President Donald Trump will sign an "Energy Independence" executive order Tuesday afternoon that won't amount to much in the way of immediate changes, but will dramatically alter the United States' trajectory when it comes to tackling climate change and other environmental issues. In fact, it's pretty damn near the policy equivalent of a u-turn that comes as we're trying to avoid driving off a cliff. And the reversal sends us speeding right towards the ledge at the very moment it's crumbling even further. On Monday, new research came out of Penn State that supports the notion that extreme weather events like floods, drought, heat waves and wildfires are happening more often and that there is a link between the increase and rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Essentially, the executive order is the administration's first step in halting all federal action to address climate change, including President Obama's Clean Power Plan, while at the same time easing restrictions on the extraction of fossil fuels -- namely coal, gas and oil.

Source: Forbes March 28, 2017 16:18 UTC