Thursday, January 11, 2018

FOCUS ON TRUMP'S ADVERSE DECISIONS NOT ON HIS QUIRKS & FOIBLES




The above title is the advice from Thomas Walkom in his article in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "Focus on actions, not cheeseburgers". Mr. Walkom lists a litany of either bad or controversial decisions made by the president in a variety of portfolios from economic, foreign relations to environmental. Following are a few of Trump's adverse environmental decisions. He has been rolling back regulations put in place by his predecessor Barack Obama aimed at reducing carbon emissions. He has relaxed bird protection rules that affect oil drilling in the West and fishing regulations designed to protect whales. He has plans to shrink two large areas of federally protected land in the Southwest known as national monuments. Last but not least he has formally renounced the 2015 Paris climate accord. This folks are the actions of right wing Conservatives whether Republicans in the U.S. or the Progressive Conservatives here in Ontario and Canada.

A friend and colleague has recently advised me of the fruitlessness of Canada continuing to spend time and money on doing environmental work on areas that we share with the U.S., precisely because they are withdrawing from the battle and presumably our efforts may turn out to be inconsequential. While I suspect he is correct I sincerely hope that he is not. Whether our actions can lead via moral suasion or whether stopping our pollution into the Great lakes for example will only reduce the total U.S./ Canadian flow marginally; I still hope we continue to try.

3 comments:

  1. 7th attempt since yesterday to see if comments section is working yet!!!

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  2. As to the article thanks and so do I still hope on the last paragraphs but it may only be a hope on our parts if all works out the way it is unfolding with our southern neighbors.

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