VIDEO: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Donald Trump’s Corruption Exacerbating the Climate Crisis
Washington D.C. – Today in a new video, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) discussed how President Donald Trump’s corruption is fueling his anti-science actions on both the climate crisis and COVID-19. The video from Warren is part of a series of Climate Power 2020 featuring elected leaders from across the country focusing on the importance of immediate climate action.
“He [Donald Trump] filled his administration with fossil fuel and chemical company lobbyists, and he’s done exactly what they hoped. He put them in charge of environmental policy and then sat back and let them run an anti-science government,” said Warren. “Donald Trump is the most anti-science and anti-environment president our nation has ever known. His denial of science is destroying our environment and destroying lives. That is dangerous, and it is wrong.”
New analysis from Climate Power 2020 has found that 71 percent favor bold government action on climate change. However, since taking office, Trump has rolled back over 100 environmental protections, benefiting his wealthy oil and gas CEO friends with an “open license to pollute.”
Under the Trump administration, pollution is getting measurably worse, especially air quality and toxic pollution – two issues that disproportionately affect communities of color. One study found that communities of color in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic breathe 66 percent more air pollution just from car exhaust than white residents — exposure that was made worse when Trump insisted on rolling back clean cars standards.
Transcript
This is a time of crisis for our entire nation and for the entire world. The coronavirus outbreak has turned the world as we know it upside down, but as we fight this global pandemic, we cannot ignore the growing threat of another crisis that we face every minute of every day, climate change. The world’s leading experts have long known that climate change is manmade and that we are running out of time to act. We already see it every day. Record floods, terrifying wildfires, devastating hurricanes. But right now, Washington refuses to lift a finger without permission from the fossil fuel industry.
Now, this didn’t happen overnight. For decades, the men in charge of our nation’s largest energy companies lied about climate change in exchange for greater profits. These men built our country’s anti-science think tanks. They bankrolled an entire generation of climate-denying Republicans, and they greased the skids of federal and state government so they could line their own pockets. They put polluting industries in already vulnerable communities, in poor communities, in Black communities, in Brown communities, in rural communities. They drilled and poisoned our waterways. And because they had already bought off our government, they faced zero consequences.
All of their scheming, all of their profits and all of their manipulation boils down to one thing, corruption. Corruption has infected the very heart of our democracy and tilted the levers of power in favor of the wealthy and well connected and against everyone else.
And that’s how today we have a government that works great for the fossil fuel industry, but not for the rest of us who see climate change bearing down upon us.
And then Donald Trump came along. He was the choice pick for the energy industries corrupt lenders. He filled his administration with fossil fuel and chemical company lobbyists, and he’s done exactly what they hoped. He put them in charge of environmental policy and then sat back and let them run an anti-science government. Donald Trump is the most anti-science and anti-environment president our nation has ever known. His denial of science is destroying our environment and destroying lives. That is dangerous, and it is wrong.
Even though many of us are still practicing social distancing, we can still do our part, and here’s how. Staying safe does not mean we have to stay silent, so speak up about the urgent threat of climate change. Use social media to share with those around you the reasons that you’re fighting to save our planet.
And finally, educate those around you. 2020 is the defining moment for how our nation addresses the climate crisis. But I do believe that if we stand together if we fight together and if we persist together, we can save our planet and leave future generations with clean air, clean water, and a better tomorrow.