Tag: environment

Trump rejects the “climate crisis” but renewables are gaining ground

Bob Sheak, Sept 21, 2025

In July, I reviewed Trump’s rejectionist position on global warming

(https://vitalissuesbobsheak.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=5921&action=edit). I wrote in the opening sentence,

“They [Trump and the Republican Party] favor energy from fossil fuels, even coal, and want to produce more oil, gas, and coal for domestic and foreign sales.”

He does this, despite what science is finding, namely, that the carbon dioxide and other toxins released when oil, gas, and coal are burned are the leading causes of global warming. Indeed, Trump’s mantra “drill, baby, drill” is an example of how, under his leadership, he encourages ever more production and consumption of fossil fuels. At the same time, he wants to slash the development and use of clean energy, or energy from solar, wind, and geothermal sources. His administration is also “dismantling the government’s disaster capabilities.”

In Bill McKibben’s new book, “Here Comes the Sun” (publ 2025), he notes, “…Americans inaugurated Donald Trump as president after he ran on the premise that global warming was a hoax” (p. 1).

———–

The earth is getting hotter

The evidence belies the views of Trump and his followers.

According to recent scientific evidence, NOAA [The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] finds that the “Earth had its hottest August in 175-year record” (https://noaa.gov/news/earth-had-its-hottest-august-in-175-year-record). Furthermore,

August “was also the 15th month in a row of record-warm months and wrapped up the Northern Hemisphere’s warmest meteorological summer on record, according to scientists and data from NOAA’s National Centers for

Environmental Information.”

“The average global land and ocean surface temperature in August was 2.29 degrees F (1.27 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 60.1 degrees F (15.6 degrees C), ranking as the warmest August in the global climate record. This August marks the 15th-consecutive month of record-high global temperatures — which is itself a record streak.” 

————

Outright denial of the climate crisis

This is Adam B. Kushner conclusion. Kushner reports on Trump’s dismantling of climate policies, based on the president’s climate denialistl views

(https://nytimes.com/2025/09/18/us/trump-climate-denial-banquet-kimmel.html). Here’ some of what he writes.

Once, the Trump administration merely downplayed the threat of global warming. Now it flatly denies science.

Kushner continues. “There is stronger evidence than ever that greenhouse gases are bad for us, the nation’s leading scientific advisory body said yesterday. Yet President Trump has proposed to cancel the government’s 16-year-old finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health. Doing so would mean the Environmental Protection Agency could no longer limit emissions from cars or power plants.

“The Trump administration once merely downplayed the threat of global warming. Now it ‘flatly denies the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change,’ reports my colleague Lisa Friedman, who covers climate policy.

Kushner gives the following examples.

“Ending climate protections. The most significant is the proposed repeal of the ‘endangerment finding.’” No threat, no danger.

Consistent with this anti-scientific view, the administration “cut funding and took down the website of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a 35-year effort to track climate change and its impacts. It fired hundreds of scientists at work on the next version of the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report used to prepare for extreme weather events. And it created a new official analysis written by climate skeptics.”

The politically revised report was written by five “scientists” and economists known for their skeptical views on climate change. The revision was criticized by more than 85 other scientists as “biased, error-ridden and unfit for guiding policy,” according to a September 3 report by Haley Smith in the LA Times. A separate report by the National Academies of Science, Engineers, and Medicine found stronger evidence than ever that the climate crisis risks public health.

Trump has taken multiple actions to impede renewable energy projects, and “his domestic policy law phases out tax credits for new wind and solar development.” For example, in August “Trump ordered construction to halt on a $6 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut that was almost completed. 

“They don’t dispute that human activity is heating the planet, but they claim that some warming attributed to fossil fuels is actually driven by natural cycles or variability in the sun. They also argue that sea levels are not rising more rapidly, that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can boost crop yields, and that the risks from extreme weather events are overstated. All of these fly in the face of established research,” Kushner points out.

“The administration.” Kushner writes, “has stopped gathering certain climate data, as our colleague Maxine Joselow reports this morning. What are we no longer collecting? And what happens if we don’t know these things?

“Here are some of the biggies: The Trump administration retired an extreme-weather database that had tracked the costs of natural disasters since 1980. And it says power plants, oil refineries and other large industrial facilities needn’t report their greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has tracked climate data every day for nearly 70 years. Scientists say wiping out scientific data will make it only more difficult to understand what is happening to the planet.”

