Trump's new environment head.

[Workingman]

The nominee is well known climate sceptic and friend of the fossil fuel industries, one Scott Pruitt. One wonders where all this will end.

Trump says:

For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs. Mr Pruitt would "reverse this trend" and restore the EPA's essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.

However, when you look at Pruitt's record he has taken the EPA, his new workplace, to court on a number of occasions. He has written numerous articles denying human involvement in climate change, and he is always doing the "debate is not settled" thing whenever he can.

The unfortunate thing for the environment is that Trump and Pruitt are "doers". When they say something they very often follow it through. What they are currently saying is, to my mind, extremely dangerous.

[Suff]

Yeah I knew this one was coming. He had another arch denier in mind but, it seems, the limelight was a bit much for him.

The really sad part of the whole thing is that the climate is already so screwed that even 8 years of Trump and a climate denying head of the EPA will probably only mean a few more million people dead in 2100. On a scale of 2 - 4 Thousand Million Dead that's really small change.

You do what you can. You change what you are able. But what cannot be changed must be endured.

Had people enlightened themselves, instead of expecting someone else to do that work for them and tell them the result, Trump would never have been able to get away with this.

Because “enough” people have decided that they want others to do the work of enlightenment for them, then tell them the result, they are hostage to what they are being told. In a world where the press have “gone insane” and are giving the same weight to “one nutter and the internet” as they are giving to the entire scientific faculty of the world, people are confused.

Well they won’t be confused for many more decades.

The issue with that? They needed to be unconfused 3 decades ago and DO something about it. In order to avoid the worst of the mess we’re going to see.

Me? I’m just going to hunch my shoulders and bear it as a cost of reversing some of the worst politically correct psychobabble. Certainly not all of it. But the worst.

As I said to my Grandson who was exhibiting what we call “lukewarmism”. Also known as “Concern Trolling”.

“We’re already screwed and there is virtually nothing we can do about it. Fortunately I’ll be dead when your generation has to deal with the consequences”.

He was most disconcerted. As he should be.

[Workingman]

One of the big problems with Pruitt is that he is a trained lawyer, an Attorney General, no less.

When he steps in to a confrontation, as he has with the EPA, he brings the law with him. Those he is opposing need to be clued up on the law or he will, has, destroyed them.

The Law, science and common sense are not good bedfellows, and in the US the law trumps the others (no pun) every time.

Put Pruitt up against Christiana Figueres and her team in COP 23 and Pruitt will win hands-down. The very saddest thing is that he will probably take some emerging economies, as well as China and India, with him.

The recent claim from island nations, and the likes of Bangladesh, that they will convert to 100% green energy, sometime, whenever, is dreamland thinking. If Trump and Pruitt get their way these places will be under water.

[TheOstrich]

The USA wants to be self sufficient, so it's a no-brainer for Trump really. Think of the heavy industry jobs that can be resurrected in the Virginia coal fields and the Rustbelt .....

[Suff]

The problem is that the "no brainer" is that renewable energy is... Well.... Renewable. Which means that once you get over the initial expenditure then it's all maintenance and refresh costs. The planet gives the energy for free.

To invest in that gives real benefits whilst also reducing the CO2 output.

However the seduction of "back to basics", coal and oil, is something those who don't want to learn can get their teeth into. Sadly they don't realise that "back to basics" in the time of Ned Ludd was cottage industries and no water power and no steam power.

We need to take a bold stride forward and those in power are constantly looking over their shoulders.

C'est la vie.....