By ignoring the issue of climate change and threatening to pull the plug on federal funding for renewable energy programs, Donald Trump is effectively killing thousands of high-paying US jobs before they can even begin. The rest of the world is way ahead of the US on this issue, and Trump is about to send the US back to the Stone Age with his Neanderthal-like way of governing. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
Over the next three years, China is going to invest $360 billion into the production of renewable energy. This is going to go solar, wind, geothermal. They’re going to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the country with this $360 billion, and these are going to be high paying jobs to help get the country off of fossil fuels.
Why is that important? Well, because when we look at what’s happening in the United States today, and a president who is coming into office who has promised to actually cut the funding of renewable energy projects, by about $10 billion, we’re looking at thousands of jobs in the United States that have been killed by Donald Trump before they were even created. Because, rather than investing in renewable energy sources to not only address climate change, but to increase employment in the United States with high paying job, Donald Trump has said that he’s going to double down on fossil fuel.
He’s going to reopen coal mines. We’re going to extract that coal, and just burn the hell out of it, because that what American’s need for energy, right? I mean, forget the fact that we have a sun. Forget the fact that we have water and waves. Forget the fact that we have geothermal. Let’s just go with the same old that’s been powering this country for over 300 years.
Think about that. That United States have been burning coal for energy since the 1700s. We haven’t evolved past that in 300 years? Come on. We have got to get with the rest of the world on this issue. Even under President Obama, things didn’t get much better. When we look at a country like China, who Donald Trump loves to talk about being this big, horrible entity, investing $360 billion into renewable energy in the next three years, yeah, we’re a little behind the curve now.
This is happening all over the glove. India, investing in renewables. Russia, investing in renewables. The EU investing in renewables, trying to get themselves off of fossil fuels. The United States is about to become the only country on this planet that has a climate change denier in its highest seat. We are one of the only countries on this planet, who has a major political party whose platform is to deny the existence of climate change. We’re the only ones.
We wonder why the rest of the world sometimes laughs at us. We wonder why the rest of the world looks down on us. We wonder why we’re not the global leader that we used to be. It’s because we’re not taking things seriously anymore. All we want to talk about is the threat of global terrorism: ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Middle East in general. Oh God, we gotta them. Ignoring the fact that more people die around the globe each year from climate related illness and events.
Climate change kills more people each year that global terrorism, yet we, as a country, our leader, denies that it even exists. China is ahead of us on this. Mexico is ahead of us on this. Canada. The EU. India. The United states is not a leader on this issue, and we could have been.
We had a president for eight years, who understood that climate change was real, and that it was a threat. We had two Democratic presidential candidates who understood that climate change was real. One of them admitted that it was the greatest threat to United States National Security. That was Bernie Sanders admitted that in the very first Democratic primary debate.
Yet here we are. Climate change denier about to take the White House, packing it with people, the cabinet, directly from the oil industry. We are falling behind the rest of the world on this issue. It’s not only going to cost the environment, as this new report shows us, it’s going to cost us thousands of much needed, high-paying jobs in the United States.
These regulations that Donald Trump wants to kill have an economic benefit of about $45 billion. When he takes those away, that’s like taking $45 billion out of the treasury, out of the economy. Environmental protections are economic booms. Until the American public wakes up and understands that, they’re not going to care about the issue of climate change.
When they understand that the climate regulations, that investment in renewable energy directly affects their pocket book. Maybe at that point, as the waves are crashing around their ankles, maybe then they’ll wake up and realize that this is an economic, and environmental winner.
