Trump has been adamant about climate change being fake for many years and has ended measures that would have helped moderate it. He removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords for the second time after Biden had rejoined it. He has been against renewable energy and has allowed the Chinese to dominate the field. Stopping the building of wind farms that were partially completed, companies are awaiting rulings on these actions by the judiciary. However, the administration paid the energy companies almost $900 billion to kill their wind projects and invest in fossil fuels. Seven Democratic states that were expecting more and cheaper energy from wind are suing the Trump administration. Besides hurting energy production, cutting wind farms will eliminate huge numbers of jobs and damage the economy. The President has also stopped federal subsidies for electric cars and essentially killed the electric vehicle industry in the United States, ceding the field to China. Trump supports unlimited use of fossil fuels for transportation and energy, including coal, the dirtiest of these substances. In fact, he wants to stop almost all closures of coal plants. Taxpayers have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to keep these aging coal plants open on Trump’s orders. Some of his biggest supporters and donors are fossil fuel magnates, and it is uncertain whether this convinced him to oppose renewable energy, which is cheaper for consumers, healthier and more efficient. The scientific data on global warming is clear, but Trump has never paid much attention to science or experts. An administration proposal in May 2026 would add a new annual fee on electric vehicles for road usage, since there is no payment of federal fuel taxes. Recent evidence suggests that the time course for global warming to wreak havoc on our planet may be longer than previously believed, but its effects will still be devastating. And aside from global warming, the use of fossil fuels themselves is unhealthy, with particulate matter in the air from gasoline and coal causing respiratory problems in many individuals. Coal is particularly unhealthy, both for miners (black lung disease), and the population at large (respiratory problems from polluted air). This is also true of the smoke from forest fires that has become more frequent with global warming. And the storms, hurricanes and flooding that have resulted from climate change are also responsible for death and damage all over the planet. Growing crops has been impacted as well, with famines and starvation as desertification occurs in some areas. But Trump is unconvinced of the significance of climate change and the role of fossil fuels in its production. The EPA headed by Lee Zelden ruled in February 2026 that climate change did not endanger public health despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Trump is fully in agreement with this decision, his administration rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding that the six greenhouse gases were driving climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane. The EPA also reversed regulations that limited hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired plants, including mercury, other heavy metals and toxic substances. Under Trump’s aegis, the EPA has abandoned its legal obligations to protect Americans’ health and the environment. 546 polluting facilities have been given exemptions from Clean Air Act rules, permitting toxic air pollution to be uncontrolled. It is estimated that 4.6 million Americans could be exposed to higher cancer risks, some of whom already have air-pollution risks 80 times greater than existing EPA standards. Some of the companies that Zeldin excluded from EPA pollution rules have provided funds for Trump or MAGA related organizations.
The reasons the Trump administration is ignoring climate change and clean air is not important. There must be realization of the health hazards these impose on the American population.
www.robertlevinebooks .com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020