Donald Trump is President and the Environment will Suffer

Trump's 100 day plan includes allowing for coal/oil/shale extraction from protected sites, a strong arm for pipelines through protected areas (specifically pointing to Keystone as his champion cause), promises to gut $50 billion of environmental spending to UN programs, promises to undo sanctions on pollution, and also has a bunch of clauses which, if implemented, would impact all fields, but including and especially climate science (such as his desire to require two regulations be removed arbitrarily if one regulation will be passed).

He is appointing a leading climate change denier to the EPA, which he has discussed dismantling all together. He has discussed removing the FDA all together, removing educational advisement from his cabinet, and rewarding companies with tax incentives to expand in destructive areas while simultaneously promising to remove the restrictions put in place to mitigate harm done to the environment in the process.

A lot of this he can get done via executive order. A lot of it beyond that he can get done with house and senate support, which he has.

This is not an instance of conspiracy theories or "what ifs" being thrown around. He has promised these things, and has the tools to deliver. It would literally take him saying "naw nevermind" to stop this from happening.

Any one of the items listed above would cause damage to the environment that will take decades, if not longer to reverse, if it even can be reversed at this point, during a time that we are already losing an uphill battle to protect our environment. And he's not talking about one item. He's talking about all of them, and has the ability, and intent, to do everything he says.

And that's just environment. People have a right to be afraid. I would be afraid with a Clinton presidency because I wasn't sure she'd do enough. I would be afraid with a blue house/senate to stand in Trumps way, because I'd be worried they wouldn't do enough. What we actually have, is a scenario where people who deny climate change are now in un-checked power, and are salivating at the chance to make a quick buck off immeasurable damage to our planet.

The planet will recover and move on, the question is if we will be around when it happens. This is not an issue that we can really afford to "wait 4 to 8 years and vote better next time." We have already reached the emergency point according to any scientist worth listening to.

Forgive me if I don't see much opportunity for "it won't be so bad" when it comes to specifically climate change. I could ignore everything else he's doing (which I won't, but we're speaking hypothetically here) and I think stress and alarm is still perfectly in the scope of reason regarding his promises. Even if we "think" he'll do a ton of damage, but he only does a lot of damage, the damage is too severe and has ramifications too drastic to ignore.

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