Donald Trump finally tweeted about Earth Day as well as issuing an official statement. Both expressed much the same message, that economic growth is more important than the environment, and that somehow, logic unexplained, “economic growth enhances environmental protection.”
His first tweet stressed environmental concerns:
Today on Earth Day, we celebrate our beautiful forests, lakes and land. We stand committed to preserving the natural beauty of our nation.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2017
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A couple of hours later, he felt the need to amend his message with a tweet in favor of “economic growth”:
I am committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection. Jobs matter!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2017
His official Earth Day statement was much the same:
As empty slogans go, this one is pretty empty, and it is difficult to see how this is even possible. Especially when you consider that “economic progress” for Trump is to be found in his “reduced economic burdens on corporations,” which translates as relaxed environmental protections and an Environmental Protection Agency that rejects science and therefore the environment.
His claim of “advancing scientific research” smacks entirely of the standard totalitarian claim of having its own science, which is not science at all.
We saw this in the Soviet Union’s communist science that starved millions, and in Nazi Germany’s National Socialist science, which endorsed “border sciences” such as astrology.
Such a thing as Republican science is not possible. Science is science and the only “science” Trump wants to advance is something that will “prove” global warming is not, in fact, taking place, just like the “science” that proves tobacco doesn’t cause lung cancer.
Trump’s Earth Day message does not celebrate the Earth, but rather the economic exploitation of it. Unsurprising coming from a man who has bragged about sexually assaulting women, his message is an endorsement of the rape of our Earth.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.