President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to create new jobs and bolster the United States economy could be solved by believing in a phenomenon that he denies exists, according to concerned environmentalists. This applies not only to the country as a whole, but specifically to Georgia.
Trump’s View on New Jobs
“I will be the greatest job-producing president in American history”
Trump’s View on the Economy
“We have to get rid of the $19 trillion debt. So unfair, so totally unfair to our young people. We are not going to leave you with that burden”
Trump’s platform that promises new jobs and less debt seems more than ideal to the American public, however, many investigative journalists are questioning whether his denial of climate change could be negating these very policies.
Trump’s View on Climate Change
How These Three Views Are Contradicting One Another
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Compared with fossil fuel technologies, which are typically mechanized and capital intensive, the renewable energy industry is more labor-intensive. This means that, on average, more jobs are created for each unit of electricity generated from renewable sources than from fossil fuels.”
However, according to a National Geographic phone interview with Myron Ebell, the head of Trump’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency transition team, “he called attention to the campaign’s consistency on calling for increased fossil fuel development and decrying the Obama administration’s climate policies.”
Many environmentalists question why Trump is heavily focused on increasing fossil fuel development when his main platform is to create more jobs, and the renewable energy industry can create more jobs than the fossil fuel industry.
Even if Trump genuinely does not believe the science behind man made climate change, it may benefit the entire economy to change his mind, according to Corinne Le Quere, a leading climate scientist as the University of East Anglia. In an interview with Scientific American, she says, “The most important thing is that we move away from fossil fuel energy to carbon-free energy, which means we need to deploy renewable energy at a large scale—including wind energy, solar panels, biofuels. As these deployments take place, there are huge opportunities for businesses.” If Trump were to accept that man made climate change is real, he would open an avenue for the creation of numerous new jobs.
According to an article by The Climate Group, a non profit organization that works to promote clean technologies and policies, “The ‘Clean Jobs America’ report, written by Environmental Entrepreneurs and based on an extensive survey and US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, indicates that to date 1.9 million US citizens are employed in the energy efficiency sector. These numbers show the great potential of the clean energy sector in both tackling climate change and bolstering the economy, a convergence highlighted at the UN climate change negotiations in Paris that delivered the historic Paris Agreement.” These studies show that fighting climate change will both strengthen the United States economy as well as create millions of jobs, which are two of the most important policies to the Trump campaign.
Why Does This Matter for Georgia?
If Georgia were to convert to complete renewable energy by 2050, more jobs will be created, 41% less energy will be needed to live, thousands of deaths due to pollution will be avoided, and more money will be saved by every individual due to a lower annual energy cost, according to a study done by The Solutions Project.
According to an article by Renewable Energy World, “Renewable energy investments are usually spent within the United States, frequently in the same state, and often in the same town. This means your energy dollars stay home to create jobs and fuel local economies, rather than going overseas.” The battle against climate change would not only help the environment, but would also benefit the American people’s livelihoods in every way possible.
(Analysis and Commentary by Rachel Harris)
