In his presidential nomination victory speech, Obama said:
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow ..."
Based on the facts, Obama's prediction did not work out. I give him credit for trying - but only because it certainly proved to be an effective campaign strategy. Unfortunately, if anything, according to the data, sea levels are rising faster in this past decade.
Science was right about CO2 emissions, they are definitely on the rise, accelerating rapidly during President Obama's term:
How could it be that we are better off with Trump? Here are a few possibilities:
1. During Obama, regulations have inhibited the construction of pipelines. Oil and gas has to be distributed, so a greater percentage is going by truck and rails. That is despite the fact the pipelines are proven to be safer and more efficient.
In addition, building new natural gas pipelines will help electric plants and manufacturers convert away from less clean fossil fuels. Plus, as America begins to export more of our plentiful natural gas, other countries can rely less on dirty coal, and America will yield giant financial benefits to boot!
2. Nuclear power is 8000 times more efficient than oil.
3. The problem is consumption. Americans are energy pigs! We drive more, shower more, live in bigger houses, and consume more than other countries. We are voracious users of electricity.
We need to conserve! Everyone can do their part. I have changed all my lights to LED, installed a solar system, and replaced my older less efficient oil furnace to the highest efficiency German made unit on the market. I keep my house cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer. I recycle my entire garbage stream. And I carpool 3 days a week. (Even though Mary wishes she could drive alone so she didn't have to listen to my politics.)
The problem is that no matter how much America conserves, we can not solve the problem of CO2 alone.
America is a big part of the CO2 problem. But, as we have lost manufacturing jobs to other countries like China, because of their cheaper labor and more lax regulations, those countries are becoming bigger producers of CO2. Bringing manufacturing back to the USA, as Trump seeks to do, is better for American jobs and better for the planet, because America is a cleaner producer.
4. America will use less fossil fuels if we improve our infrastructure. Sitting in traffic and on runways costs Americans billions of dollars in lost productivity and wastes enormous amounts of energy, and produces more CO2! President Trump seeks to cut through the regulations that make building new roads, wider and safer bridges, better airports, and faster rail possible. Coupled with Trump's proposal to invest a trillion dollars on such infrastructure, Trump wants to be the best thing to happen to USA infrastructure, using USA steel!
One of the best things America can to do is overhaul our energy grid to make it safer from terrorist and hacker threats and more efficient. A better grid can save America 10% or much more in energy. Expect biggly announcements regarding our electricity distribution network during the Trump term.
5. Remember "Peak Oil?" Yeah, that prevalent miscalculation was undone by innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, and free markets. These forces have a long history of solving big problems. LED bulbs versus incandescent. Advances in solar, wind, and wave energy efficiency, Smart grids, Carbon capture, and other rapidly emerging technologies can change the equation. Countries like Israel and Japan have tapped the greatest source of energy - the human mind. The best potential for dealing with climate challenges is to unleash human innovation.
The real "Inconvenient Truth" is not what most people are talking about! Here is the larger issue and why I believe the critical problem we are going to need to deal with is NOT the one we are focused on today.
Emerging countries such as India and China are going to grow and increase CO2 production FAR FAR more than any amount America can save! Plus, deforestation is the second largest cause of CO2.
Trump haters would rather talk about his tax returns, a fake Russian conspiracy, or Federal funding for abortion than either of these two realities.
The real inconvenient truth is that we are not going to be able to reverse climate change and the rise of our oceans in time! The multitude of reasons that are causing warming and rising oceans are so complex and outside America's control that humans are not going to solve them in time to save large population centers from the ravages of flooding without ginormous investment in sea walls, levies, dikes, drainage, elevation, and some cases relocation. Coastal erosion and flooding is going to increase dramatically over the coming decades whether we like it or not. To deal with droughts we need to invest in desalinization.
There are many other highly costly infrastructure measures countries will have to take in order to cope with a planet that is changing, perhaps because of man, perhaps in spite of man, or even perhaps to spite man.
What happened in New Orleans and with Hurricane Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic that devastated the East, is only a foreshadowing of what is to come. And not just here! Vast population centers on the world's coasts are in peril.
So unless we start to solve our infrastructure problems, a lot of cities and towns in America and elsewhere are fucked. So maybe science is wrong about Trump. He may be the best chance America has for dealing with climate change, man made or otherwise.
