Let’s take a breather from “negative press covfefe” for a moment or two and zero in on something of considerably more significance.
That would be climate change and the future of Planet Earth — and whether the world’s most powerful nation will take part in a worldwide effort to protect the planet.
Reports have surfaced that Donald J. Trump is leaning toward pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord, which was signed by virtually every nation on Earth to battle climate change.
It’s a measure, according to the media, for the president to “put America first.” Good grief!
Two nations didn’t sign the accord: Syria and Nicaragua. The rest of the world signed on. It is meant to signal a global commitment to mitigate the consequences of what the vast majority of pertinent scientific minds have concluded: that humankind’s activity has contributed to the changing climate. Carbon emissions and deforestation are products of industrial development and all of it has taken a devastating toll on the world’s ecosystem.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335838-climate-change-drama-grips-the-white-house
If the president goes through with this effort to yank the United States out of the agreement, most of us can predict worldwide outrage. A Trump decision to pull out of the Paris Accord would be nothing more than a sop to the Republican Party base that got him elected in 2016.
It also would be a bow to the nationalist wing of his inner circle, led by Stephen Bannon, the former Breitbart editor and spokesman for the far right wing of the Republican Party. Trump pledged to “make American great again.” How in the world does a “great” nation refuse to lead the world in fighting a global crisis?
It’s fascinating in the extreme, though, that other senior Trump administration officials want the United States to adhere to the Paris Accord. They include, and get a load of this list of heavy hitters: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, for crying out loud; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; son-in-law/senior policy adviser Jared Kushner; economic adviser Gary Cohn; and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
Can there be anything more that the president can do to infuriate our nation’s allies? He seems to be working overtime to find methods of angering our closest allies. Canada, Mexico, Germany, the UK, Australia and France all have felt the sting of Trump barbs; meanwhile, the president remains stunningly silent about Russia and that nation’s effort to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.
Trump says he’ll announce his Paris Accord decision “in a few days.” This ongoing story has tossed yet another crisis element into the stew that’s brewing inside the White House.
Here’s one more plea to the president from Flyover Country: Don’t pull us out of these accords.