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A LEADING REPUBLICAN has said she fears the damage incoming US President Donald Trump could do to the environment.
Christine Todd Whitman, who served as head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under George W Bush, accused Trump of ignoring science when it comes to climate change.
In a BBC 4 documentary about Trump’s likely policies, Todd Whitman said the US needs to protect the planet while promoting business.
“I find it very worrisome that there seems to be a disdain for the science on protecting the environment.
“I worry terribly for the future of my family and families around the world because Mother Nature has never observed geopolitical boundaries and what one country does really does affect another country.
To walk away from something where you have 97% of scientists saying this is occurring and people have an impact on it … It’s gotten to the point where we’ve got to try to slow it down if we’re going to survive it.
“Conservation is inherently conservative. I hope to be proven wrong by Mr Trump but you have so many multi-millionaires from the oil industry in his cabinet.
“We want to have power and be energy independent but the problem is doing it in a balanced way to protect health and the environment. But from Trump’s view it doesn’t seem to enter the equation,” she said.
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If Trump doesn’t believe in climate change, why does he want to build a wall stopping costal erosion caused by climate change in Doonbeg?
If that’s the case then why are the green hippies blocking the coastal erosion defence system?
@Daisy Chai NSaw:
Coastal erosion is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Barriers have been created all around the Irish coastline.
Doonbeg is no different in that regard.
To protect his investment. Period.
He’s protecting his investment!!
Hang on….republican cares about envitonment
Top Republican can console themselves in the knowledge that they have the power to veto any Trump proposals in Congress or the House of Representatives. People go on as if the President of the United States has absolute power. He doesn’t..
For a man who hasn’t got into office yet. He sure has done a lot
@marty johnbann: Well he has indicated who many of his key appointees will be, and they’re not a nice bunch.
The current bunch in power have US at war with 22 countries its all very well to be beeping on about climate change while bombing oil refineries.
Tom, name the 22 countries the United States is a t war with. Please.
For readers information Christine Todd Whitman endorsed and supported Hillary Clinton for President. She has an axe to grind. Loser.
For readers further information, Christine Todd Whitman endorsed Republican candidate John Kasich for President. When Trump won the GOP nomination, she then endorsed Clinton. She done so to oppose a Trump candidacy, she did not ‘support’ Clinton i.e. a Clinton supporter.
So what if she endorsed Clinton- that does not alter what trump has said about climate control, or that he has appointed a climate change denier to be in charge of environmental policy
Clinton Supporter: “Gov. Whitman: Why Clinton is the only choice for president”….https://www.google.ie/amp/www.nj.com/articles/19429198/gov_whitman_why_clinton_is_the_only_true_choice_fo.amp
She was head of the EPA and in a perfect position to comment on this. Her belief in climate change has little to do with Donald Trump. Stupid comment
Cheers for posting that article johnny, which actually proves she’s not, as you claim, a ‘clinton supporter’ but rather anti-trump
From the article……
“A Hillary presidency promises more of the Obama failed policies, but she would at least walk into the oval office ready to govern.”
Yep, GLOWING endorsement right there (chuckle)
Try reading past the headline next time you post a link
No-one knows what he’s going to do about anything really. The non-stop speculation is seriously boring. The only certainty is that he will introduce a raft of pro business measures and build like hell. Everything else is secondary to people like him.
Seems to me Trump may yet be the best thing to ever happen climate change as he will galvanise scientists and new generations of youth in opposition to him> He has already inadvertently done this by pissing of the signatories to the Paris accord and they came out in collective force and said they will stand by it and see the accord as irreversible.
@mrsnuffle So the Largest economy in the world not obeying a climate accord for the next 4-8 years is in fact good for the environment ? Is this another example of Trumps brilliance?
You can tell what Trump
Intends to do by who he appoints.
The climate guy will be anti environment pro Oil.
Betsy DeVos will be anti public education pro Private education.
Jeff sessions will try and make hats, minorities and women illegal.
Tillerson will try and stop sanctions on Russia so that his company Exxon can finish the 300bill deal with the Russian state oil firm.
Bannon will try and continue the good work of destroying the EU with Putin and installing fascist ‘Tea Parties’ around the world to reverse immigration , gay legality and human rights.
Trump won’t spend feck all because Paul Ryan is leader of Ruplican party and wants spending down not up.
Who else ? Oh yeah. The lBour secretary is a fast food giant CEO. Let’s say this RonLd McDonald character is not a supporter of the average worker.
We know what he plans to do. Just don’t know how bad it will be.
We know that Trump will rule in the interests of the billionaire class as did his predecessor Obama and Bush before him etc etc.
Benjy do you just copy and paste the above comment to every article ?
Obama is not quite a billionaire, millionaire certainly a yes. Trump is still acting like a rich spoil child, would make some role model for Ivan’s children
So King baby has appointed a climate change denier who is also a fossil fuel CEO to head the Environment department. He has also asked department civil servants to fill out a questionnaire to rat on which colleagues were pro climate change etc. Good news for the oilmen and top 1%. Bad news for the other 99% and the planet.
His stance on climate change alone should have disqualified him from the nomination.
He “believes” that it’s a Chinese conspiracy sure. Sad.
I detest ‘alarmists’ and In the grand scheme of things, is another Presidential term going to have that much effect? Give him a chance, see what he does, and if you still don’t like him, vote him out. ‘Simples’.
That’s what they said about hitler no doubt. Appeasement doesn’t work with authoritarians. You must fight them. All out.
You must read of all the good things Herr Hitler did, Turlough. A lot of them are still retained to this day.
