President Trump is hell bent on endangering the planet. Let me quote today’s Washington Post editorial by John Podesta.
Since taking office, Trump has taken steps to eliminate limits on carbon pollution and increase America’s dependence on foreign oil, including by moving to weaken vehicle efficiency standards and import more Canadian tar-sands crude oil . His proposed budget decimates scientific research, he selected an Environmental Protection Agency administrator who denies climate science, and he has just signed a broad executive order that will dismantle environmental protections and cost taxpayers more than $40 billion. Compounding these outrages, he has directed the government to implement an accounting system that would exaggerate the benefits and discount the costs of his actions.
Yesterday's executive order to kill the Clean Power Plan represents a formal declaration of war by Trump on the Paris Agreement. More fundamentally, it's a declaration of war on the world's children, who bear the terrible risks of Trump's potentially irreversible climate damage.
Trump’s order is also an arrogant repudiation of a Who's Who of Republican statesmen, including George Shultz, James Baker, and Henry Paulson. Seven weeks back these three former Secretaries of Treasury and two former Secretaries of State publicly formed the Climate Leadership Council together with former Chairmen of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein and Greg Mankiw. The group’s first act was to propose a $40 per ton of C02 carbon tax , which would rise through time.
Scientific fact counts for nothing with Trump. When our would-be-king's rentable palace, Mar-a-Lago, is six feet under water, he might get it. But by then he too will be six feet under.
The only effective way to get Trump and his Congressional vassals to change their disastrous climate policy is for the outside world to exert economic pressure. This can be easily started with a single press conference held by celebrities including Leonardo Dicaprio, Robert Redford, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Don Cheadle, Angelina Jolie, Emma Thompson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barbara Streisand, Matt Damon, ...
Their proposed message to the world would be simple. Don't buy U.S. products and don't travel to the U.S. until Congress passes and Trump signs the Climate Leadership Council's proposed carbon tax at its initially high and quickly rising tax rate.
Such an international economic boycott will change the political calculus of Trump's climate-change policy overnight. His pledge to "Make America Great Again," no matter the cost to American, British, Bolivian, South African, Chinese, Indonesian, Australian, Russian, and every other country's children, will become just another set of empty words.
I love my country deeply — far more deeply than our President, who is willing to put himself before country at every turn. Calling for an international boycott of America’s economy is an extreme step. I don’t take it lightly. But the climate war Mr. Trump is waging against the planet's children, including yours and mine, must be stopped.
Mr. Trump is a schoolyard bully. When people or nations stand up to him, he backs down. An international boycott of U.S.-made products is the only way to change U.S. climate policy, which is critical to our planet’s and our children’s future.
So Leonardo, Elton, Robert, Paul, Angelina, Emma, Arnold, Don, Barbara, Matt and other celebrities that have international reach, it’s time to stick out your necks. Publicly and collectively call for an international boycott of U.S.-made products and travel to the U.S. until the U.S. adopts the carbon tax proposed by real Republicans.
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