Major national publications, from the Washington Post to Politico, reported this week that the Trump Administration is likely to work to repeal, or drastically scale back the Clean Power Plan enacted during the Obama Administration.
That comes despite several meetings between high-profile climate change activists and the new president, and despite data that shows 2016 was the hottest year since reliable climate records have been kept.
Dr. Michael Mann has been watching developments in the new Trump Administration very closely, and believes that keeping campaign promises should mean embracing things like clean energy.
"If [President Trump] truly wants to make good on his promise to make this country as great as it can be, then he really needs to seize upon the fact that we are right in the midst of one of the great economic revolutions of all time, the clean energy revolution," he says.
Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and author of the recent book The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy. Mann, like many of his colleagues, is concerned that the new administration is not only hostile toward clean energy, but toward the scientific consensus on climate change.
"The actions by him and his nascent administration, taking down climate information from government websites, or censoring what government representatives are allowed to say, constructing a list of individuals within the EPA who do work on climate change - that really sent a chill down the collective spine of scientists across the country, because it had the feeling of an enemies list," he explains.
"So when we look at his actions over the last month or two, unfortunately, they don't paint a very optimistic picture," Mann continues. "They paint a bleak picture of a president who is potentially going to be taking us down the wrong path."
Mann will be in Milwaukee this March, as part of the Milwaukee Public Museum's Science on Tap lecture series, to talk about his recent book and the evidence of man-made climate change.
