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Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia’s midterm elections, is speaking out against a portion of the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act that allocates funding to plant trees.
“They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they’re not. Because a lot of money it’s going to trees,” Walker said Sunday at a Republican Jewish Committee event in his state,The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. “Don’t we have enough trees around here?”
Cities like Atlanta, whereair quality is poor, canbenefit from planting trees, which help reduce air pollution and flooding, cool down summer temperatures and benefit the mental health and wellness of its residents while providing habitat for urban wildlife.
A 2015 study found that there are more than 3 trillion trees on the planet — about 422 trees for every person. While that sounds like a lot, there are46 percent less trees on Earththan at any point in the history of human civilization. Furthermore, the number of trees worldwide remains insufficient in fighting the effects of climate change,according to scientists.
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But Walker, 60, doubled down on his objection to the spending on tree-planting in American cities.
“Yes, you heard me right…Joe Biden and @ReverendWarnock are spending $1.5 billion on ‘urban forestry’ and raising taxes on those making under $200k to pay for it,“Walker tweeted Monday, tagging his Democratic opponent, Sen.Raphael Warnock. “Yes, I have a problem with that.”
Walker hastackled the climate and air quality issuesbefore.
“We, in America, have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water of anybody in the world,” the College Football Hall of Famer said in July.
“Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move,” Walker continued inhis July remarks. “So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got we to clean that back up.”
“Extreme heat is a life or death issue in our cities, thanks to climate change. This legislation gets the forestry details right and will have lasting impacts as it helps cities protect their residents from extreme heat,” Jad Daley, president and CEO of the nonprofit conservation organization American Forests,said in a statementwhen PresidentJoe Bidensigned the legislation into law.
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“American Forests is not an organization that just cares about trees; we’re an organization that cares about how trees can serve people and about the impacts that those trees make,” Daley continued. “This legislation, decades in the making, puts people first, creating healthier communities, jumpstarting careers and saving lives.”
source: people.com
