The Republican Convention and the Unmentionable: Climate Change
So far the Convention has covered Make America Safe Again, and Make America Work Again. The Unmentionable topic has not shown up, or not shown up in a significant enough place for the press to cover it.
From listening to some talks on Monday, it wasn’t clear that Make America Safe Again was actually supposed to include foreign policy. Climate Change mitigation, adaptation, and suffering are important world topics. Only by world action with US participation can the climate change problems be effectively attacked. The increasing damage and costs expected from climate change due to floods, droughts, sea level rise, tropical diseases, heat waves, dying forests, forest fires, etc. should fall under the topics of our security. The Pentagon projection of wars due to climate change should have been addressed. It is said that future wars may occur over the availability of water. Even Trump’s charge that the Climate Change issue is a Chinese plot (not believable) should be addressed under our foreign policy toward China. Yesterday, climate scientists said that 2016 is on track to become the hottest year on record.
On Tuesday’s Make America Safe Again day, stopping Climate Change with increases in clean energy should provide many new jobs in these industries. Energy production is a local industry, and you cannot ship energy in from foreign sources. There are opportunities in the installation of solar facilities in home and commercial sites, as well as in energy production facilities. Some solar cells are still made in the US. Installation of wind turbines is also a growing industry. The production of electric cars, electric hybrids, and more efficient gasoline engines are growing industries. The production of electric car batteries and household batteries is just beginning to grow. Upgrading old buildings to increase energy efficiency and building more efficient new ones is a growing industry.
Unfortunately, the Grand Old Party is trying to concentrate its efforts on OLD. It is trying to go back to polluting coal plants, violating its commitments to the principal of a free market economy, which is replacing coal plants with cheaper and much cleaner natural gas plants.
Today is Make America First Again day, and the party should address our international commitments under the Paris agreements to do our part to be a leader in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and aiding other countries with our technology to accomplish this. The party can also reemphasize its policy of pursuing nuclear reactors, although it does not usually acknowledge their roles as continuous, clean energy sources.
