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Comment by anondon | Hacker News Reader

FWIW, Trump stated in a recent interview that he would keep an "open mind" on climate change. He was probably informed by his advisers that climate change is real.

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I believe with politicians, it's better to just judge them on what they do. They make so many conflicting statements(especially now), it's hard to tell where they actually stand, and they prefer it that way.

Trump has appointed an energy secretary and head of the EPA who both believe climate change is a hoax and want to gut any carbon related regulation. The questionnaire they sent to the energy department also makes it seems like they're preparing to purge climate researchers. The only silver lining is that Perry seems to be very open to renewable energy tech based on his time in Texas, and I think the economic argument for it becomes stronger each year, so it becomes harder to deny.

Here's the reality: fossil fuels will only be replaced by something that's more economical (assuming we don't run out, which doesn't seem close to happening). If renewables get to that point, we won't need regulation to get rid of fossil fuels. It'll happen automatically.

His policies seem to change based on who is in the room with him, so I guess it's best to get the right people in that room.

Which makes his cabinet appointees all the more unsettling.

Agreed.

Because he has an attention span of 5 minutes (according the the ghost writer of his book) We are doomed.

We've had worse, and we've seen worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act

A President Trump very well might be a step backwards, but I'm pretty confident that it will only be a temporary setback.

That it's a "temporary setback" is small consolation to the native Americans.

I'm sure the Holocaust was also just a "temporary setback" too, right?

Godwin's law strikes again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...

>We've had worse, and we've seen worse While true, I'd like think things are different now.

Except that's not how protecting the environment works. You can't undo damage to the environment as easily as you can destroy it. So if in one minute he thinks its ok to do something destructive, in the next minute it will be too late to undo that.

Please keep this in mind.

This applies to other areas of life as well. If you are an undocumented child living in this country. You can't have a normal life if all you know is that Trump might change his mind. You will forever live in fear. That's not fair to anyone.

Oh, I don't disagree.

Today he has an open mind, tomorrow he might be a die hard convert, and next week he'll be back to believing it's a Chinese hoax. There's literally no point in taking anything he says at face value.

Trump doesn't necessarily need to believe in climate change; renewables are becoming competitive and make sense from an energy security standpoint. Trump just needs to be convinced that subsidising coal makes no sense. Elon may be able to convince him that the jobs that the renewable energy industry can provide are better than those the coal industry can offer.

China might help here - if they ramp up their subsidies & innovation in the green energy space, US/Trump will have a lot of motivation to follow suit!

Or by reducing regulation on lithium mines.

Might flip West Virginia back to the Democrats, though. Unless he can find some other way to keep them on board (and I wouldn't put it past him at this point).

Don't know if anyone outside of West Virginia really cares about keeping the coal industry going.

It don't have to be coal - just stable blue collar jobs. Those people that drill in the mines will be as happy building and maintaining wind turbines. Or dams. Or solar.

Also we may be able to use coal for other stuff - has anyone tried to make ground coal into soil with bacteria and worms - with growing soil erosion problem that could be a market too.

If that is true then they should probably have voted for the candidate that promised $30 billion in tax breaks and re-training to lure green energy jobs to their state.

I'm slightly shocked that people talk about this as if he truly believes that it's not real.

With most politicians everything makes perfect sense if you assume they know it's real, but they have some narrow selfish reason to pretend otherwise e.g. connections to coal industry.

I'm not sure if it's scarier to believe that he's happy to spread propaganda from the fossil fuel industry, or that he's simply stupid enough to believe it.

(edit: and now I'm considering the terrifying prospect that he genuinely thinks Barack Obama faked his entire life story up to and past Harvard, and was some kind of muslim secret agent plant, which is much more terrifying than him just pandering to ignorant racists on the same topic for years)

You're assuming he either believes a thing (Global Warming, Obama's birth history, etc) is real or believes it is false. He actually doesn't give a single crap either way on anything.

While he told you he would keep an open mind on climate change, he also sent a memo to the DoE seeking the names of every scientist who has worked on climate change related issues.

Personally, I believe a persons actions much more than their rhetoric.

Have you seen his appointments so far? They matter a lot more than an interview, and he is not surrounding himself with people who are going to tell him that climate change is real.

I think the summary is the number of things that Trump has said "in an interview" which are is direct opposition of each other is high. It is unusual to find something he has said consistently in any interview and it is the basis of his appeal (everyone can find him saying something they approved of whether or not they are referring to a time when he said he was for something or when he said he was against that very same thing)

As a result, what he says appears to have little relation to how he actually proceeds.

Or he knows it exists, knows it is an issue, but does not give it priority over all else. He is anti PC, that means he won't fit in the PC box.

My take is that after having won the election, he's moving from saying what wins votes to what helps govern.

I'm really confused by all the Trump haters who assume he's always telling the truth when he says things they don't like.

More likely he's pandering to someone else.

i wanted to believe that but then you who he appointed for secretary of state(exxon ceo), the EPA and rick perry in charge of the department he forgets the name of.

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