This Earth Day is different. The world’s largest economy is governed by a president who has called global warming an “expensive hoax” on multiple occasions. He has threatened to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, and appointed a head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, who as recently as last month has reported not believing that human activity or carbon dioxide are primary contributors to climate change, contradicting 150 years of basic physics and decades of scientific consensus. The Trump administration has proposed cutting the EPA’s budget by over 30%, and the agency’s staff by 15,000 jobs. This major shift in the executive branch’s attitude toward climate change leaves a big void in the U.S.’s — and the world’s — environmental stewardship, one that the private sector must fill.
There’s a Leadership Vacuum on Climate Change. Business Should Fill It
It’s increasingly strange to have to say this, but pollution and global warming are bad for the economy.
April 21, 2017
Summary.
Now that the world’s largest economy is led by a president who denies climate change, there’s a leadership vacuum in the public sector on this issue — which is vitally important for a functioning global economy. It’s increasingly strange to have to say this out loud, but workers struggling to breathe are not productive, places without access to safe water have trouble building a strong economy, and people in cities fighting rising seas or extreme drought do not make great customers. Thus, business leaders need to step into the void. Some already are: companies like Walmart, Apple, H&M, General Mills, Kellogg, and GE have set aggressive, pro-climate, pro-business goals.