Trump’s Methane Emission’s Plan

By Maggie Eckhart

Trump’s plan to eliminate rules set by Obama is succeeding. Trump plans to allow energy companies to release methane gas back into the atmosphere is almost in effect. With the rise of climate change awareness, many believe that he will have an angry group of environmentalists on his hands. Trump believes that the government was overstepping its bounds in trying to limit what oil and gas companies can do. 

Climate change believers think that methane gas is a large part of Climate change. Methane creates 10% of the earth’s greenhouse gasses but it is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide-making it more detrimental to trapping in the earth’s heat.

Trump’s new plan is to limit and prevent these gas leaks before they even happen. This rule would require more inspections and more regulations. While Trump has called climate change a hoax, a large number of the population doesn’t. With more and more evidence every day, maybe it’s time to bring change into effect.

High school student Margaret Carl, a believer in climate change, disagreed with Trump’s plan, “We need to save our planet now, that way future generations could experience our amazing planet earth.” 

 Another fellow peer, Tyler Carpenter had another opinion, “ I think that climate change is good, it gives us more water.” He continued to say, “ I really think it is happening just very slowly and I really think it’s nothing to worry about.”. 

She went on to say, “I don’t think it’s real. I think it’s made up to make Trump look bad.”

How people feel about climate change differentiates from person to person. If climate change is real, we don’t have much time to make a change. Many believe in the next 5-10 years the impacts on our environment are irreversible. The reasoning behind the theory of why Trump doesn’t care about climate change is that he won’t be here in another 5-10 years, so why should he care? If climate change is not real we still should care about what is going out into our environment.  Either or, it’s time to think about the effects on our planet.