Climate Crisis: What Trump Can (And Can't) Do
Date
11/12/2024 5:06:28 AM
(MENAFN- Asia Times)
Donald trump will return to lead the world's largest historical emitter of greenhouse gas.
Neither Trump nor Kamala Harris made the climate crisis a prominent feature of their campaigns, during an election cycle in which America was pounded by weather disasters. Hurricane Helene, which struck in late September was supercharged by an abnormally hot Atlantic Ocean and killed 232 people across the southeastern US.
Nearly half of those deaths occurred in the swing state of North Carolina, which moved decisively behind Trump. Voters in the state's still devastated west lacked polling stations yesterday and cast their ballots in tents .
Scientists say the Earth system is balanced on a knife edge: the carbon-rich Amazon rainforest is drying out , a North Atlantic current that redistributes ocean heat is slowing down . If either collapses, it would tip the climate into deeper chaos.
Drill, baby, drill?
Democrats lost in America's former manufacturing heartland, the midwestern states that now comprise the“Rust Belt” and the party's erstwhile“Blue Wall.”
A river choked with industrial waste caught fire here in 1969 and prompted a wave of federal regulation that culminated in the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Nixon administration.
The EPA regulates climate pollution with rules that limit emissions from power plants and vehicles, two of the country's biggest CO2 sources .
EPA regulation has succeeded in curbing coal power over the last decade. Photo: Matthew G Eddy / Shutterstock via The Conversation MENAFN12112024000159011032ID1108875384
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