It’s not a huge secret that the Trump Administration wants to cut the Environmental Protection Agency. Even worse, there’s no proposed replacement for the EPA, which can have damaging effects on the environment, specifically in the U.S.
According to their website, the EPA’s main purpose is to make sure that environmental protection is part of policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, transportation, agriculture… the list goes on.
The EPA also ensures that accurate information is available to everyone concerning human and environmental risks. The EPA aims to keep a leading role internationally in protecting the global environment.
Basically, the EPA is vital for environmental protection everywhere, not just the U.S. and the Trump Administration is looking to abolish it. If Trump gets rid of the EPA and doesn’t provide a replacement, this will be bad news for our natural resources. Additionally, the new administrator of the EPA doesn’t believe humans cause climate change – which is completely inaccurate. It’s not what you want to hear from the EPA, the organization that’s supposed to be combatting climate change.
After all the research that has been done on climate change and the solid facts that hold it up as something to worry about, I am surprised at the amount of people who still don’t believe that global warming is real. Even scarier, our president doesn’t believe in it either – according to Trump, China made it up. Yeah, okay. They must have made up all of this data about rising temperatures too.
Climate change is real and it’s happening right now. A big reason why many species are inching closer to extinction everyday is because of climate change, along with air and water pollution.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event. Dozens of species go extinct every day and 99 percent of threatened species are at risk because of human activities, primarily from habitat loss, global warming and introduction of exotic species.
What right do we have to keep destroying our planet and the other species we share it with? None. Even if you don’t believe it’s happening, it is still occurring. Even if you say facts are fake, that does not keep them from being true.
The longer people remain blind to the fact that our planet is dying, and the longer we place blame on anything but ourselves, will spell more disaster – more animals dying, icecaps melting and species being displaced because of habitat loss. We’re losing resources. According to the World Wildlife Fund, about 36 football fields worth of trees are lost every minute. It’s estimated that in the next 100 years, there will be no rainforests left.
Trump obviously does not have the environment (and many people in this country) in mind. This past Tuesday he planned to roll back energy regulations with an executive order that will reduce “unnecessary regulatory obstacles that restrict the responsible use of domestic energy resources,” according to a White House official. This could lead to an increase in the use of fossil fuels as an energy source.
We need policies put in place to help make sure companies are using resources sustainably and ethically. The biggest change we’ll see will come from large businesses becoming more energy efficient and releasing fewer toxins into the air. We need government funding to be allocated to protect our lands and water.
We need the EPA to be a leader in helping to create policies with the health of people and the environment in mind.