If Trump becomes president, climate change will accelerate
Among the first items on a President Donald Trump agenda is unsigning the Paris Climate Agreement, a symbolic statement signed by 191 countries to combat climate change. Unsigning a symbolic agreement is a symbol itself: Trump is thumbing his nose at the world’s most urgent problem.
President Ronald Reagan thumbed his nose at environmentalists when he removed solar panels installed by President Jimmy Carter. Had the nation embraced Carter’s call to action in the late 1970s, we might not be facing our current climate crisis. Instead, the fossil fuel industry won; following the playbook of Big Tobacco, they denied the science, calling climate change a hoax.
A Trump presidency will put climate change on steroids. Carte blanche to the fossil fuel industry will only exasperate the already worsening problem. As an old-timer, I hate to think that which I fought to preserve all my life will go up in smoke because of corporate greed.
It took the planet millions of years to sequester enough carbon in the ground to make Earth habitable for humans; if we want to preserve our beautiful planet and let it heal itself, we need to stop burning fossil fuel now.
David Deick, Atascadero
This story was originally published October 19, 2016 at 10:05 PM with the headline "If Trump becomes president, climate change will accelerate."