Post by ck4829 on Jan 1, 2017 12:36:21 GMT
In late May, just as Donald Trump was clinching his party’s presidential nomination, he promised a crowd at a petroleum conference in North Dakota that he would “cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to UN global warming programs.” In other words, he wouldn’t act to limit the US contribution to global change.
At that same moment, a record-setting heat wave was scorching India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It affected over 300 million people, exacerbated an ongoing drought, and added to the pressure on residents of vulnerable areas to emigrate in search of cooler climes.
It’ll be highly ironic if, instead of curbing the flow of immigrants from poor countries to rich ones, Donald Trump’s presidency ends up accelerating it.
While the president-elect’s hard line on immigration is his signature stance, he’s also brushed off efforts to combat global warming. Beyond his vow to withhold the remainder of the Obama administration’s $3 billion pledge to the UN Green Climate Fund and reevaluating the commitment to reduce emission levels by up to 28 percent by 2025, he’s nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has fought clean-energy initiatives and sided with fossil-fuel interests, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yet a lack of action on climate change will drive deeper political destabilization in already fragile regions around the world. According to United Nations’ estimates, climate- and weather-related causes have prompted the migration of over 20 million people since 2008. As more and more migrants continue to seek refuge in affluent nations in temperate areas, isolationism may become even more popular in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere.
This will lead to the election of more officials with isolationist tendencies to reject immigrants and limit participation in global problems such as climate change. There’s a vicious circle of climate denial, immigration, and Trump-style isolationism — which perpetuate one another in a climatological feedback loop, that will likely intensify at the expense of a growing population of migrants and a warming planet.
www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/12/30/trump-and-climate-change-vicious-circle/komVShaqyLXnxPH09rjbyK/story.html
At that same moment, a record-setting heat wave was scorching India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It affected over 300 million people, exacerbated an ongoing drought, and added to the pressure on residents of vulnerable areas to emigrate in search of cooler climes.
It’ll be highly ironic if, instead of curbing the flow of immigrants from poor countries to rich ones, Donald Trump’s presidency ends up accelerating it.
While the president-elect’s hard line on immigration is his signature stance, he’s also brushed off efforts to combat global warming. Beyond his vow to withhold the remainder of the Obama administration’s $3 billion pledge to the UN Green Climate Fund and reevaluating the commitment to reduce emission levels by up to 28 percent by 2025, he’s nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has fought clean-energy initiatives and sided with fossil-fuel interests, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yet a lack of action on climate change will drive deeper political destabilization in already fragile regions around the world. According to United Nations’ estimates, climate- and weather-related causes have prompted the migration of over 20 million people since 2008. As more and more migrants continue to seek refuge in affluent nations in temperate areas, isolationism may become even more popular in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere.
This will lead to the election of more officials with isolationist tendencies to reject immigrants and limit participation in global problems such as climate change. There’s a vicious circle of climate denial, immigration, and Trump-style isolationism — which perpetuate one another in a climatological feedback loop, that will likely intensify at the expense of a growing population of migrants and a warming planet.
www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/12/30/trump-and-climate-change-vicious-circle/komVShaqyLXnxPH09rjbyK/story.html