New Environmental Policies are Accelerating Global Warming

The planet is home to millions of ecosystems and billions of animals. Throughout recent decades, we have seen the decline of planet health, and the increase of pollution and climate change. Since the current President Donald Trump has been in office, he and his administration has made many changes throughout the environmental policies. 

On the first day Trump was inaugurated, he removed the United States from the Paris Agreement. This agreement is a signed legal binding between 193 countries and the European Union. Its purpose is to limit global warming by reducing greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, the United States is the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. The US emits 6.34 billion tons of greenhouse gases as of 2022, and now that the US no longer follows the Paris Agreements restrictions, Climate Action Tracker said that, “US greenhouse gas emissions [will be] at least 3% higher in 2030.”

Trump has also started fossil fuel projects designed to collect as much as possible. He is using the Defense Production Act (DPA) in order to do this. The DPA gives the president control over the domestic industry for emergency responses only. This helps the country be prepared with all needed supplies in case of said emergencies. The administration claims that competing against China’s supply of oil is an emergency that causes this act to be used. Many federal protected lands have opened up for oil mainly focused in Alaska and the western US. Polar bears, brown bears, black bears, hundreds of bird species, beluga whales and many more rely on federally protected land in Alaska and will be affected by oil companies taking over. The Trump administration cancelled programs designed to stop pollution in minority communities as well. These communities are exposed to 75% of these emissions, causing cancer, asthma, heart disease, and deaths, according to the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Stanford Medicine states that in 2016 “50 deaths per 100,000” black Americans died due to pollution.

Already, many problems are completely irreversible. Sea levels are rising and are now irreversible for hundreds of years, which cause destroyed housing and flooding. Deep ocean temperatures have risen and will be felt by marine life with reduced oxygen levels and increased toxic algae growth. We are dangerously close to causing whole ice sheets to collapse, and it is clear that recent events will impact things greatly.