President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has been widely criticised by world leaders for its likely impact on international climate policy and efforts to meet targets for emission reductions outlined in the Agreement.
During a speech at a Republican fundraiser, Trump told his supporters that the sound generated by a wind turbine can cause cancer. A staunch supporter of the coal industry, Trump has taken to cracking jokes at his rallies about wind power, and has routinely questioned the science of climate change. President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has been widely criticised by world leaders for its likely impact on international climate policy and efforts to meet targets for emission reductions outlined in the Agreement. The Trump administration’s budget for 2018 also saw funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy cut by 72%. Trump’s closest energy advisors all have very strong links to either the fossil fuel industry or climate denial outfits. Trump nominated long-time climate denier Rick Perry as energy secretary, and the CEO of ExxonMobil Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, before he was replaced with former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
Trump has opposed wind energy for years, having lost a long legal battle in the UK in 2015 against the Scottish government’s decision to allow turbines within sight of his luxury golf resort, and his latest statements have been criticised widely for being unscientific. Although there does exist evidence that suggests there might be some linkage to people’s quality of life and turbines—a 2018 study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America found that the closer respondents lived to turbines the lower they ranked their quality of life—no direct association between cancer and turbines has been ascertained as yet. Right after the president spoke, the American Cancer Society issued a statement saying it was “unaware of any credible evidence linking the noise from windmills to cancer”. Having accused a majority of mainstream media outlets of proliferating fake news, Trump himself does not seem to stop spreading false information regarding renewable energy and climate change, further endangering human lives in the process.
Source: financialexpress