@Paul Culligan: I don’t want to give a racist, sex pest in thrall (and probably in hock) to Putin a chance.
Fair point Daisy. Hitler was probably a bad choice so.
It’s amazing that some of the people so critical of a democrat like Angela Merkel are in thrall to mass murderers like Vladimir Putin. Hitler destroyed his own country, destroyed Europe, caused the deaths of 50 million people. Committed the holocaust, experimented and murdered the weak and disabled.. .. But sure we must remember he built a decent road between Munich and Frankfurt? FFS
Amazing stuff Turlough. I’m aware of the Autobähn system, but If you have the time, will you send me the links of where you learned these other facts on Adolf Hitler. I’d be genuinely interested in reading further into it, especially his ‘committing the Holocaust’ and his ‘experimenting on the weak and disabled’ bits. Thanks in advance, Turlough.
You must have been homeschooled by nazi parents not to have heard of the holocaust.
Apologies Daisy, Nazi or no Nazi, Hitler didn’t authorise or orchestrate the Holocaust. Goebbles, Himmler, Eichmann and Heydrich did that against the expressed wishes of Hitler. Remember that Hitler wanted these prisoners as a workforce resettled in the east with an ultimate resettlement on the island of Madagascar, after the war. There are documents revealing that he stated that he had ‘a war to fight’ and ‘hadn’t time for that stuff now’. Indeed he may have been eventually responsible IF he had have won the war but, theres a common belief that he was stupid enough to get involved in such acts, despite his plan to gain world sympathy and support. Hitler was a very clever politician who knew the reprisals of such early acts, but his staff were ardently anti-Semitic. Not homeschooled Daisy, just an avid lover of history and the truth. Besides, gross exaggerations of figures have been revealed and Typhus was the main culprit of housing so many people together. The same things happen on a minor scale in a childs school, where epidemics of head-lice are reported. Investigate it yourself before making assumptions. I’m not a Holocaust denier, but like any history story, the embellishments have to be weaned out. Sure with all the claims, there must of been 20,000 in the GPO at the 1916 Rising.
Poor chap is been bullied.
If he can’t take it he shouldn’t dish it out. He’s known to comment about other people on twitter unprovoked.
Like who
Kristen Stewart, Barack Obama, Ronda Rousey the list goes on… he attacked these people first and now acts like a crybaby when he is attacked. Reap what you sow Donald, hope he finds his safe space soon x
With all his crap, it’s the one thing i agree with him on, is the climate change farce. What a money spinner. People who buy into this are seriously deluded. I mean, where do they think the original ice age went to? Catch a grip people.
And I suppose Venus is hotter than Mercury because of magic? That is literally proof of the effects of greenhouse gases. It only makes sense that releasing them into our atmosphere would have a similar warming effect!
One of the greatest annual events is the appearance and disappearance of Arctic sea ice covering millions of square KM yet researchers point blank refuse to accept the dynamic behind that evolution and this is remarkable considering how much emphasis is placed on the amount of sea ice comes and goes throughout the year.
There is no mystery behind the cause of sea ice including the rate of development and disappearance. The Earth has two distinct day/night cycles going on simultaneously, the familiar weekday day/night cycle and separately the polar day/night cycle but the latter cycle is barely mentioned nor what causes it.
https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm
The Sun has been in view at the South pole since the September Equinox and will remain in view constantly until the March Equinox and the opposite occurs at the North pole. As the Earth travels through space the entire surface turns to the Sun once separate to and addition to daily rotation so if daily rotation is subtracted all people would experience a single rotation each year. Where the two rotations combine (daily and annual) we get the seasons.
The temperature at the South pole presently is – 25 C even though it is polar summer and just gone past midsummer (December Solstice) so the local conditions at the North pole cannot be lumped in with the South pole where jetstream factors and many other inputs and creating less ice compared to other years.
This is not throwing good information after bad, if one person realized what causes the Sun to come into once a year at the North and South poles on the Equinoxes then the mask would start to slip on the charade that now takes the name of climate.
Gerald K, this is the Journal.ie. You cannot combat pseudo-religion with facts. However, time will do just that. By then there’ll be a new global threat. Likely global cooling. This is scientific modelling in the hands of politicians and shisters.
@Joseph Siddall:
Joseph, It is a bit like splitting DNA apart by its components and then recombining those parts to create a narrative about individual traits however in the case of familiar experiences such as the seasons it means isolating the planet’s two distinct day/night cycles apart first and then recombining them.
I am confident that some people at Met Eireann will discover what many here already have in that to account for the conditions at the South and North pole an additional rotation is required and borrowed from orbital motion alone. It just takes a little familiarity with the polar day/night cycle and especially with the fact that the Sun comes into view only once at the Equinox at either pole.
A planet’s climate is really the rate of change of temperatures across latitudes over the course of an orbit depending on inclination but this is really only for those people who can get the basic principles correct including the cause of Arctic sea ice, its extent across latitudes and how fast that ice grows and disappears.
I reckon Trump will do ok…!!
Ok is probably the best we can hope for.
‘Clean air, Fresh water and Safety – these are my priorities’
Donald Trump.
That’s why he has climate change deniers and oil billionaires in his cabinet. Because they care so much for the planets welfare.
@David Thomas: Only idiots believe the climate change scam. No independent climatologists believe it
Climatologists like who val?
Global warming is an urban myth just to get more taxes out of us
Exactly, Trump will throw the whole lot out the window.
He’s the type of person who would throw the baby out with the bath water.
She supported Hillary
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