Recently, the Trump administration released a 500-page environmental impact document by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, where the NHTSA predicts earth will see an increased temperature of seven degrees by 2100, as reported by Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney with The Washington Post. Were this to occur, the same article states many scientists believe the coastal cities of the U.S., and the world for that matter, would experience massive flooding, and heat waves would rack the entire globe. 
However, this is no worry to the NHSTA, for they argue this conclusion is inevitable. The earth will burn in a fire of its own denizens’ making, and there is nothing for us to do about it. At least, this is what they say in order to justify the continued environmental deregulation of businesses in America.
Keeping with the same source as before, the Trump administration rolled back nearly half a dozen major environmental protections, saving companies hundreds of millions in costs. This is compounded with the continued “climate change is a hoax” rhetoric coming from the president, and President Donald Trump’s shocking U.S. exit from the Paris climate agreement. 
These actions speak loud and clear, past any sort of political acrobatics. The Trump administration is far more concerned with short-term economic numbers than the long-term health of our planet. This nihilistic viewpoint of inexorable global destruction coming from the U.S. is disheartening at best, and self-destructive at worst. If humanity is causing climate change, it can certainly work toward lessening its own contributions to the problem, and saying otherwise is both scientifically inaccurate and unhelpful. 
Basically, the NHTSA is arguing the further deregulation of cars, specifically, this would just be a comparatively small amount of carbon in relation to the world’s output. Plainly put, this is a dumb thing to say, much less to put into policy.
The report is both arguing human actions cause climate change and human actions have no overall effect, but if we are measuring by global output compared to national output, we are never going to think we can affect anything. The Environmental Protection Agency found in 2016, transportation-related emissions accounted for 28 percent of the U.S.’ greenhouse gas emissions, which is no small amount.
The NHTSA, who is supposed to care about this percentage, states the reduction of emissions in cars “would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today’s levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible.”
Here is the thing, there will be no economy if our largest coastal cities are swallowed by rising oceans. There will be no economy if millions are dislocated from their homes and workplaces because their houses are under water. There will be no economy if heat waves make crops unfeasible and agricultural labor deadly. This whole “environmental regulations are too harmful to businesses to be worth it” argument is asinine, for businesses are obviously more concerned with their short-term profits, rather than the future of our nation and planet. 
The ability to procrastinate on this issue is long gone. NASA reports geological evidence has shown this cycle of warming is 10 times faster than ice-age-recovery warming previously seen on Earth, and they calculate there is a 95 percent surety of direct human causation in this process. The human reaction to this knowledge has been akin to a person being diagnosed with cancer and waiting until it is stage 4 to get treatment, and it is sickening that we are so laissez-faire about the future of our race. 
I am not suggesting every person go vegan, recycle everything possible and walk everywhere, because this is not possible for everyone. Modern society cannot accommodate this lifestyle for everyone, and not everyone is willing to make such major lifestyle changes in an instant. However, if you can do any of these things, it can only help the fight against climate change.
The biggest contributors to climate change are large corporations. The Guardian’s Tess Riley reported environmental watch groups, CDP and the Climate Accountability Institute, found 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions traceable to 100 major companies, such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron. 
Tackling major companies’ emission output is the only way for us to effectively combat our impact on the planet. Will the companies hate us for it, and will they lose money? Yes, they will have to make serious, costly adjustments to comply with a productive regulatory system, but they will get over it. If they do not get over it, their business models will just have to deal with the destruction of modern civilization. A loss of millions or billions of dollars is worth the saving of billions of lives from famine, heat stroke and home loss. 
The issue before us is one of priorities. We must discover what we, as Americans, value more. If we value money above all else, we may continue on this path, make billions and not worry about the consequences for our future children; but, if we value the continuing betterment of our nation and interconnected world, we must take action to preserve our way of life for future generations to enjoy. We have created a continually advancing society, propelled by human technological innovation and ideas, and it would be a waste to see the clock reset by our own hubris. 
I am not perfect in my pursuit of this goal. I eat meat quite a bit, but I do attempt to walk most places. I recycle when I can, but it is not like I seek it out. However, I know the problem will not be fixed, vegan me or not, without a massive overhaul of our national view of climate change.
This is not a partisan issue. Democrats will not magically survive global catastrophe because they supported environmental regulation, and Republicans will not magically get their ironic comeuppance, apart from everyone else. Our planet contains all of us, varied as we are, and we should begin treating it with the respect it deserves, rather than accept impending doom.