What a Trump presidency means for the environment

So Donald J. Trump, has been elected as the 45th President of the United States of America. Being at the helm of the most powerful country on earth, Trump stands to greatly influence the global economy, politics, and environmental situation.

That he scored this victory at this juncture in world history will be talked about in the coming decades. But right now, environmentalists like myself are encouraged to take a closer look at how a Trump presidency will have strong and long-standing impact on arguably the most urgent issue of our times: Climate change.

Trump is a known climate change denier. How he could not grasp the entire science behind it perhaps warrants another post, but for now, we can say that he is not even alone in this. Perhaps he is truly unaware, but perhaps he is also feigning innocence, so that, like many others in the Republican party, they can continue entering lucrative ventures and be in business-as-usual mode, and thus also continue to wreak havoc on the environment.

Here are parts of his plan of action for his first 100 days in office. It should make us shudder (if his very election has not accomplished that for us):

"FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars' worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward."

Both are about generating domestic employment, which were his major campaign pitch to the disgruntled working-class Americans who lamented the offshoring practices of many businesses, which left them jobless. But at what cost?

Now, Trump is promising to push for these ventures that will simply add to the planet's climate woes. "Shale, oil, natural gas, and clean coal." We are not so sure about the latter, but we do know that at this stage, renewable is the way to go. We are one of the world's largest economies, and if we do not pay serious attention to finding a more sustainable way to fuel our activities, then all of the growth we are expecting will be for naught.

We will most likely suffer more extreme weather events, and witness another Hurricane Katrina that will devastate more communities. And of course, as we pursue this course of unsustainable development, our brothers and sisters from the more vulnerable parts of the globe will suffer. Do we want this?

Author's Note: This is a guest blog post by Richard A. Kimball, a California native who enjoys writing and blogging about the environment. To read more of his work, you can visit his blog, Google+ or LinkedIn.