Robert Redford Draws Attention to Costs of Environmental Inaction
From a military family, Archie Parnell is an accomplished South Carolina entrepreneur and 2017 congressional candidate with extensive International financial experience. In his competitive bid for a seat in Congress, Archie Parnell emphasized the importance of protecting the environment, as in his words, “there simply is no planet B.”
Actor, director, and Natural Resources Defense Council trustee Robert Redford emphasized this concept in an opinion piece penned for Time Magazine on Earth Day, 2019. As he put it, the planet is fast approaching an “irreversible tipping point” when it comes to climate change and addressing this must be a top priority of every politician, whatever his or her party affiliation.
Unfortunately, the President that American voters elected in 2016 is seeking to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, at the same time as he has undermined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and set in place regulations that significantly weaken protections afforded to essentials such as clean water and air.
As reported in Time in April, this policy stance is having an on-the-ground impact, as 141 million people across the country lived in regions with unhealthy air pollution levels from 2015 to 2017. This reflected worsening ozone pollution from the previous two-year period and represented a step backward in a country that had dramatically improved air quality since the 1970s.
With the EPA further softening emission standards for the coal and auto industries, the threat is that pollution will worsen significantly from that baseline more under a business as usual scenario, even as global warming remains unaddressed.
Actor, director, and Natural Resources Defense Council trustee Robert Redford emphasized this concept in an opinion piece penned for Time Magazine on Earth Day, 2019. As he put it, the planet is fast approaching an “irreversible tipping point” when it comes to climate change and addressing this must be a top priority of every politician, whatever his or her party affiliation.
Unfortunately, the President that American voters elected in 2016 is seeking to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, at the same time as he has undermined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and set in place regulations that significantly weaken protections afforded to essentials such as clean water and air.
As reported in Time in April, this policy stance is having an on-the-ground impact, as 141 million people across the country lived in regions with unhealthy air pollution levels from 2015 to 2017. This reflected worsening ozone pollution from the previous two-year period and represented a step backward in a country that had dramatically improved air quality since the 1970s.
With the EPA further softening emission standards for the coal and auto industries, the threat is that pollution will worsen significantly from that baseline more under a business as usual scenario, even as global warming remains unaddressed.
