Trump Eliminates Climate Funding Just As Concern About The Environment Hits Record High

As Donald Trump proposes to eliminate federal funding for climate change, American concern about the environment is at a record high, recent polling shows.

According to Gallup, a record high of 62 percent of Americans believe the effects of climate changing are playing out right now. Nearly 70 percent feel that global warming is caused by human activities.

Since the beginning of the new century, worry over the changing climate has only increased as evidence of the warming globe becomes clearer and clearer.

More numbers via Gallup:

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Just as the country is reaching a consensus that the world is facing and must tackle the climate crisis, Trump – living in the land of alternative facts – is pushing a new budget that would totally eliminate climate change funding.

In a stunning moment on Thursday, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said this: “I think the president was fairly straightforward on [climate change]: We’re not spending money on that anymore.”

“We consider that to be a waste of your money,” he added.

This is essentially the policy version of Trump’s infamous 2012 tweet in which he said climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese to undermine U.S. manufacturing.

After eight years of a president – Barack Obama – who made fighting climate change a priority and brought the world together to fight it, the new president thinks there is no need to devote any federal money toward it. It’s an embarrassing and dangerous step backward.

Meanwhile, each year will continue to see record high global temperatures, storms will continue to intensify, and the American people will continue to live through the devastating consequences of this environmental crisis.

We’ve known for some time that climate change is happening. The only difference now is that we have a president who no longer cares about stopping it.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.