President Trump announced yesterday that the US is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord.
Clearly, opinions vary widely with regard to climate change and its causes, but we believe that reasonable people of all nations are fundamentally in favor of preserving and improving the vitality of our earth for our children and all future generations.
It may well be that the Paris Accord was constructed in a way that favored other nations over the US, and to whatever extent that is true, we support efforts to protect US interests. If pulling out of the Accord is simply a negotiating strategy intended to distribute the burdens more fairly among participating nations, then we applaud President Trump’s efforts to protect American citizens. We hope that is his intent.
Having said that, however, we sincerely encourage President Trump to consider the leadership role that our nation can and should play in assuring a long and healthy future for all of the citizens of our planet. We believe that such leadership can only be exercised if we, as a nation, are active participants in the process.
I’ve been around long enough to remember when car exhaust emissions made my eyes burn, when smoke from manufacturing plants caused a layer of soot to settle on my car each day, and when oil refineries made entire regions smell bad. We’ve made great progress but only because our government took an interest and imposed goals and regulations that were at times costly and difficult to attain. Many people complained and predicted the demise of our economy; yet, few would argue for going back to those days.
A winter day in our home town of Salt Lake City during a temperature inversion is pretty convincing evidence that there is still much to be done. Progress is rarely easy or painless, but let’s not give up on the fight. The US is uniquely qualified and capable of playing a leadership role in a worldwide effort to protect the environment. At Summa Energy Solutions, we believe this can be done while also protecting the interests of US businesses and private citizens. So we again encourage you, President Trump, to stay in the fight and lead us all to a better, cleaner, and safer future.
