Choice and Change: Trump, environmentalism and learning from peaceful protest.
Thoughts on Trump, environmentalism and non-violent protest.
Twenty-sixteen has seen some pretty big change occurring worldwide. Many of us have been taken aback by changes that we did not see coming. We have woken up to the reality of living in a global and national community where the outcomes of our choices are our collective burden to bear. It takes little introduction to lead in to any discussion surrounding the election of Donald Trump, no doubt many of us feel we have already heard enough on the subject. Having watched, read and listened to discussions surrounding Trump in the last month I feel inclined to write some thoughts down from the perspective of an environmentalist, with a particular focus on climate change and choice amidst recent political changes.
Is climate change for real?
In the last week Trump tower has seen famous environmentalists, such as Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, walk through its golden revolving doors to chat environmentalism with Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka. Panic ensued on December 8th among the environmental community with Trump’s chosen appointment of Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, as the future head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA was set up to educate on sustainability and environmental issues by collecting data and aiming to lower emissions and evaluate policies in the face of climate change; Pruitt is a strong supporter of dependence on fossil fuels, he is also not a fan of the EPA, stating that its rule is “unlawful and overarching”. Pruitt is also a well-known denier of climate change. Along with 28 other states he has also attempted to stop Obama’s “Clean Action Plan” through legal action against the EPA. Michael Brune, Executive Director of The Sierra Club (a U.S. based environmental organisation) commented that putting Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA was like “putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires” [1]. As one of the main jobs of the EPA is to ensure that America has a clean air and water supply it is a tad worrying that its future director has very close ties with many of America’s big coal companies, and has suggested that “the debate is far from settled” regarding climate change.
As many of us probably heard during the election cycle, Trump is no major supporter of climate action either; he famously suggested that climate change was a hoax started by the Chinese and shared plans to pull the U.S from the Paris Climate Agreement. To put how scary this decision is into perspective, America is currently the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China, meaning that when it comes to climate change they are one of the countries most responsible for our rising temperatures. In the COP21 Paris Climate Agreement, a bill that came into effect on 4th November 2016, it was agreed that the highest emitters of greenhouse gases would work together to ensure that the global temperature does not rise a further 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial level emissions. Within a “name and shame” system each country that has signed the agreement will take responsibility for their emissions before the rising of temperatures results in poorer, low-lying countries being engulfed by rising sea levels and many people being left displaced. However, the agreement assumes that countries need little encouragement to ensure these changes happen as there is no real punishment if they do not reach their emissions targets; in the case of Trump it would seem that he may either deal with the suggested shaming that may come from a lack-lustre attempt to lower emissions or simply pull America out of the agreement altogether. With the strong ties that both Trump and Pruitt, among others of Trump’s purported close advisors, have to fossil fuel companies it seems likely that future U.S. governmental support of clean, green energy and the fight against climate change may well be minimal.
The reality of change
However, as these major changes occur in the political sphere there is a far greater change occurring that even Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt will one day no longer be able to ignore. An excerpt from Naomi Klein’s book ‘This Changes Everything’ puts it like this:
“If we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to rise year after year, climate change will change everything about our world. Major cities will very likely drown, ancient cultures will be swallowed by the seas, and there is a very high chance that our children will spend a great deal of their lives fleeing and recovering from viscous storms and extreme droughts. And we don’t have to do anything to bring about this future. All we have to do is nothing.”
These dramatic climate-related events are already occurring; California has been in a state of severe drought since 2012, with record levels of water deficit in the area. Similarly Sub-Saharan African nations have been steeped in waves of severe drought for decades, especially since 2014 as the change in weather patterns caused by the El Niño weather cycle have lead to major food shortages with the inability to grow sufficient crops and led to many communities depending on food aid – these are only two examples among many.
The recent events at Standing Rock have painted a microcosmic picture of what our global community could achieve when we stand in solidarity. Standing Rock is a Native American reservation in Dakota, attempts to build a major oil pipeline under this land have seen people from all over the world showing up to stand with the Sioux tribe as their access to clean drinking water, their community and native land are under serious threat. On 5th December President Obama sent in Army Corps to put a stop to the plans to build the oil pipeline in response to the mass peaceful protests within the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The success of these peaceful protests and this movement of solidarity raises questions of who we are allowing to make choices for us regarding our future. We may not be able to alter the political landscape that we now find ourselves in but we, as both local and global communities, have a choice of what kind of change we choose to support.
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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/08/leonardo-dicaprio-donald-trump-green-jobs