———-

The victims – an example

This Researcher Studied How Climate Change Hurts Children — Trump Shut Her Down

Jessica Kutz reports for Truthout on Sept 13, 2025, how “climate change hurts children” (https://truthout.org/articles/this-researcher-studied-how-climate-change-hurts-children-trump-shut-her-down). Jessica Kutz is the gender, climate and sustainability reporter at The 19th. Prior to joining The 19th, she was an editor and reporter at High Country News, a regional nonprofit that covers the Western United States. Her work has been republished in many outlets including The Guardian, Slate, Mother Jones and The Atlantic. She is based in Tucson, Arizona.

Kutz refers to Jane Clougherty, a Drexel University professor, who has “spent years studying how extreme weather affects kids’ health,” focusing on “the health effects of air pollution and, more recently, extreme heat.” In May, “she got an email from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that ground her potentially life-saving work to a halt,” effective immediately.”

“There was no discussion, there was no warning, simply an email that said, ‘You’re done. This project is no longer within the administration’s scope. Cease and desist activities as of today,’” she recalled over the phone.

“Now, to complete the work, Clougherty is left to look into private funders and foundations to make up the nearly $400,000 she lost. But she’s not optimistic . ‘It is not realistic to expect foundations or private funders to pick up the degree of infrastructure that’s being destroyed with the loss of federal funding right now,’ she said.”

She is not alone.

“Clougherty, who had a final year of research left on the multi-year federal grant, is one of thousands of researchers whose work has been affected by the administration’s cancellation of research grants across agencies including the National Institute of Health, the EPA and the National Science Foundation. Among the research casualties was a grant to study how to reduce the health risks of wildfire smoke near schools, and another that would research how to help children in rural areas who are at increased risk of exposure to pesticides and pollution.

“It’s work, Kutz says, “that would have helped some of the country’s most vulnerable children at a time when extreme weather events are becoming more common and the gains made in protecting environmental health are being overrun by a pro-fossil fuel administration that is cutting regulations that curb air and water pollution.”

Furthermore, these are issues that “disproportionately impact low-income communities of color. And, it’s moms who typically end up having to juggle their jobs and caring for their children’s health issues.”

“Extreme heat is taxing on children’s bodies, because they have a harder time regulating their body temperature. Heat can also amplify air pollution by trapping it in place, which can affect kids with asthma or other respiratory issues.

What else is lost?

“If Clougherty’s work had been completed, it may have helped communities across the country better understand how to protect kids from these health issues, she said.

“That’s because in addition to analyzing how children in the state were being affected by extreme heat and air pollution, Clougherty and her team were also studying community assets that could buffer children from these same hazards by analyzing large data sets that provide insights into a community’s characteristics.

“They could analyze whether children lived in neighborhoods with a lot of green space, and how that correlated to their health when exposed to heat or pollution, she said. “We can also look at the characteristics of the schools that the children attend, and economic and other assets in their communities, such as access to grocery stores, Head Start programs, proximity to hospitals or health care services [and] quality of housing.”

“By calculating which of these assets could have the best protective effect on children’s health, it would have helped local leaders plan where to target limited resources ‘to create the most bang for their buck,’ Clougherty said.”

———-

Concluding thoughts

I have discussed trends that justify continuing the fight against the foolish and lethal policies of Trump and his followers. There is some progress. In his new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance For the Climate and A Fresh Chance for Civilization, environmentalist Bill McKibben documents how there is increasing solar and wind energy domestically and across the globe.

McKibben writes: “We live on an earth where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun; the second cheapest is to let the breeze created by the sun’s heating turn the blade of a wind turbine.”

There is exponential growth in both energy sources. McKibben writes, “in 2024, 92.5 percent of all new electricity brought online around the world came from renewables; in the US the figure was 96 percent. By April 2025, fossil fuels were producing less than half of American electricity, for the first time ever. There’s no longer a technical or financial obstacle in the way; we already have the factory capacity, mostly in China, to produce as many solar panels as the climate scientists say we need” (p. 3).

Information like that from McKibben buttresses the position of administration critics to build opposition to Trump’s anti-scientific and environmentally degrading policies and support renewable alternatives.

