“Here’s How President Trump Shifted Policy in His First Week” Article Reflection No. 124 (1/25/2025)

Article: “Here’s How President Trump Shifted Policy in His First Week”

Reflection: 

In The New York Times article “Here’s How President Trump Shifted Policy in His First Week,” journalist Brad Plumer discusses the changes to environmental policy from over the past week from when Donald Trump was elected for his second term. Currently, he has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement and, along with the key motive of drilling for more oil,  also discouraged fossil fuel energy alternatives such as solar energy or wind energy, according to the article. The article also briefly discusses how the legal processes through courts likely will make it unlikely for all of these legislature changes to take place all at once. 

I think one of the aspects of climate change that make it so much harder to address in society is how so many people who are living in developed countries and who happen to be living more privileged lives—they are so much less aware of its dangers unless they experience the consequences of climate change firsthand. But so many people know and experience firsthand the impact of things like inflation, as shown through the frustration that may arise as a result of something as “mundane” as seeing the gas price increase by a dollar. By this statement I’m not trying to undermine economic concerns or anything like that—I’m just trying to compare the differing natures of two different topics. So now the next question would be: how do we make conversation about climate change more accessible and how do we integrate that in day-to-day life, like how we already likely do for the economy?