by Danielle Kowalski
Mike Pompeo, previous C.I.A. director is now taking the position as secretary of state. Previous Rex Tillerson was known to be one of the last presidential advisers whose views on global warming “are in line with the rest of the world”. Some of Mr. Pompeo’s statements and beliefs that frighten a portion of society state that the notion of climate change as a top national security threat is absolutely unbelievable. Pompeo has questioned the scientific consensus of human activity affecting the climate and believes the Paris Agreement is a costly burden to America. Being one of the top recipients of oil money in the House of Representatives, it is clear that the environment is not going to be at the top of his priority list while taking his new position as secretary of state. Mr. Tillerson, previous secretary of state urged President Trump not to withdraw from the Paris climate control agreement. His departure follows the resignation of the president’s top economic advisor and senior adviser to the president on international energy issues who also both argued to keep the United States in the Paris agreement. With all three departures, the forces on climate change within the administration have depleted greatly.
The American Partnership 
This isn’t too shocking to see. The Trump Administration has been going through serious changes recently. It was honestly more shocking that Rex Tillerson was as climate conscience as he was, given that he was an oil executive himself. Trump has been on a streak of anti climate policies, and it’s not like he was listening to his cabinet for much anyway, so whoever occupies the State department won’t really change this administrations stance. Trump is now going through what seems like an entire cabinet reshuffle, and current Energy secretary Rick Perry has been considered to replace VA secretary David Shulkin. On top of that, Senator Rand Paul has also said he will not support Pompeo on the committee vote for approval. So we have yet to see how this will play out, but it seems like to this administration, the environment isn’t particularly high on their priority list.
Look at it this way, only 960 days until the 2020 elections.
I completely agree, is America really surprised that Trump did this? Im not. During the 2016 campaign, Trump had no intentions of fixing environmental problems and now as President he is making it goal to eliminate any chance of environmental policies being passed or created. The future of the environment is in trouble if Trump continues these type of actions. Trump has an agenda for his administration and he has no problem getting rid of people who don’t support the exact same agenda as him. I don’t know much about Pompeo, but from the information above, it looks like the earth isn’t a concern to him. Personally, I don’t believe that all pollution is from humans, but I am aware that a big portion of the things humans are doing cause pollution. Im curious to see how much the American people can take regarding negative actions against the environment. Will we see protests outside the White House? We can only wait and find out.
One of the problems with the Trump administration seems to be complacency. In other words, I think one problem the president has is that he does not allow others in his administration to express their views on certain issues. The pattern that I am seeing in this administration is that if a member states something that Trump does not like, he gets rid of them. Moreover, the whole administration is biased towards just what Trump believes. I think that the environment is not something that the president chooses to express concern over, and certainly will not be a priority for this administration.
I completely agree, I am also not surprised that Trump pulled another unpredictable stunt, while using social media as his platform. Out of all the President’s who has ever had social media, he uses it so actively and communicates and chats consecutively. Being that Trump is very much anti environmental protection, he has had ill intentions on disregarding environmental policies and voiding policies that have been passed in place.Trump has always had intentions on ridding members of the House whose views were not the same, and recruit people who would willingly abide by his law. Because of this new change with Mike Pompeii being the new Secretary of State, environmental protections and policies are in for trouble in the future.
Just like my classmates, I agree and really am not surprised at all. This move by Trump is ultimately awful for the future of our environment. Rex Tillerson was the last knowledgable hope for our environment and tried to urge Trump to stay in the Paris agreement. As Trump famously likes to do, he used twitter for his platform during all of this. He is the first president to use Social Media so freely, which is frowned upon by many people. Although now that Pompeii is the new secretary of state, it is very clear that the environment is not going to be something he takes much action on. Being that Pompeii is a top profiter off of oil, it is clear that environmental policies are in trouble. This is a classic move from Trump and his administration and I would not be surprised to see any more moves against the environment in the near future.
Agreeing with the earlier comments on this page and earlier in the semester, this is just another move that the Trump administration is using to demean the environmental cause. As we have discussed almost every week, the Trump administration has no concern on environmental policy and is saying it is to influence big business and the economy. Something they need to do is to find a middle ground that supports both but I don’t think this administration will do that anytime soon or in it’s time in office. The fact that climate change being affected by human activity is at question here is frightening. We are almost going back in time with this administration and falsifying scientific facts. The future of the environment is a scary thing to think about with Trump as our president and over time I think it may just get worse, if thats even possible at this point.
It is frightening to see yet another climate change denier make his way up the ranks of the President’s cabinet. Although Rex Tillerson was not an ideal Secretary of State regarding environmental policy, he had showed some concern about global warming and other environmental issues. With many key members of Trump’s cabinet having close ties to the oil industry, it is very unlikely that we will see any policies put in place to protect our environment. A lot of the environmental legislation implemented by the Obama administration has already been thrown out the window, and now with Pompeo having more power, I expect this dangerous trend to continue.
This looks like another yes man for the trump administration. I don’t understand how one can simply not believe that we are causing global warming. At first glance i did not think that Rex Tillerson was not an ideal Secretary of State choice, as he was the CEO of one of the biggest oil companies, but it looks as if Trump had his agenda set and was not ready to change any part of this so he outed him at the first chance he could. Looks as if environmental issues will be on the back burner for the rest of President Trump’s term.
It should not be a surprise to society that the president of the US is bringing in new people that share common views and beliefs. He’s set an agenda and has specifically outlined what’s at the top of his list, it is not the environment so this should not be so upsetting to everyone due to the common trend of the Trump Administration. This is a loss for the environmental advocates but that doesn’t mean that these issues will never be addressed, this could in the end generate more revenue due to the worry that there will be nothing done about these issues.
I don’t think that it surprises anyone that the current administration replaced Tillerson with a climate denier. When new administrations come into power, they typically fill positions with people who share similar party-line beliefs. I think the main difference between our current situation and this happening in with past presidencies is the qualifications of individuals being chosen. Of course there will always be people given positions because of their money or name, however, I think it have been observed across the board that there has been a significant decrease in the quality and a lack of individuals being given positions.
If anything, I would be more okay with a climate-denier being given this position of their pockets weren’t lined with energy companies money or if they at least had a kind-of scientific background.