Trump and his party care less about global warming

Bob Sheak, July 15, 2025

Introduction

This position is revealed in many ways. They favor energy from fossil fuels, even coal, and want to produce more oil, gas, and coal for domestic and foreign sales. They are skeptical that fossil fuels are the major cause of global warming. It is a position that puts the U.S. and the world at grave risk at a time when global warming is accelerating. Here are recent articles that identify this myopia and stupidity.

—————

Slashing clean energy

Marianne Lavelle, et. al.,  report on how Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is set to slash efforts to clean up the US energy system (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03072025/big-beautiful-bill-will-hurt-clean-energy-environmental-justice). The article was published on July 3, 2025

The $4 trillion, 887-page legislation “erases the landmark investment in cleaner energy, jobs and communities that a Democratic-led Congress made only three years ago in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

“It stomps out incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and efficient appliances. It phases out tax credits for wind and solar energy. It opens federal land and water for oil and gas drilling and increases its profitability, while creating new federal support for coal. It ends the historic investment in poor and minority communities that bear a disproportionate pollution burden—money that the Trump administration was already refusing to spend. It wipes out any spending on greening the federal government.”

Lavelle et. al. cite “Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who called the bill ‘a massive hit to both our clean energy economy, the US economy as a whole, and to our future from a climate perspective.’”

Boosting Fossil Fuels

“While the Biden administration had restricted oil and gas leasing in Alaska, the bill reinstates fossil fuel lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with Alaska receiving a majority of the royalties from this new production.”

Lavelle and her colleagues point out,  

“An analysis by the REPEAT Project from the Princeton University ZERO Lab and Evolved Energy Research showed that the bill is expected to contribute an additional 470 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year by 2035, the annual equivalent of more than 100 million gas-powered cars on the road.”

“Already Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency had terminated funding for grants awarded under the program, for initiatives aimed at disaster preparedness, workforce development, air quality, flood control and high energy costs. The projects involved things like installing pollution notification systems and replacing lead pipes and were designed to strengthen communities against more damaging weather events while including community members in decision-making that affected their environment and health. Environmental groups had filed a class-action lawsuit to try to reinstate the canceled grants.”

—————

Trump’s Gutting of Weather Science and Reducing Disaster Response

Lisa Friedman, Maxine Joselow, Coral Davenport and Megan Mineiro consider this issue (https://nytimes.com/2025/07/13/climate-trump-cuts-disaster-preparedness-fema-html).

The journalists point out that experts have warned Trump not to go on “dismantling the government’s disaster capabilities.” They continue.

“In an effort to shrink the federal government, President Trump and congressional Republicans have taken steps that are diluting the country’s ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to catastrophic flooding and other extreme weather events, disaster experts say.

“Staff reductions, budget cuts and other changes made by the administration since January have already created holes at the National Weather Service, which forecasts and warns of dangerous weather.

“Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that research the ways a warming planet is changing weather, among other things. That work is essential to more accurately predicting life-threatening hazards. Among the shuttered labs would be one in Miami that sends teams of ‘hurricane hunters to fly into storms to collect critical data. The proposed budget would also make major cuts to a federal program that uses river gauges to predict floods.

Friedman et. al. continue.

“The president is also envisioning a dramatically scaled-down Federal Emergency Management Agency that would shift the costs of disaster response and recovery from the federal government to the states. The administration has already revoked $3.6 billion in grants from FEMA to hundreds of communities around the country, which were to be used to help these areas protect against hurricanes, wildfires and other catastrophes. About 10 percent of the agency’s staff members have left since January, including senior leaders with decades of experience, and another 20 percent are expected to be gone by the end of this year.”

“National security and disaster management experts agreed that FEMA — or any federal agency — could be improved but they said the chaotic changes the Trump administration is making to FEMA, as well as other parts of the government, are harmful.

“The federal government’s retrenchment arrives at a time when climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and severe. Last year, the United States experienced 27 disasters that cost more than $1 billion each.”

“For months, experts have warned that cuts to the National Weather Service, part of NOAA, could endanger local communities. Those fears have grown since the deadly flash floods in Central Texas earlier this month.

“By all accounts, the Weather Service issued the appropriate warnings for the region that was inundated by the Guadalupe River on July 4.

“But the agency had to move employees from other offices to temporarily staff the San Antonio office that handled the flood warnings, and the office lacked a warning coordination meteorologist, whose job it is to communicate with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn residents and help them evacuate. The office’s warning coordination meteorologist had left on April 30, after taking the early retirement package the Trump administration has offered to reduce the number of federal employees.

