NextGen Climate’s Weekly Recap: Making America Win Again
This week Americans earned medal after medal at the Summer Games in Rio, where climate change was at the top of the international agenda. From the swimming pool to gymnastics arena, American athletes were showing the world that America is already great—filled with diverse and passionate millennials who are ready to make a difference.
In fact, the only person who seems unable to recognize America’s greatness is the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. In his economic speech this week, the latest installment in a series of failed campaign “pivots,” Trump ignored the enormous threat posed by climate change and dismissed the potential for America to become the clean energy superpower of the 21st Century. Instead, he put forth an economic agenda filled with giveaways to big corporations that leaves middle class families behind.
Trump’s supposed “pivot” lasted nearly 24 hours before he reverted to his divisive and dangerous rhetoric. During a rally on Tuesday, Trump suggested his supporters take up arms to stop Hillary Clinton from picking judges. Even after this appalling comment, the GOP is still sticking with Trump—the vast majority of Republican leaders continue to endorse his candidacy. Trump may be the loudest voice in the room, but he’s singing the same tune as the rest of his party.
That’s why climate action voters are focusing their efforts on stopping the Party of Trump. Once Trump and his Republican allies are defeated, America can continue to lead the world on climate change. In a speech laying out her economic plan, Hillary Clinton emphasized her commitment to “aggressive spending on green energy” so America can lead the world’s clean energy economy. Under a Democratic president, the United States Department of the Interior could take the necessary steps to put a permanent moratorium on coal leases on public lands. And with Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate, our country could implement nationwide strategies to reduce pollution, protect our air and water, and create jobs of the future in clean energy. That’s the best way to make sure America keeps winning—even after the Olympic Games!
Think Progress: Rio Olympics Opening Ceremony Reminds World That Climate Change Is Very Real
The Opening Ceremony at the Rio 2016 Olympics Games may have opened up with a dance party, but it was a video on climate change watched by roughly 3.3 billion that made people stop what they were doing and focus on human-made pollution.
The Nation: Donald Trump Spreads Economic Fairy Dust
Earth to Trump: Reaganomics failed. But even for this man, who rarely shows any interest in evidence, his speech before the Detroit Economic Club on Monday was disappointing and even dismaying.
New York Times: In Michigan, Hillary Clinton Calls Donald Trump Enemy of ‘the Little Guy’
In a full-throttled rejection of Donald J. Trump’s economic policies, Hillary Clinton on Thursday accused him of feigning a connection to the working man, while advocating policies that would “work for him and his friends, at the expense of everyone else.”
Vox: If the US took its climate goals seriously, coal beneath federal land would stay there
In January, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell put an immediate moratorium on all new leasing of coal from federal land. Coal from public land represents about 40 percent of US coal supply, but critics have long charged that it’s being leased to private developers for too cheap, at a rate that does not account for its current market price or its impact on climate change.
Bloomberg: Eyeing Democratic Majority, Senators Rethink Climate Strategy
Hillary Clinton is surging not only in national polls but also in key swing states—and that is good news for a bloc of Senate Democrats who hope to put climate change back on the front burner and fill a vacuum of leadership triggered by the departure of once-towering Senate figures on the global warming issue.