[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f all politics is local, as Tip O’Neil famously said, then this year local politics is also national – or maybe international.
That was driven home again last week when President Trump announced he will pull the United States from the Paris climate accord, saying he was elected to represent Pittsburg, not Paris.
The local implications are profound in several ways. First, the chairman of the committee that oversees science, technology and climate legislation in the United States House of Representatives is local – Lamar Smith, a Republican from San Antonio, who represents much of Hays County, including big swaths along the west side of Interstate 35. You can argue semantics here but basically Smith is a fairly nice guy in person who is also, essentially, a science denier.
