Global Climate Change

Nowadays, the impact of global climate change can be observed. Humans and wildlife are suffering the consequences of global warming. However, Trump’s administration does not believe in climate change and ignore what the scientists say. In my opinion, we should fight the global climate change because it will affect our future if it continues to happen.

President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement in June 2017. According to the article from The Washington Post, President Trump believes that the Paris climate accord is a burden to the United States’ economy. He insisted that the number of jobs in the United States would increase after withdrawing from the agreement. Moreover, though the article from CNN, President Trump said that the United States is “the cleanest we have never been.” Trump does not believe the climate change that happens around the world and America. Trump tries to grow our economy which will benefit our country. However, he ignores global warming which is affecting our future.

I could not agree with him. We should fight global climate change. Climate change affects directly to human life and wildlife. There are a lot of data to prove that climate change is actually happening around us. The report from the World Meteorological Organization points out that the temperature, greenhouse gases, sea level, and sea ice melting have increased and likely to be higher in 2019 than 2018. Moreover, global warming can make some regions are hotter and dryer which can lead to drought and wildfires. In the United States and around the world, in the past years, there are floods, hurricanes, wildfires that linked to climate change. The report clarifies the influences of climate change through extreme weathers such as hurricane Florence, and Michael has damaged the economy and lives of many people in the United States. The transportation through the Rhine river has been disrupted in mid-October because of record low flows. Recently, the Camp Fire in California in November 2018 was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in over a century in the United States. We cannot say that those happening extreme weathers are coincidences. The climate system may change naturally by itself. However, it is also affected by human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, land use, decomposition of wastes, etc. The climate change not only affects our lives right now, but it also leaves the consequences to our future and next generations.

In short, we should fight global climate change to save our planet together with other countries. We cannot grow the economy and ignore the safety for our future. The United States is one of the developed countries in the world, so we should take actions against climate change to slow it down and prevent severe changes to our planet.

The Concept of the Border Wall

After reading some of my classmate blogs, I found Julia’s blog on October 25, 2018, about border wall is interesting. I have given my own opinions about this issue in my blog stage five. I cannot agree with her more because Julia has shared the same idea with me by her well-organized and persuasive complementary. 

First of all, Julia introduced her argument about the wall between the United States and Mexico. She clearly stated that she opposed to that idea. Following her statement, Julia gave readers her logical reasoning for not building the wall from Beto’s mention of the 2018 record safety and security towards the border. If she can provide the readers with the details of the record, it will be a more persuasive argument. Through that point, we can figure out that the wall is not necessary for our country now. Later, she mentioned that Trump’s concept of building the wall leads to negative sequences such as showing the hate and racism. Julia also said that the wall separated the two countries and prevented people from seeking chances to have better lives. I think that the wall cannot completely prevent people to come to the United States. Trump’s idea is not totally bad because he wants to control the illegal immigrants, not all the immigrants. However, I disagree with his ideas of building the wall because it is not practical. The border wall is the idea to waste tons of money. 

In the article’s conclusion, Julia convinced me that we could take that amount of money to support our community services instead of building the unnecessary wall. In overall, I think Julia wrote an excellent commentary about this controversial issue with her organized and logical reasoning to support her opinions. 

IS IT WORTH TO BUILD THE WALL?

"Make American Great Again" became the slogan of Donald Trump for his presidential campaign. During the campaign, his controversial idea is that building a wall across Mexico - United States border to keep our country safe. I believe that Trump has his reasons to build the wall. People may like his ideas or not, but he is still working on it. In my opinion, we should not build the wall. It is not a practical idea for two reasons.

First of all, of course, it will cost American tons of money. The total length of the continental border is 1,989 miles. Trump said that we need to build only 1000 miles along the border because of “natural barriers” where we do not need a wall. How much actually do we have to pay to finish the wall? Trump’s estimated cost is varied. For example, in his speech in Dallas on September 14, 2015, Trump said: “Let’s say it cost $4 or $5 billion.” In the interview on MSNBC on February 9, 2016, he said: “The wall is probably $8 billion.” Moreover, he tweeted “The $20 billion Wall is “peanuts” compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S” on January 18, 2018. This amount of money is raising. How much of his words can we believe?  With that much money, we can invest that money in others things for our community such as education, jobs, healthcare rather than that wall.

Second, who is going to pay for the wall? American have to pay for it? Trump insisted that “a hundred percent” that Mexico would pay for the wall in one of his rallies. Does it make any sense? It is unclear how he would make Mexico pay for it. In his tweet on April 16, 2015, he wrote: “We must build a wall & deduct costs from Mexican foreign aid!” In the White House news conference on August 28, 2017, Trump announced: “It may be through reimbursement, but one way or the other, Mexico will pay for the wall.” Trump also said, “As an example, they can pay for it indirectly through Nafta” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on January 11, 2018. Forcing Mexico to pay for the wall is unreasonable. How can we make others pay for our plan and our benefits?

Is the primary purpose of building the wall all for our border security? Trump’s priority is to keep our border in control which is good for our country. However, building the wall is not a good choice. The wall can decrease the number of illegal crossings, but it actually will not stop people to cross our border. They will find others way to accomplish what they want.  I do not know how well the wall works. However, I can see its negative consequences happening in our country. It raises the worry among people about racist. Immigration is not bad. Our hard workers are partly from the immigrants, and they actually help for our economy.