The Republican presidential candidates have two approaches to addressing climate change and environmental policy: 1. Deny everything or 2. Do nothing.
According to the Boston Globe, when Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, who is America’s top military officer in charge of monitoring hostile actions in North Korea, was asked what the biggest long-term security threat to America was, he replied: Climate change.
But Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson are not convinced. Trump, the leading presidential candidate, prefers to direct his fear-mongering tactics at ISIS, Muslims, Syrian refugees and Mexican immigrants. Instead of listening to the scientists over at NASA, military commanders like Locklear and 97 percent of climate scientists, they prefer to get their scientific evidence regarding climate change from such experts as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
All of the Republican candidates are naive and misinformed when it comes to the science behind climate change. Trump took to Twitter to call climate change a “hoax.” PBS.org reported that Carson indicated that the climate change debate was “irrelevant” and proceeded to claim that temperature change was cyclical and not a threat or a proven trend. Time Magazine reported that Cruz denies climate change completely and believes it was falsified by “power-hungry politicians who just want control over Americans’ lives.”
These erroneous statements have made climate change a partisan issue instead of a serious threat that affects everyone on this planet. With Republican front-runners maintaining such misguided beliefs, it is no wonder that their party’s environmental policies are lackluster. The only candidate deserving of any credit in the environmental policy realm is Carson. Even though he does not believe in climate change, he does endorse green technology and wants 50 percent of the country’s power to be clean energy, according to the news publication Mother Jones.
The Huffington Post reported that Trump, when asked where he would want to cut funding, said he would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, because “we’ll be fine with the environment … We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy business.”
According to Cruz’s senate profile page, his policy on “environmental legislation” is to review “responsible” energy exploration (including hydraulic fracturing), build the Keystone pipeline, modernize refineries, increase offshore drilling, expand energy exports and broaden energy development on private land. He then went on to refer to the United States as “blessed” with natural resources and ensuring the public that economic growth and national security will not be hindered “at the altar of unnecessary and irresponsible regulation.”
Although Carson has expressed an intention to develop cleaner energy, he doesn’t have a plan as to exactly how he intends to encourage and implement greener technologies. Cruz and Trump’s “environmental policies” are just non-existent. At the climate summit in Paris, world leaders all agreed that climate change is a problem and have worked hard to delegate a solution to this global problem; but our Republican candidates continue digging their heads deeper into the sand and continue along with their “business-as-usual” policies, making themselves richer and the world dirtier.