“Since Mr. Trump took office, the Weather Service has shed about 600 jobs from its work force of roughly 4,200 people. They are part of a greater exodus of nearly 2,000 employees from NOAA. Nearly half of the Weather Service’s 122 forecast offices had lost at least 20 percent of their staff as of April. Thirty offices were lacking their most experienced official, known as the meteorologist-in-charge, as of May.”

“Some forecast offices are no longer staffed overnight, and others have been launching fewer weather balloons, which send data to feed forecasts. The Weather Service has said it is preparing for “degraded operations.”

“The president is preparing to deal another blow to weather forecasting in his spending plan for next year, which would cut funding for NOAA by another $2 billion, or 27 percent. On the chopping block would be the agency’s entire scientific research division, one of the world’s premier weather and climate research centers, preventing the creation of new weather forecasting technologies.”

“Mr. Trump’s sweeping domestic policy and tax law, which Congress passed this month, also rescinds about $60 million in unspent funds at NOAA for atmospheric, climate and weather research. That money had been part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law.”

“FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff in the past six months, including 20 percent of the coordinating officers at the agency, who manage responses to major disasters, as well as the head of FEMA’s disaster command center. Also gone: the deputy regional administrator in the agency’s Region 6 office in Texas.

———-

Unsurprisingly, Global warming worsens

Climatologist Michael Mann makes the connection between global warming and fossil fuels explicit (https://democracynow.org/2025/7/1/heat_dome-climate-crisis). Mann is the Presidential distinguished professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Here is some of what he had to say in an interview on Democracy Now with host Amy Goodman.

Links to articles by Mann.

“Heat domes and flooding have nearly tripled since the ’50s”

“Science Under Siege”

“Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis”

Goodman: “Scientists say the burning of fossil fuels by humans is the primary cause of global warming. This week, the Senate is debating measures to include in Trump’s so-called big, beautiful budget bill, is set to shape U.S. fossil fuel policy in ways expected to accelerate fossil fuel extraction, in part by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy incentives — in fact, taxing more clean energy incentives.

MICHAEL MANN: “‘you know, at some level, this isn’t that complicated. You make the planet hotter, you’re going to have more frequent and intense heat extremes. And we are seeing that. Our climate models capture that, and they predict that that will get much worse in the future if we, you know, as you allude to, continue to burn fossil fuels and warm up the planet.

Altering the jet stream

At the same time, there are some subtle mechanisms when it comes to how the pattern of warming of the planet is changing the Northern Hemisphere jet stream.”

“And some of our own research suggests that that pattern of warming, in particular, the fact that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, is actually changing the jet stream in such a way that it’s more likely to get stuck in one of those very wavy patterns that you see on a weather map. And those waves are associated with big high- and low-pressure systems, that alternatively mean heat, drought and wildfires in one place, or excessive floods in other places. Those wiggles in the jet stream are tending to get larger, and they get locked in place, so the same location is under a heat dome day after day, like we’ve seen in North America this summer, like we’re seeing in Europe right now.

“And that mechanism is actually not very well captured in the climate models. It’s an important point, because critics of climate policy like to say uncertainty is a reason not to act. It’s just the opposite. Our models may, in fact, be underestimating the impact that climate change is already having when it comes to these damaging and deadly weather extremes.”

The consequences

MICHAEL MANN: “‘History will not judge them kindly, because at a time when we need to be accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy, they’re doing just the opposite. They’re doing everything they can to block, you know, the continued expansion of wind and solar and geothermal and clean energy solutions. And the rest of the world is moving on. So, what we have to recognize here is that this is — even if you don’t care about the climate, even if you don’t care about the human health consequences, any of that, if you care about the economy, this is the worst possible thing for American competitiveness, because the rest of the world recognizes that clean energy is the future, and right now we’re doubling down on antiquated fossil fuel energy in a way that is making us less and less competitive.”

—————

Big, Beautiful Bill ‘closes remaining pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C’

Sustainability Online considers how Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is disastrous for the environment (https://sustainability.net/news/big-beautiful-bill-closes-remaining-pathways-to-limit-global-warming-to-1-5c). The report was published on July, 2025. Here’s some of what they write.

