Trump’s chilling contempt for future generations

John Podesta writes that the Trump administration's attack on U.S. national monuments would cause damage to cultural artifacts and to the local economies that depend on protected public lands.

One way the American people get a glimpse into how American presidents see who we are as a nation — and, importantly, who they want us to be — is how they act as stewards of our country’s vast natural resources.

President Theodore Roosevelt preserved the Grand Canyon because in the rugged chasms carved by the Colorado River, he saw a landscape that echoed and nourished the wild character of a growing nation.

In creating the largest marine protected area in the world at the time — Papahanaumokuakea in the northwest Hawaiian Islands — President George W. Bush spoke of a moral call to conservation and a “duty to be good stewards of the Almighty’s creation.”

The above excerpt was originally published in The Washington Post. Click here to view the full article.

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