My observations on items in the news.
ANOTHER TRUMP PROMISE FULFILLED – Flanked by a dozen coal miners on a stage in EPA headquarters Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order to reverse a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations that the administration has said hobbled oil drillers and coal miners. Trump’s “energy independence” order also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions.
The president’s order directs the EPA to start a formal review process to undo the Clean Power Plan, introduced by President Obama in 2014, but never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states.
Who will ever forget this quote by the overreaching Obama, who saw the death of coal as a goal?
“If somebody want to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.”
WASHINGTON POST FALSELY published a piece indicating that the Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and President Trump’s presidential campaign. Later, on its website, the Post published a copy of a letter sent to the White House counsel by Yates’ attorney, indicating that if he did not hear back from the White House by 10 a.m. Monday, he would assume that it does not exert executive privilege over these matters with respect to the hearings or other settings. Since the White House did not respond, common sense would tell you they were not out to block Yates’ testimony. It amounts to still another fake news story.
USA TODAY GUILTY AGAIN OF FAUX JOURNALISM –Within its article reporting on President Trump’s issuance of a Presidential Permit from the U. S. State Department giving the go-ahead for the Keystone XL Pipeline, the paper used a “pull quote” on its environment impact without substantiation. While it is generally believed that greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline will be considerably lower than transporting via tanker truck and rail tanker, USA Today left its readers hanging with this quote:
“Critics have argued the oil pipeline could harm the environment and accelerate climate change.”
MORE CLIMATE CHANGE SCARE TACTICS – In a recent post I called your attention to a CNN piece on climate change natural disasters causing anxiety, depression and even PTSD. Writing in Foreign Affairs an article entitled, “The Problem With Climate Catastrophizing,” Oren Cass summarizes some thought on the subject. “(I) think about my son growing up in a gray, dying world – walking towards Kansas on potholed highways,” wrote Guardian columnist Dave Bry, as he pondered having children in “Does Climate Change Make It Immoral to Have Kids?”
In addition, on National Public Radio, that bastion of liberal thought, Travis Rieder, a philosopher at Johns Hopkins University, offered a provocative thought: Maybe we should protect our kids by not have them,” during a discussion on the topic “Should We Be Having Kids In The Age of Climate Change?”
Cass at least subtitled his piece, “The Case for Calm.”