“The Trump administration’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’, which has now been passed by the US Senate and House of Representatives, cuts off any chance of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute has said.

Responding to the Bill, which promises to phase out tax credits for renewables and ramp up support for fossil fuel producers, EESI president Daniel Bresette said, ‘A little less than three years ago, we applauded the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act because of all the benefits it promised to deliver.

“‘Unfortunately, the opposite applies to the reconciliation bill just passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, so we have to condemn it. This legislation will increase household energy bills, put people out of work, and stall investments in clean energy technologies. Greenhouse gas emissions will increase as a result of this bill becoming law, essentially closing off the few remaining pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change.’

‘An irresponsible plan’

Sustainability Online cites Joanna Slaney, vice president for political and government affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDA), who said that the Bill ‘will raise household utility bills, take away job opportunities and threaten people’s health with more pollution’”.

Describing the Bill as “an irresponsible plan hatched at Mar-a-Lago banquet tables”, Slaney said that by making it “‘much, much harder to build new clean energy projects, the bill is effectively cutting off supply of cheap energy right when the U.S. needs it the most. It’s families and small businesses who will pay the price.

“The largest polluting oil and gas companies, meanwhile, would receive a 10-year reprieve from paying a fee on wasteful methane pollution, which would cause irreversible harm to our climate and public health. It’s clear that this deeply unpopular bill favors burning more fossil fuels while ignoring the damage it will do to people’s lives.”

Dr. David Widawsky, director, World Resources Institute US, added that while other countries are “benefitting from accelerated investment in the clean energy economy, the US is taking a step backwards.

“‘Working families, business owners and local governments will bear the brunt through higher electricity bills, fewer jobs, and reduced energy resilience to extreme weather. Billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, energy savings will be lost; failure to keep pace with growing energy demand will make brownouts and blackouts more likely; air will become less breathable; and American economic growth will be at risk.”

Earlier in the week, Greenpeace USA deputy climate program director, John Noël, described the Senate’s vote on the Bill as one that will “live in infamy”, adding “This bill is what happens when a major political party, in the grips of a personality cult, teams up with oil company CEOs, hedge fund donors, and climate deniers.

“The megabill isn’t about reform—it’s about rewarding the super rich and doling out fossil fuel industry handouts, all while dismantling the social safety nets on which millions depend for stability. It is a bet against the future.”

Concluding thoughts

Trump puts the economic interests of the big corporations and the rich before other interests, including that of most Americans. This bias is revealed in many ways but certainly in his views and policies toward energy. In this regard, he and his administration prioritize fossil fuels in the U.S. energy system. This inevitably means that the existential problem associated with global warming will not only continue but accelerate.

The acceleration of the climate crisis under Trump and the Republicans

Bob Sheak, June 17, 2025

The current administration is not a supporter of “clean energy” alternatives

Brad Plumer and Harry Stevens report on the Trump/Republican aim to end the “clean energy boom” that occurred during the Biden administration (https://nytimes.com/2025/05/13/climate/ira-republican-tax-bill-clean-energy.html).

“The party’s signature tax plan would kill most Biden-era incentives,” they write. Overlooked by the Republicans, “G.O.P. districts have the most to lose.” They refer to “wind farms in Wyoming, to a “huge solar factory expansion in Georgia. Lithium mines in Nevada. Vacuums that suck carbon from the air in Louisiana.”

The funding for such project comes from Biden supported tax credits for clean energy provided by the 2022 Inflation Adjustment Reduction Act. The act authorized more than $843 billion for the creation of such projects. However, Plumer and Stevens write, “only about $321 billion of that money has actually been spent, with many projects still on the drawing board, according to data made public on Tuesday by the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

The Republican dominated Congress and Senate and are unlikely to allocate the remaining $522 billion as they search for ways to pay for a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut favoring the rich and wholly supported by President Trump.

————

It’ not surprising that under Trump, Republicans show no inclination to spend money on clean energy or to reduce support for fossil fuels, the most important drivers of global warming. Historically, the U.S. has led the world in spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and remains only second to China today. China is also the largest producer of clean energy.

—————-

The U.S. as a leader in causing the planet to get ever-more warm

Robert Hunziker writes on the U.S.’s major role in causing global warming and how Trump and the Republicans ignore or deny this growing existential problem (https://counterpunch.org/2025/05/16/americas-impact-on-the-global-thermostate).

