Guest post by David Middleton
This is the best election aftermath I have ever seen… and I’ve been voting since 1977. This even tops 1980…
In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo
His anti-regulatory stances, support of unfettered fossil fuel production, and his threat to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, send ripple effects worldwide.
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
NOV 9, 2016
Donald Trump’s astonishing victory has turned the world of climate action upside down, setting back U.S. environmental policy and threatening the international drive to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming.
The stunning upset by Trump, who has routinely suggested that climate change is a hoax, threatens to unravel President Obama’s climate action agenda, built on executive orders and regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon clampdown at power plants. Trump has vowed to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, but could cripple it by merely retreating from the U.S. commitment. As the world’s second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution, the U.S. could render the global treaty meaningless, at a time when scientists are urging nations to quickly raise their ambition, or risk an escalating climate crisis.
[…]
In another disappointing outcome for climate advocates, Republicans maintained their control of the Senate, winning eight of 11 key races, as well as keeping their majority in the House of Representatives. Both chambers are strongly opposed to climate action policies.
The nation’s climate leaders were left stunned, somber, angry and reflective. They had already prepped their wish lists for Clinton that included a massive clean energy spending program, a moratorium on fossil fuel leases on federal lands and other rules…
[…]
Now, with little chance to have their agenda heard in Washington, environmental groups will be forced to play defense. At first, that will mean an effort to block Trump’s plans, perhaps by convincing Senate Democrats to block appointments or use the filibuster. Legal challenges are another avenue, but Trump will be able to quickly make his mark on the judiciary, with his appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
Trump has signaled plans to populate his cabinet with oil industry executives and allies, to eliminate the EPA, and to cut all federal spending on the United Nations climate process. Trump has claimed that he will save $100 billion over eight years, which appears to be based on a plan to end federal funding for solar and wind energy, efficiency, batteries, clean cars and climate science, wrote Joe Romm, a former Energy Department official and founder of the Center for American Progress’ Climate Progress blog.
Basically, Trump has promised an America-first, drill-baby-drill energy policy. He has promised unfettered production of coal, oil and natural gas and to “bring the coal industry back 100 percent.”
Trump said he will rescind any regulations that unduly burden energy development, including the Clean Power Plan, which, if it survives legal challenges, was to have been the cornerstone of Obama’s climate action legacy and the main policy for realizing the nation’s Paris goals.
[…]
Jeff Holmstead, a lawyer who represents coal-burning utilities and who spent four years as an assistant administrator in the EPA under President George W. Bush, said that if the courts don’t kill the Clean Power Plan, Trump will have a number of other options. “I think it’s certain the Clean Power Plan will be revoked,” he said this morning. “The only question is how.”
For his energy and environmental policy team, Trump has selected one of the nation’s most prominent climate contrarians, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to head his EPA transition. Ebell worked on policy for the tobacco industry before his years of work opposing environmental regulations and sowing doubt on climate science. Trump is also reported to be considering Harold Hamm, chief executive of fracking industry leader Continental Resources, for energy secretary, and Forrest Lucas, co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, for interior secretary.
[…]
Trump will be the only world leader who rejects [junk] science, according to a study by the Sierra Club. This is a particularly tough pill for climate activists to swallow.
[…]
Seven of the eight Koch-backed Senate candidates were victorious; the network’s only loss was to Masto. The Koch brothers’ effort was bolstered by massive spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative and anti-regulatory organizations, including the National Rifle Association.
InsideClimate News reporter Zahra Hirji contributed reporting.
Notes to Zahra Hirji:
President-elect Donald Trump is not a “climate denier.” He has never denied the climate. To my knowledge, no AGW skeptic has ever denied the climate. As a professional geologist with a fairly good working knowledge of the English language, I am fairly certain that it is both scientifically and linguistically impossible to deny the climate.
“President Obama’s climate action agenda, built on executive orders and regulations” was designed to be unraveled because he did it all with a “pen and a phone,” rather than through legislation. Anyone with an eraser and white-out can “unravel” it.
“Trump has vowed to ‘cancel’ the Paris climate agreement, but could cripple it by merely retreating from the U.S. commitment.” Well, d’uh! Since the Paris climate agreement was not submitted to the Senate for ratification as a treaty or enabled by legislation from Congress, it is nothing more than an agreement between outgoing President Obama and the other signatories. In 70 days or so, it will be null & void.
