What Keeps Me Up At Night
If you’re like me, you’re still hung up on something Donald Trump said in 2015. When asked in an interview, who would protect the environment if he reduced E.P.A. regulations, Trump responded “We’ll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.” That response keeps me up at night.
To be fair, a lot of things keep me up at night. I don’t think I’ve gotten a complete night of sleep since I learned about books.
To be doubly fair, it’s not really Trump’s comments, it’s more their implications. First, his argument is garbage. The claim is that business is more valuable than the existence of life on the planet. It’s oddly similar to the argument he’s been using for COVID in that his first priority is opening businesses even at the objective risk to the lives of people who run/patronize that business.
Second, Trump and others making comments about lessoning environmental protections because they are stifling business is often interpreted as climate change denial. Trump knows climate change is real. They all do. That’s why Trump increased flood protection for his coastal golf courses. That’s why he did the same for his properties in Florida, a state that will require a snorkel to visit if sea level rise continues.
At every opportunity he saw, Trump has reduced or eliminated the protections and regulations designed to prevent or slow the very thing he has protected his own property against. Trump knows The Paris Climate agreement, restrictions on Alaskan drilling, and the very exitance of the E.P.A. are how we fight climate change. He knows climate change is real and he knows that people will die and places will be destroyed because of it. As long as they aren’t people or places he can profit from, he does not care.
The real reason those comments keep me up at night, though, is because I start planning what I will do when that “little bit” turns out to not be enough. I think about my daughter and how I’m going to feed her when droughts and tornadoes are the rule and not the exception. If we’re already seeing massive fires in the West and cumulative Hurricanes in the East, what will it look like with more regulation reduction?
I lay awake at night trying to figure out where I’ll be able to get food and water after we’re hit with a tornado/earthquake hybrid. What tools will I need and what will society look like if I don’t live in Trump’s “little bit” of the environment? I like to think survival skills I picked up in scouts will help but I never got my “Apocalypse Survival” merit badge.
It’s easy to think that we’re protected here in the middle of the country, but that’s a fatal assumption. Ask the farmers who have been struggling against no rain and far too much rain all at the same time. Ask air traffic controllers from O’Hare and they’ll tell you the past 10 years of weather patterns have made flying chaotic at best. As I often recommend, talk to the Audubon Society. They’re a bunch of super great people but they’ll also tell you about birds that you won’t see anymore because we’ve destroyed they’re breeding grounds.
I probably won’t sleep well no matter what happens. I apparently offended the Sandman at some point. I will sleep better though, knowing the country is fighting climate change rather than sacrificing me and my family to it. Joe Biden’s climate policies aren’t perfect, but I’ll sleep better under a Biden Presidency.
