United States citizens, or anyone who cares about global warming, should be worried about the new leadership of our country in a few short months. With Donald Trump’s history of denying climate change and shunning international cooperation when it comes to environmental issues, there are many signs as to what he will do in his coming presidency. With Trump as our newly elected President, we face countless environmental risks. Under the newly-inaugurated President, environmental impacts of climate change will continue to worsen and citizens will face displacement and health issues as the Trump administration attempts to rid our country of clean energy.
In the 2024 electoral race, the Democratic and Republican candidates campaigned differently when it came to climate change, and their pasts also reflect these values. While campaigning for Vice President in 2019 and during her term as Vice President from 2020 to 2024, Kamala Harris supported the Inflation Reduction Act, Bazaar reported. This act set aside $369 billion to reduce the use of greenhouse gasses and invest in clean energy. During this election cycle, Harris stepped away from directly campaigning about the environment, which understandably left voters concerned. She was questioned about this in July of 2024. “We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example,” she said in a CNN interview. “That value has not changed.”
On the contrary, President-elect Trump has always loudly discredited climate change. On the “Full Send Podcast,” which was released in April of 2023, Trump once again restated his position. “The ocean is going to go down a 100th of an inch in the next 400 years,” he said. By stating this claim, which is not backed up by any fact or data, Trump reinforced his belief that climate change is not real, while also adding to the mockery of the situation. In his 2024 GOP Platform entitled Make America Great Again!, President-elect Trump outlined plans to “unleash” oil production in the United States and end the Green New Deal, a plan to convert our economy to a more sustainable economy that is environmentally stable. Trump mentioned in his agenda that he will resume harmful drilling and build destructive infrastructure. This is all in his plan to make the United States the number one oil producer again, even though it will directly harm the environment.
Whether our government leaders believe it or not, the climate has been changing and will continue to do so without action, especially without the government’s involvement. A Pew Research Center article reported that the United States is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide, emitting 13.5% of the global total. The main contributors to climate change are oil, gas, and coal, with a 75% contribution. In fact, transportation, a part of day-to-day life for Americans, contributes significantly to carbon emissions. The UN reported that transportation makes up a quarter of global energy-related emissions. This is alarming and should spark a call to action, especially with the availability of green transportation models today such as electric and hybrid vehicles.
With most situations, there are consequences, and those created from excessive use of greenhouse gases for our environment are here to stay. The COP29 State of the Climate Update gave a clear view of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. Glacier loss is accelerating, with an observed record of 1.2-meter water equivalent in ice loss during 2023. The amount lost in 2023 is the largest loss from 1950-2023. “The glacier mass loss in 2022/2023 corresponds to a volume of water discharged by the Amazon River in about one month,” said the COP29. The state of our environment is inarguably suffering in direct relation to changes in climate. From January to September 2024, the temperature was 1.54 +/- 0.34 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. The temperatures make 2023 and 2024 the two warmest years on record, and should ignite other fires to help us see what needs to change.
While the climate is obviously changing, these changes are having an impact on Americans’ health and living conditions, which will worsen if nothing is done. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2050, climate change is likely to cause 14.5 million deaths. The process will also cause $12.5 trillion in economic losses. The increase in climate-related phenomena such as wildfires and toxic algae blooms will also lead to an increase in climate-related health conditions. “For example, areas previously unaffected by toxic algae blooms or waterborne diseases because of cooler water temperatures may face these hazards in the future as increasing water temperatures allow the organisms that cause these health risks to thrive,” a U.S Global Change Research report claimed.
Impacts for United States citizens and those around the world extend beyond health issues; housing problems and food scarcity also pose a threat. Food insecurity in 18 countries has worsened due to droughts, a factor related to climate change. While the United States was not specifically mentioned, this issue is foreseeable in the future, sooner than we may expect. 2024 has also been an exceptionally difficult year for the United States when it comes to natural disasters. In the summer of 2024 up to September 2024 in the western United States, 240,000 people were displaced, not even accounting for the displacement hurricanes Helene and Milton caused in their aftermaths. Wildfires also plagued the Northeast this fall, even in Connecticut. The smoke from the fires along the East Coast could be smelt from the KO campus.
Marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, and a lack of executive action on the climate crisis will likely hurt them most of all. Some of Trump’s plans include: eliminating every office and agency that works to end pollution in poor communities that are largely impacted by it and shrinking national parks and monuments in the West to allow more oil drilling. The land included in the shrunken borders includes land that belongs to Native tribes. There have also been discussions about moving the Environmental Protection Agency out of Washington, D.C. Not only will this undo what President Biden was doing to help poor and marginalized communities, but marginalized communities will have to heed the impact of environmental repercussions caused by Trump’s backtracking on environmental legislation, especially communities in areas like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Trump’s pick of Representative Lee Zeldin to oversee the Environmental Protection Agency and Chris Wright as Energy Secretary exemplifies his view that the environment is a pawn and not a concern for the citizens they are meant to protect. As a congressman, Zeldin voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which expanded clean energy to reduce greenhouse gases. He has also made allusions to rollbacks of energy regulations in hopes of restoring the United States’ economy. “We will restore US energy dominance,” he said on X, “revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.” While Zeldin did not specify what jobs he would bring back, Trump has mentioned bringing back jobs in the energy realm in his GOP 2024 platform. It may be true that jobs went away in the energy sector due to regulations in 2020-2021; however, Jason Grumet, a chief executive of American Clean Power Association, noted growth in the energy sector, especially during Trump’s first term. “Private sector clean energy investment is bringing jobs and economic opportunity to small towns and rural communities across the nation,” he said.
This is a stark comparison to what Chris Wright, Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy believes. As CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield company, he has openly denied that climate change is a crisis. Wright even posted to his LinkedIn that all life needs carbon dioxide and that carbon pollution is “outrageous.” Putting two men who do not believe in climate change and show no remorse for the impacts who will not combat the problem is absurd. When it comes to the economy and jobs in the United States, if we continue in a downward trend, there will be no people to hire or support the economy.
Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2024, he kept his promise and pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, stopping all U.S funding. He also declared a national energy emergency, expressing his eagerness to “drill baby, drill”. With this action he encouraged the Army Corps Engineers to use all provisions to speed energy projects. This includes ignoring and bypassing processes under the Endangered Species Act and other laws protecting wildlife.
The state of our climate is deplorable, but with Lee Zeldin and the Trump Administration, there is a chance it could worsen. This will coincide with the decrease of health in Americans, and continue to uproot people from homes and limit healthy living situations. Now, it is up to our society to advocate and educate themselves on the topic of climate change, even small changes in lifestyle are better than nothing.
