When he leaves

One thing is for sure. Donald J. Trump will leave the Office of President in one of four ways:

1)      He will resign and/or leave for health reasons

2)      He will be removed by impeachment or via the 25^th Amendment

3)      He will be voted out of office during the 2020 Election

4)      He will complete his first and second terms and vacate at that time

Those are in order of preference. I wish they were in order of likelihood as well, but no one knows for sure what will happen in the next minute, let alone the next year or years.

The second for sure thing is that our next president will have a mess to clean up. If there were a word stronger than mess, I would have used it. To qualify it, let’s just say that it’s of unprecedented proportions. The damage that’s being done to our economy (the stock market is tanking, and the rest of the economy is about to follow), our country’s integrity (look no further than the Trump lie count), our place in the world (we’ve managed to make enemies of our friends and aid our enemies), and our environment (the rest of the story) are incalculable.

Regarding the destruction, it is the devastation to the environment that will have the most lasting effect. It’s also been the area where Trump has been the most efficient; it will take the best legal efforts to undo everything. Unfortunately, the consequences will be something our children and their children will have to endure.

Air pollution, water pollution, and added carbon and other greenhouse gasses will cause untold deaths and damage for decades to come. This does not even take into account the missed opportunities for global leadership and jobs (YES, JOBS) in the new economy.

And it’s all on Trump and his supporters’ hands.

Doubling Down on Poison

Forget for the moment that President Donald Trump is a felon, a liar, a misogynist, a narcissist, and likely a traitor. Forget for the moment the damage he is doing to American justice, institutions, and credibility. In terms of lasting, long-term damage that has the greatest impact, look no further than his environmental policies.

Trump continues to poison the planet, and as usual, he’s doubling down on his toxic policies, most currently at the Katowice, Poland Climate Change Conference, also known as COP 24. Under Trump’s direction, the U.S. stood with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Russia to block full endorsement of thecritical U.N. climate report by the world’s leading scientists, that found that the world has about a decade to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming.

Even that wasn’t enough. Trump’s U.S. delegation also tried to make the case that coal and other dirty fossil fuels are really desirable in order to not “sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security.” They were laughed at, mocked, and ridiculed, as would be expected at a conference dedicated to saving rather than spoiling the earth.

Meanwhile, human emissions continue to cause the planet to warm, oceans to rise, arctic and Antarctic ice to melt, temperatures to increase, and wildfires to burn. And Trump continues to fuel the fires. Shame on him and all that support him.

And today we learn that the Trump EPA Proposes Major Rollback Of Federal Water Protections. The rape of the environment continues.

The day Trump and his ilk leave office is a day the earth, and everyone on it, can breathe a sigh of relief.