Trump is now in charge, and he is making his presence felt right away! The transition has been quite scary to many people for plenty of reasons. The most notable one being his insistence on debunking climate change as a hoax. The climate change advocates must ready themselves for a bumpy ride.
On Friday, all of Obama administration’s work and content on climate change were deleted from the White House’s website. This action by President Trump’s administration was a clear attack on Climate change agenda, as all pages related to the topic were replaced by “America First Energy Plan.” It further elaborates on how Trump will roll back Barack Obama’s far-reaching climate regulations, also known as the Climate Action Plan.
As of noon, a search for "climate change" at https://t.co/sj6r6xYjyt turns up many links, but they've all been scrubbed. #GOPWarOnScience pic.twitter.com/BbbnQWOFiB
— Robert McNees (@mcnees) January 20, 2017
The website features many other things Trump campaigned about, such as the emphasis on using fossil fuels and making “the military great again.”
Sam Adams, the World Resources Institute, an environmental think-tank, said on the issue,
“It’s truly disturbing that one of the first actions by the Trump administration is to remove nearly all references to climate change from the White House website. The website’s lone climate reference is to eliminate the Climate Action Plan, which is a wholesale attack that flies in the face of common sense and would do harm to all Americans.”
You can visit an archived version of Obama’s white house page to see how many climate-related pages were removed, including the landing pages for the Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Science and Technology Policy. This step is certainly a significant one towards Trump’s systematic campaign on getting rid of climate data from all federal websites. The climate activists and scientists have feared the same steps since the election of Trump.
Quick work–all reference to climate change has been scrubbed from WH website. Problem solved just like that!!!!!
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) January 20, 2017
The changes on the White House website has caused a huge uproar on social media and in the climate change circles, with people fearing that this may be the start of President Trump’s work against climate change action. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Trump’s advisors are looking to make him nullify Obama’s guidelines. Moreover, they want the federal government sanction infrastructure projects. Trump is also mulling over signing an executive order which will suspend the social cost of carbon, which helps the authorities measure the climate risks of any new or old project, such as a new oil pipeline.
The report claims that these executive orders could come off as early as this weekend.
“Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America,” the article states.
Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, mentioned in a statement,
“With no reference to renewable energy, this dirty energy plan ignores the clean energy economy that is so critical to creating jobs and fighting climate change. This is a disgraceful way for Trump to begin his presidency”
What are your thoughts on Trump’s onslaught against Climate change? Comment below!
