Trump's Threat to the Environment

Under President Obama, America and many businesses have made huge strides toward addressing environmental issues. However, with the current President elect, Mr. Trump, there will be huge setbacks as revealed in his first 100-day action plan:

* FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars' worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

* SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's water and environmental infrastructure

According to this blogpost from Business Insider, these are the 7 biggest threats Trump's presidency will have on the environment:

1. Backing out of Paris Agreement
2. Killing the Clean Power Plan
3. Eliminating the EPA (Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency)
4. Appointing climate change deniers to lead EPA and Department of Energy
5. Cut all federal spending on clean energy
6. Avoid creating any regulations on methane
7. Open federal lands to oil and gas spilling

As you can see from these, the incentives set in place for companies to achieve a triple bottom line and be conscious of the negative externalities they produce is likely to diminish. 

Hopefully those 4 years of a Trump presidency won't create a big enough setback on the environment to the point where it's too late...