“I think there will be some impact, but I don’t think the impact will be as great as people think or people thought when they voted for him (President-elect Trump),” Plunkett Cooney environmental attorney Saulius Mikalonis tells Kirk Heinze on Greening of the Great Lakes. “I think renewables like wind and solar are already in place. The investments have been made. They’re now cheap, especially compared to new coal. So they’re not going away anytime soon.”
“If anybody’s hoping that coal is going to make a big comeback in the United States under Trump, they’ll be sadly mistaken.”
He says it’s unclear right now whether and how much the United States would be able to step away from international climate agreements like The Paris Agreement. “I think the rest of the world is already along the line of going ahead with a lot of this, but a lot of the world is looking to make money on this, too. The technology is there. China and India are investing heavily; I don’t see those people stepping back at all from those investments.”
Heinze and Mikalonis also discuss issues related to wetlands, brownfield development and Nestle’s request to withdraw more water from the Great Lakes.
Greening of the Great Lakes airs inside MSU Today Sunday afternoons at 4:00 on AM 870.