So, the implausible has happened for the third time in a year. Donald Trump has defied the odds by becoming president-elect, Leicester City won the Premier League, and Brexit became reality.
Now a man more orange than the jam filling in a Jaffa cake is the most powerful bloke in the world.
Trump has made some pretty bold, brash and brazen claims during the presidential race. From building walls to banning Muslims, the rhetoric has, at times, been divisive.
But perhaps one of the scariest elements of Trump's campaign was his absolute insistence that climate change isn't real. Climate change is a subject TheLADbible is passionate about, which makes Trump's stance all the more worrying. Here's a tweet from the man himself back in 2012, which sounds like the ravings of a conspiracy theorist.
And rather than backing up his claims with scientific evidence, Trump believes that cold days in summer are reason enough to disprove years of research. He has had dozens of tweets complaining about how cold he is and how climate change must be a fraud. Someone buy this man a thick coat!
So, with all this in mind, what changes can we actually expect during his tenure in the White House?
Dismantle everything that Obama has worked for
During Obama's eight years in office, US CO2 emissions dropped to their lowest levels in 20 years. Trump getting elected could lead to an extra 3.4 billion tons of emissions being released into the atmosphere.
Pull the USA out of the Paris Agreements
The historic Paris agreement, signed by 195 nations and promising to curb climate change, is now in jeopardy, with Trump threatening to pull out. Obama tried his best to push it through before the uncertainty of the election, but it looks like all of his hard work could be undone.
Get rid of renewable energy
Trump isn't a fan of wind turbines. Bald eagles, a symbol of freedom and America, are apparently most at risk, with Trump tweeting how thousands of eagles die every year from these spinning death traps.
While it's hilarious that a man with the greatest comb-over since Sir Bobby Charlton is commenting on aesthetics, it turns out that mobile phone towers and cats are actually a much greater risk to bird populations. So, what next, Donald? A States-wide ban on felines?
Get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency
Trump has it in for the EPA. Its regulations control most of the States' environmental policy. In March he promised to "get rid of [EPA] in almost every form. We are going to have little titbits left but we are going to take a tremendous amount out." This could lead to increased fracking, air pollution and emissions.
It looks pretty scary with President Trump soon to be in charge. It's likely that the changes that he wants to make could be pushed through. "This Trump effect will be even stronger since Trump will be backed by united government," warns Dennis Tänzler, Director of International Climate Policy at Adelphi. "Everything is changing for climate change in the US and, most likely, globally." Tänzler believes Trump could have a significantly negative impact on the fight against global warming, and he sees Trump's election as a shift from 'actual climate leadership to climate denial'.
There are scary times ahead for the environment in the United States, and the world itself. With a climate denier in charge of one of the most powerful countries, we could see an irreversible change to our planet's climate. We must hope that the president-elect shows more restraint and intelligence towards the natural world than he has previously suggested, or he could single-handedly become the largest environmental disaster in living memory.
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Words by Kim Holman
Featured Image Credit PA
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Environment, climate change, President, Donald Trump, Barack Obama
