“We had the cleanest air, water and land in the history of the country during our administration,” Pence said, conflating “air quality” with “climate change” in a way that Trump himself pioneered. “We can meet the goals in our environment without crippling the American economy.”is somehow a trade-off between economic growth and addressing climate change, and the economy should take precedence.
This is often a false choice. For years, advocates for addressing climate change pointed toward emerging markets in batteries and renewable power that the U.S. could foster. Failing to address climate change, meanwhile, meant long-term economic damage.But thanks in part to advocacy from fossil fuel companies, these arguments got less traction than stated concerns about ways in which addressing climate change would introduce economic constraints.