Trump's Green Abyss

Trump's Green Abyss
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Donald Trump boasts that he has won "many, many environmental awards", but like so many of his grandiose claims, it is not borne out by the facts.

A document search uncovered a grand total of one award. In 2007, Trump's golf course in Bedminster, N.J. was honored by the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation for landscaping that included a bird sanctuary and nature trail.

Yet even the GOP presidential nominee's solitary environmental achievement had a deflating postscript. In 2011, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection cited Trump's prize-winning Golf Club for a number of ecology-oriented violations. They included waste water pollution, destruction of wetlands, and the illegal removal of a stand of mature trees.

The tarnishing of Trump's seemingly sole "green" accolade was in keeping with his woeful disregard, and at times, outright ignorance of environmental concerns. His cluelessness is highlighted in his recently released list of the actions he would take in his first 100 days as president. Trump asserts he will suspend the contribution of millions of dollars to the United Nations' Climate Change Research Program and redirect the funds to clean up our own environment. The GOP presidential nominee seems oblivious to a modern-day fundamental environmental truth--that much of human-generated pollution is global in scope. Most widespread contamination threats to our air and water as well as the menacing encroachment of rising sea level cannot be resolved in isolation. International cooperation in setting goals and coordination in meeting them are essential.

Trump vows that another of his initial acts in the White House will be to rescind environmental regulations on energy production. What Trump overlooks is that these regulations are health-based. The energy will still be produced and distributed at a fair market price. But without such regulations to curb excesses, Americans' physical health will be vulnerable to highly toxic industrial pollution.

A President Trump's environmental record beyond his first 100 days shapes up as equally bleak. Renewable energy is a cornerstone of the "green revolution" that will save us from self-destruction. Yet Trump dismisses solar and wind energy sources as too expensive and technologically primitive to qualify for mass commercial use.
Of course, the reality is just the opposite. Renewable energy has recently expanded at a faster rate than fossil fuels, is price-competitive, and is being mass produced.

Unmoved, Trump rails against windmills interfering with the views from some of his golf courses. He much prefers "dirty" fossil fuels, pledging to maximize their extraction throughout the nation. It is a policy heading in precisely the wrong direction for combatting climate change. A gradual transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is virtually the unanimous stance of the climatology profession. This ultimately means that a significant percentage of the oil and natural gas still in the ground needs to remain there to avert an overheated planet.

Numerous anecdotes illustrate just how unprepared Trump is to administer national environmental policy. Here is one of them. Trump heaps praise on himself for building a golf course over some ecologically valuable sand dunes. What is his rationale? By covering the dunes with his development, Trump contends he has saved these precious natural resources from being washed away.

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