The energy and environmental policies of the Trump administration and Republican controlled Congress and Senate assure that in the meantime this climate-denying or -evading will go on. Hunziker points out that the Trump administration’s “push for 100% fossil fuels and as much coal burning as possible while trashing mitigation of climate change, which is characterized by the right-wing White House and U.S. Congress as an expensive hoax, a farce, a threat to the U.S. economy, plus massive roll backs of environmental regulations that force American businesses to spend more to keep America’s environment clean.”

Consistent with this position, Trump is pulling the U.S. “out of the Paris ’15 climate accord.” Consequently,

 “Under the Trump administration, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions levels are estimated to rise up to 36 percent higher than current policy by 2035.” (The Trump Administration’s Retreat from Global Climate Leadership, Center for American Progress, Jan. 21, 2025). This certainly helps guarantee a hotter planet.

There is more from Hunziker. The Trump administration is also signaling “its intent to go one step further and withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, est. 1992). This is the underlying framework, “the father of international cooperation on climate change” that led to meetings such as Paris ’15. Abandonment will freeze-out the U.S. from any future global climate change negotiations and set a dangerous precedent. This could trigger a domino effect among nations questioning climate obligations and destabilizing the global consensus the Paris Agreement represents.”

————-

Fossil fuels take priority

Bill Mckibben offers other examples of how the Trump administration “[c]ares More About Growing Fossil Fuel Profits Than Shrinking Your Energy Bill,”

(https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-waste-energy). The article was published on May 20, 2025. His central point: “Many things the Trump administration does are simply designed to waste energy, because that is good for the incumbent producers, i.e. Big Oil.”

McKibben continues, “the ultimate customer for the Trump administration is the oil industry. And really for the GOP as a whole: It became increasingly clear this week that the Republican congressional majority is all too willing to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, even though that will come at a big price to consumers, in its effort to help Big Oil.”

The DOE put their strategy pretty plainly in a filing to the Federal Register last week: Their goal, they said, was “bolstering American energy dominance by increasing exports and subsequently the reliance of foreign nations on American energy.” If you’re a foreign government, that about sums it up: Either you can rely on the sun and wind which shine on your country, or you can rely on the incredibly unreliable U.S. China, meanwhile, is essentially exporting energy security, in the form of clean energy tech.

———–

Trump is the only climate denier among national leaders

David Gelles writes on Trump as the only climate denier internationally (https://nytimes.com/2025/05/14/climate/trump-climate-denial.html).

Gelles notes, “The administration is not only allowing more greenhouse gases. It is undermining the nation’s ability to understand and respond to a hotter planet.”

The evidence.

“When the Trump administration declared two weeks ago [early May] that it would largely disregard the economic cost of climate change as it sets policies and regulations, it was just the latest step in a multipronged effort to erase global warming from the American agenda.

“But [Gelles adds] President Trump is doing more than just turning a blind eye to the fact that the planet is growing hotter. He is weakening the country’s capacity to understand global warming and to prepare for its consequences.

“The administration has dismantled climate research, firing some of the nation’s top scientists, and gutted efforts to chart how fast greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere and what that means for the economy, employment, agriculture, health and other aspects of American society. The government will no longer track major sources of greenhouse gases, data that has been used to measure the scale and identify sources of the problem for the past 15 years.”

“‘By getting rid of data, the administration is trying to halt the national discussion about how to deal with global warming,’ said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. The notion of there being any shared factual reality just seems to be completely out the window,’ he said.”

“At the same time, through cuts to the National Weather Service and by denying disaster relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the administration has weakened the country’s ability to prepare for and recover from hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and other extreme weather that is being made worse by climate change.”

“The president is also moving to loosen restrictions on air pollution, which experts say will lead to more planet warming emissions, and to overturn the government’s legal authority to regulate those gases.”

——————-

Cutting rules on energy efficiency

Rachel Frazin reports on May 12, 2025 that the Energy Department is proposing to cut 47 rules on energy efficiency and other rules as the “largest deregulatory effort in history” (https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5296169-energy-department-proposes-to-cut-47-rules-in-largest-deregulatory-effort-in-history/?tbref=hp).  Frazin offers the following examples.

 
“The department plans to ax a long list of efficiency regulations, including those pertaining to stoves, ovens, showerheads, clothes washers, dishwashers and microwaves.

