People are distorting Trump’s actions on climate

President Donald Trump may be one of the most misunderstood people of our day, and much of it is deliberate.

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and while I know about the time when people couldn’t keep a white shirt white for half a day, I only saw pictures of that Pittsburgh. The mills were operating when I grew up, but progress had already been made to improve the air quality. The steel mills didn’t close because of environmental concerns but because we gave the industry over to China.

The pollution in China is so bad that people go around with masks on. People in China call it a “parade day” when they shut down industry and the air is clearer, usually for a military parade.

Mr. Trump is not against environmental protection; he is against the farce that the Paris Agreement represents. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto doesn’t get it. Mr. Trump has said he wants to represent all of America, and while he knows he didn’t get the Pittsburgh vote, though carrying Pennsylvania, he is citing a city like Pittsburgh as a great example of what we have accomplished without being dictated to by other countries, many of which have taken advantage of our goodwill.

People who think Mr. Trump did the wrong thing in getting out of the Paris accord are not dealing with the facts. The United States has been a leader in environmental corrections, and this agreement would bind us while letting countries like China and India continue with blatant disregard for the effects of their actions. One look at the map produced by Berkeley Earth research and you see a “green” United States and a severely polluted Asia.

The one reason our children and grandchildren could be disappointed in what we have done is if we allowed a bad agreement to perpetuate the careless actions of other nations. We can’t put a glass dome over the United States to protect from these actions. PEGGIE P. RICHARDSON

Estero, Fla.