(Reposted from the podcast Medium account)
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, we’ve seen an alarming erasure of the government’s acknowledgement of climate change. While there are skeptics, including our current president, the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence has shown humanity has a negative effect on global temperatures.
From day one of Trump taking the reigns of the country, climate change information has been scrubbed from the White House government webpage
Climate change has already been linked to numerous political unrests across the county, including the Arab Spring and the rise of the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram.
Apart from terrorist activity, we’re looking at a massive spike in refugees and mass migrations of tens of millions of people trying to escape rising flood waters and changing weather patterns.
And it’s not just overseas we have to worry about. A rise in sea levels will create unrest at home as well as southern coastal states like Florida and Louisiana watch themselves disappear into the ocean. We only need to look to Hurricane Katrina to see what temporary flooding can do to the civility of a population of people.
It’s difficult to sell anything to the American government that doesn’t have immediate returns. You can see this in any story about the infrastructure of America. From our bridges to our ports, things are falling apart at the seams, and it seems there’s little we’re doing to stop it. There’s always a regulation or there’s not enough money. Maybe a senator somewhere has a pet project that he needs funded, so it mean some more bridges go uninspected. You can easily see that with our continued production of the M1 Abrams tank, even through the military has told congress we don’t need any more
This is why our schools are failing, this is why our airports aren’t upgraded. Federal money is going towards making sure senators stay elected instead of
So where does this all fit in with Trump’s “America First” battle cry? Since the Refugee Act of 1980, America has brought in three million refugees from all over the world, but with recent executive orders from the Trump administration, we can put safe money that will slow down in the next four years.
“America First” is a dangerous rhetoric. The moment we turn our back on the world and step away from the Paris Agreement of 2015, we let our selfishness throw the world into chaos. We give rise to a worldwide humanitarian crisis, and all the famine, pestilence and murderous warlords that come with it. And when that happens, we’re going to be the ones to take on the wrath of the world