed About 70 environmental regulations And rules. More than 30 rollbacks are still in progress.
Now, seven weeks before election day, with much of the country either on fire or suffering other consequences of climate change, Trump has unequivocally defended his record and attacked Biden.
The core of “ [Biden’s] The economic agenda is a hard-left crusade against the American energy crisis, “said Trump. Rose Garden Speech Last month.
Quite. While Biden has made climate change the focus of his campaign, t 2tn investment proposal In a large-scale green jobs program for building a renewable energy infrastructure, his ideas are not exactly radical. The money will be used to improve energy efficiency, build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations and increase renewable energy emissions from wind, solar and other technologies.
Biden aims to end the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2035, and to push the United States to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Their goals can be very humble. If there is any sign of what has happened in the West now, 2050 will be too late.
Still, Americans have a clear choice. In a few weeks, when they decide whether Trump qualifies for four more years, climate change will come to the ballot.
The choice should not be difficult. Like the coronavirus, the dire consequences of climate change – coupled with Trump’s outright misuse – provide unequivocal proof that he takes no less care of the public.