Doomsday is near: the US presidential election is less than a month away and Donald Trump continues to spew out offensive comments. He’s proven he’s bad for women, bad for immigrants, and bad for minorities. He’s also proven he’s bad for the environment.
To being with, he kinda sorta denies climate change. Though honestly it's hard to keep up, since he seems to keep changing his mind. First he tweeted it wasn't real, then he denied it during the first presidential debate. Problem is, if he's this flip-floppy on climate change, chances are he's probably not going to do anything about it.
Trump is also really short-sighted. A month ago he wrote that there were more important issues to worry about than climate change, like malaria, clean water, and food production. Bad news: climate change is going to make each of those things worse.
Oh yeah – AND he thinks clean coal is a thing, which doesn’t really make sense. Sure, there might be some types of coal that aren't as polluting as others, but that doesn't in any way make them safe. That's like saying smoking cigarettes with filters won't cause cancer.
The thing is, America’s stance on environmental issues like climate change is really important for the rest of the world. The US is one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, so if the next president doesn’t take global warming seriously, everyone else will suffer.
Climate change doesn't recognise political borders, so it's an all in situation. And we need to get America on board.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)