“Republicans maintained their control of the Senate, winning eight of 11 key races, as well as keeping their majority in the House of Representatives” because the voters voted for them. This ought to be a clue as to the opinion of the majority of the voters regarding “climate change action.”
“Trump has signaled plans to populate his cabinet with oil industry executives and allies, to eliminate the EPA, and to cut all federal spending on the United Nations climate process” and he still won the election by a rather wide margin (only the Electoral Vote matters, it says so in the Constitution).
“For his energy and environmental policy team, Trump has selected one of the nation’s most prominent climate contrarians, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to head his EPA transition. Ebell worked on policy for the tobacco industry before his years of work opposing environmental regulations and sowing doubt on climate science. Trump is also reported to be considering Harold Hamm, chief executive of fracking industry leader Continental Resources, for energy secretary, and Forrest Lucas, co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, for interior secretary.” To which I say…
Its the climate that decides (SUN) and its actually cooling but it will take many more years for people all over our planet to realize that humans have no influence except for urban island effect.
..Just think how many “poor” people would no longer be poor, if the money spent on this election cycle actually went to the “poor” people ? Almost 2 billion dollars to elect the next president…This must be corrected…
“More With Less: Trump’s lean machine beats Clinton’s big bank account”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/10/more-with-less-trumps-lean-machine-beats-clintons-big-bank-account.html
Though the National Science Foundation was established at the time in 1958, it has subsequently become to be used to effect “national” policy by the President, a non-Scientist, with money that the Congress has little discretion of how and on what it be spent. That is a Constitutional Problem of First Order made evident by President Barak Hussein Obama and his Favorite John Paul Holdren, Ph.D. To restore order of the Constitution the National Science Foundation must be dis-established immediately on 20 January 2017 and the moneys returned to the Department of the Treasury.
Have you guys looked at the Energy Section of Trumps website .
scrapping anti-coal legislation , the EPA etc etc
OMG – I have seriously died and gone to heaven .
THANK YOU ALL PATRIOTS AND GOD BLESS YOU MR PRESIDENTELECT
Pollution sucks. CO2 emissions suck. Earthquakes caused by fracking sucks. Impeachment is under way. Filibusters are coming like you have never seen before. Killers of people and nature destroyers are not patriots. Reading these comments I understand what Trump meant when he said he could start shooting people in the streets and people would still vote for him. You are all completely ignorant and crazy. Do any of you even have a high school diploma? What is the new Hitler’s plan? Accelerating climate change is just one of them. Starting wars, escalating racial tensions, targeting races and religions, pillaging and looting are also on his agenda. Dark times are coming folks.
I didn’t realize how much Kool Aid one can drink.
I’d like to see all the wasted climate change money spent on a nice boulevards to gas station/convenience store in as many inner city places as possible, then pricing the gasoline 25 cents below prevailing prices. If the indian casinos can have cheap gas (because of no federal tax I think) why not others. Drivers won’t be able to resist the cheap gasoline engine and will go out of their way to get it. Money flows in, people of different colors mingle, economic activity booms, all is good. All profits go to building whatever they want in the area.
I made the mistake of ‘engaging’ a friend of a friend on FB yesterday. I simply put forth a few facts on CO2 and it’s benign-ness, how greenhouse growers pump the pollutant CO2 in at about 1200ppm etc.. and also the recent ice sheets covering North America, the rate of sea-level rise and that cheap, reliable energy is what makes life good for the human condition. I am an operational meteorologist and mentioned that fact to her and this was her response (apologies for the language);
They are coming unhinged and this made my day!
I don’t think it was a mistake. Call it quiet amusement, as you said to make your day. Perhaps she will jump off a cliff and the Earth will have one less person to use up it’s natural resources.
To complete Trump’s science dream team, he should appoint:
William Happer as Science Adviser
Richard Lindzen as director of National Science Foundation
Judith Curry as NOAA Administrator
Roy Spencer as director of NASA GISS
Redefining CO2 as a pollutant doesn’t make it so. I doubt that alarmists realize that and that is hilarious.
I remember discussing and debating global warming in my university days. I’ve watched 35 years of exaggerations and failed predictions. At some point you have to say, “enough”.