How Trump’s Election Could Mean The End Of The Planet

Hardly a day has passed since the dawn of the age of Trump, and the same journalists who told us that Hillary was a shoe-in last Tuesday are now assuring us that Donald Trump didn’t mean all that nasty stuff he said he’d do during the campaign and that the real Trump, surrounded by common sense advisors, will calm down, change direction and settle somewhere in the good old middle, where American politicians and those paid to write about them feel they really, really belong.

The problem with this attitude is that while it is undoubtedly true that Trump will probably abandon the most unhinged and outrageous of his proposals, like that Mexican wall, it only takes him to insist on following through with the slightly more practical or achievable of his ditzy ideas for disaster to follow.

His pursuit of immigrants is one, so is the ban on Muslim entry to the US, or insisting that Japan and South Korea make their own nuclear weapons.

But the idea that worries me most is Trump’s disdain of climate change. It worries me because of all the crazy proposals he has made, doing nothing about climate change, or worse, just allowing the carbon industry a free hand, is both the easiest – it costs no tax dollars – but its consequences for the planet are beyond horror.

Can I recommend in this context to readers of this blog that they make a serious attempt to watch Leo DiCaprio’s movie on climate change? A co-production with National Geographic, it is called ‘Before the Flood’ and is available for free on Netflix. Free! Ok? Won’t cost you a penny.

It probably one of the scariest movies I have ever watched because it shows beyond dispute how close the planet is to destruction at the hands of the carbon industry. The idea that someone like Donald Trump, elected by people who are convinced that only God rules the weather, will now be in charge of the economy responsible for most of the world’s carbon emissions is terrifying beyond belief.

It is no exaggeration to say that Trump’s election could augur the end of the planet as we have known it.

UPDATE – Scientific American magazine is reporting that Trump has appointed a prominent climate change skeptic to lead the transition team at the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The magazine reported that Myron Ebell, to head the team.

Scientific American reports: ‘Ebell is a well-known and polarizing figure in the energy and environment realm. His participation in the EPA transition signals that the Trump team is looking to drastically reshape the climate policies the agency has pursued under the Obama administration. Ebell’s role is likely to infuriate environmentalists and Democrats but buoy critics of Obama’s climate rules.’