“The rules also apply to a smattering of other policies ranging for guidelines under which the department buys oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to nondiscrimination requirements for grant recipients.”

“‘While it would normally take years for the Department of Energy to remove just a handful of regulations, the Trump Administration assembled a team working around the clock to reduce costs and deliver results for the American people in just over 110 days,’ Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a written statement.” 

————-

Trump’s Order to Expand Logging Threatens to Increase Climate-Fueled Wildfires

Curtis Johnson considers the implications of Trump’s order to expand logging and how it will increase climate-fueled wildfires in an article published on May 17, 2025  (https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-order-to-expand-logging-threatens-to-increase-climate-fueled-wildfires).

“On March 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.” The order claimed “onerous Federal policies have hindered domestic timber production and that expanding logging was a matter of protecting “national and economic security.”

It ordered the secretary of the Interior and head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), who oversee the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) respectively, to develop a plan to expand timber targets and streamline permitting “to suspend, revise, or rescind all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and other agency actions that impose an undue burden on timber production.”

The responsible departments and agencies were instructed to find categorical exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act and use “emergency regulations” to circumvent the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In April, USDA head Brooke Rollins directed the stripping of forest protections on more than half of all national forests and called for expanding timber production by 25 percent to address a ‘wildfire emergency,’ and restore forest ‘resources.’ A report from the Associated Press says the directive “exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized.”

“A map of forests Rollins has targeted includes all national forests in Washington State and California, and large sections throughout the west and other parts of the country. It even includes some wilderness areas. These forests contain some of the most cherished old-growth and mature forest ecosystems remaining in the U.S.

“In the Pacific Northwest, millions of acres of older and mature forests and old-growth dependent species like the northern spotted owl were finally protected by the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in the 1990s after a century of logging that had reduced the forest to about a fourth of its historical extent. The NWFP happened as a result of intense forest defense and protest by Earth First! and many other environmental groups, studies by forest ecologists and court injunctions. The idea that these forests of immense trees, stunning natural beauty, rich biodiversity and crucial reserves of carbon sequestration could now, once again, be opened to logging is stomach-turning.”

————

Trump Guts FEMA and NOAA?

Robert Kuttner writes in the American Prospect on Trump’s gutting of FEMA and NOAA, The American Prospect, June 4, 2025

(https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-06-04-why-would-trump-gut-fema-and-noaa).

Today on TAP: Destroying American weather science will create a perfect storm of disaster.

“June 1 marked the beginning of hurricane season, a period whose existence was news to Trump’s head of FEMA, David Richardson, who had no prior experience managing disaster relief. Richardson was appointed to replace FEMA acting chief Cameron Hamilton, who was fired summarily after telling a congressional subcommittee that he didn’t think FEMA should be shut down.

“Trump’s attack on FEMA goes beyond even the Project 2025 design, which proposed to cut FEMA and turn some of its functions over to the states. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in March that she wanted FEMA shut down entirely (she later backpedaled and spoke of shrinking and reforming it). But most states have nothing like FEMA’s capacity or experience, and don’t want FEMA reduced or closed.

Kuttner – “Due to actions early in Trump’s term, FEMA has lost an estimated 2,000 employees out of about 6,100, according to The Wall Street Journal. Many of these were nominally probationary employees, but due to the agency’s need to quickly staff up in an emergency, these tended to be experienced staffers who work for FEMA part of every year.

Kuttner – “More damage is coming in the Big Beautiful Budget Bill. Trump’s budget request called for cutting FEMA by $646 million.

Kuttner – “This is occurring as FEMA’s much-depleted sister agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is predicting as many as 19 hurricanes this summer and fall, including three to five major ones likely to cause massive damage. To add injury to insult, Trump has rejected bipartisan requests to continue the Biden policy of covering 100 percent of the costs of relief and recovery operations after major disasters. The usual split is 75 percent federal, matched by 25 percent state.”

————

The economic costs of rolling back clean energy

Marianne Lavelle refers on June 12, 2025 to a study that finds clean energy rollbacks will cost the economy $1.1 trillion by 2035 (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062025/clean-energy-rollbacks-will-cost-trillion-by-2035). Here are a few excerpts from Lavelle’s article.

