Against The Wall - Donald Trump’s Next Prank

After his announcement of building a wall along the Mexican border and the abortive attempt to abolish ‘Obamacare’, Trump is now trying to put another of his election promises into action: Dismantling environmental protection installed by his predecessor Barack Obama.

This is doomed to be a failure though. It also doesn't help to surround himself with coal workers from the US  hinterland while signing his executive order. Coal is dead – even coal mine owners have been sharing this opinion openly with the press. Trump claims that the "war on coal", allegedly instigated by Obama, is finished. Trump pretends to be able to guarantee that jobs in this industry will pop up again. Fake News! Already since the 1980s, the numbers of employees in the mining industry have declined sharply. And at that time the country was governed by Republicans only. Coal is simply too expensive and can no longer keep up with the prices of natural gas or renewable energies. This economic fact can't be changed by an executive order.

Especially since in the US about 30 federal states have already adopted their own climate plans - and many of those are much stricter than the guidelines from Washington. Among them are also Republican-led states like Texas, which has risen from an oil state to the US number 1 in wind power expansion under current Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.

Meanwhile, California and New York have already declared to ignore the executive order and instead pursue their own climate action goals. Other states are likely to join this project in the coming days. The successful suspension of the travel ban through various courts, also introduced by Trump, has also shown how to get rid of his executive orders in almost no time. In opposition, the legal revocation of the entire Clean Power Plan is expected to take years - and may even take longer than Trump will remain President.

The fatality of Trump’s activity is not the immediate impact, but the political signal that it sends: Suddenly everything seems possible and day-to-day changes can take place in an industry like the renewables that is built and can only grow upon reliable long-term policy. It also doesn't seem unlikely that Trump will announce the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement - another fatal step in the area of environmental policy, where it is of immense importance to look decades ahead. A period of time that seems far too great for Trump’s imagination.

With his motto 'America First' he ensures at least one thing: America will be first to crash into the next wall.

Climate change affects us all. It is not limited to a country or a region of the world. That's why the international community is urgently required to stop Trump. The Governor of California, Jerry Brown, has already put it into the right words: “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else.”

The time is now to let deeds follow!