Government and Climate Change (David)

Since President Trump began his campaign, he has continued to stand by his skepticism regarding environmental issues and spoke out publicly that climate change is in fact not a real issue. He has disregarded most claims that many scientist around the world have agreed on, regarding to the recent phenomenon of "global warming (climate change)". (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html). Numerous experts have collected data illustrating that it has been in fact getting warmer every year for the past 100 years (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2002.00451.x/full) . Climate change is in progress and not showing signs of slowing down during the Current Administration , it is likely it will only worsen; also of course increasing effects of environmental impacts to populations all around the US. According to recent studies, climate change is one of the main reasons sea levels continue to rise and many communities near the coast such as the Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana are being affected and displacing the natives/population from their lands. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html)

Immediately after the current administration took office, they began to eliminate most of the environmental information that was available to the public from the official EPA website, as well as changing/eliminating policies that aligned with previous president Barack Obama's environmentalist priorities. Many scientist and environmental advocates now fear that the data collected over the years will be eventually deleted and lost for good from the EPA website during Trump's term. The EPA official website is responsible for publishing some of the most accurate data in the world of recent atmospheric temperature trends, sea level rising, and green house gas emissions. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html)

Trump has began dismantling the recent US environmental policies that have been implemented for decades. One of Trump's goals is to back out of the Paris Agreement, which would essentially prevent Barack Obama's implementation of this goal to help the US, and other highly polluted countries, live in a less polluted planet by the year 2050. The United States proposed the agreement, and the US is one of the three highest polluters in the globe, following China and India. The Paris agreement consist of over 180 countries that have pledged to follow in the footsteps of the US in attempting to reduce their impact on the globe's climate (http://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/666). Many top scientist around the world fear that Trump's actions could have serious catastrophic effects in the near future not only in the US, but around the world due to recent high levels of co2 in the atmosphere which are causing hotter years, sea level rise, and overall changing our climate as we move forward. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/politics/donald-trump-climate-change.html )

In January, a few days after being in office, the new administration announced part of their plans to sign an executive order to rollback the Clean water rule. Successfully eliminating this policy, will allow draining of wetlands and streams into bigger bodies of water. Which essentially would further cause more dangers of flooding (to the Isle de Jean Charles community). Furthermore, this executive order would allow for further pollution of large bodies of water and make it more difficult to access clean drinkable water, especially for those living in poverty (indigenous tribes in Isle de Charles). The people living near wetlands and the coastal lands will also be in increased danger of rising water levels and ultimately losing their land to climate change. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/us/politics/trump-epa-clean-water-climate-change.html)