Climate Action
This is Not a Party-Line Issue
July 27, 2016
It’s late July and the Republican National Convention has wrapped up in Cleveland. It should be noted that the GOP nominee, Donald Trump, has not focused much if any of his attention on the concerns our environment faces both domestically and internationally. This is not a party line issue.
Regardless of who the winner is this November, a President Hillary Clinton or a President Donald Trump will need to recognize climate change for the problem it is and the problem it will increasingly be. Rightfully so, it is important to look at which candidate has more ground to cover when it comes to learning about accepting and combating climate change The results appear to be obvious in that they favor the notion that Hillary Clinton is more understanding of man-made climate change.
Trump has used faulty logic and dubious syllogisms as a means of invalidating that climate change is a pertinent issue we currently face. In September of 2015, Trump stated that because people in the 1920’s thought the Earth was getting cold, but now scientists say it’s getting warmer, that science is nonsense. It appears as though Trump believes there is no way that science could have advanced in 96 years, and that once things go one way in science, they cannot go another. Mind you this is regardless of how accurate methods of environmental data collection were in the 1920’s, a time where people thought continents did not move.
In a similar case on January 29th, Trump tweeted that it was snowing in Texas and that climate change is “an expensive hoax”. It is inaccurate to believe that just because it snows once in a place where it does not typically snow, that the Earth must be getting colder… forever.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton takes a different approach when it comes to climate change. She has been vocal for a longer period about climate change and the issues it presents. In June of 2015 in her first major speech after announcing her candidacy she laid out her plan for how she is going to combat climate change, claiming that she could create jobs while maintaining the commitments the United States has made to fight climate change worldwide by citing the importance of green jobs. She urged that tax breaks are too heavily weighted to fossil fuels, while also noting that our dependency on fossil fuels is an energy security, and thereby, a national security issue. She has continued since to recognize that climate change is a man-made issue that can be fixed only by we humans.
Overall, Donald Trump has more ground to cover when it comes to understanding the pertinent challenges that climate change presents to the American society that he wants to make great again. In addition, Hillary Clinton will need to continue to be vocal about climate change if she truly wants sweeping change for the environment.