“In a week when the Trump administration moved forward on multiple fronts to repeal U.S. climate policies, a new analysis quantified the potential costs for public health, households and the economy—including a stunning $1.1 trillion reduction in U.S. gross domestic product by 2035.

“The study by the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability found that any economic benefits to the policy retreat—which Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin placed at $1.2 billion a year from the power plant regulatory rollback alone—would be overwhelmed by the negative effects of greater air pollution and contraction in new manufacturing and jobs associated with an energy transition.

“‘Overall, there are more GDP losses if we roll back clean energy policies,’ said Alicia Zhao, research manager at the center and lead author of the report. ‘It means even if some of the states are getting gains from the fossil fuel industry, it’s being offset by the losses in clean energy benefits.’”

————

Millions of American breath unhealthy air

Rebecca Dzombak reports on research that finds almost half of Americans breath unhealthy air (https://nytimes.com/2025/04/23/climate/american-lung-association-air-report.html). Here are excerpts from her article.

“At least 156 million Americans, about 46 percent of the population, live with unsafe levels of ozone, particulate pollution or both, according to the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report.

“Plans by the Trump administration to loosen environmental regulations and cut funding for air quality research would make matters worse, the report says.”

“Air quality in the United States has been generally improving since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970, with levels of key pollutants dropping by nearly 80 percent. But millions of Americans still breathe polluted air every day, leading to both acute and chronic health conditions that, in some cases, increase the risk of early death.”

“The Biden administration aimed to improve air quality with measures like tighter rules for vehicle emissions and on mercury and carbon emissions from power plants. The Trump administration is already working to reverse those regulations.”

————

Concluding thoughts

The evidence clearly indicates that the Trump administration is doing its best to undermine efforts to develop and expand clean energy sources, especially those based on solar and wind and expand our use of climate-destroying fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases. Trump not only wants to expand domestic production of gas, oil, and coal but also to export liquified natural gas to other countries.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis worsens and the ability to reverse it is limited and being reversed.

Ben Noll reports on the high rates of high temperatures and humidity to come across the U.S., Washington Post, June 17, 2025 (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/06/17/extreme-humidity-heat-city-forecast-maps). His major point:

“Over the next two weeks, extreme levels of humidity are forecast to hit around 40 states, with the first wave of very muggy weather building in central and eastern states through Thursday. Across the country, around 170 million people will also experience temperatures above 90 degrees.”

Trump and Musk in process of smashing the EPA


Bob Sheak, April 1, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov) ) website includes a short history of the agency. Here’s some of what you can find there (https://epa.gov/history/origins-epa).

“The American conversation about protecting the environment began in the 1960s. Rachel Carson had published her attack on the indiscriminate use of pesticides, Silent Spring, in 1962. Concern about air and water pollution had spread in the wake of disasters. An offshore oil rig in California fouled beaches with millions of gallons of spilled oil. Near Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga River, choking with chemical contaminants, had spontaneously burst into flames. Astronauts had begun photographing the Earth from space, heightening awareness that the Earth’s resources are finite.

“In early 1970, as a result of heightened public concerns about deteriorating city air, natural areas littered with debris, and urban water supplies contaminated with dangerous impurities, President Richard Nixon presented the House and Senate a groundbreaking 37-point message on the environment. These points included:

• requesting four billion dollars for the improvement of water treatment facilities;
• asking for national air quality standards and stringent guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions;
• launching federally-funded research to reduce automobile pollution;
• ordering a clean-up of federal facilities that had fouled air and water;
• seeking legislation to end the dumping of wastes into the Great Lakes;
• proposing a tax on lead additives in gasoline;
• forwarding to Congress a plan to tighten safeguards on the seaborne transportation of oil; and
• approving a National Contingency Plan for the treatment of oil spills.

“Around the same time, President Nixon also created a council in part to consider how to organize federal government programs designed to reduce pollution, so that those programs could efficiently address the goals laid out in his message on the environment.
“Following the council’s recommendations, the president sent to Congress a plan to consolidate many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency, a new Environmental Protection Agency.”

A short history of the EPA can be found at (https://epa.gov/history/origins-epa). Here are a few excerpts.

“From regulating auto emissions to banning the use of DDT; from cleaning up toxic waste to protecting the ozone layer; from increasing recycling to revitalizing inner-city brownfields, EPA’s achievements have resulted in cleaner air, purer water, and better protected land.”

The EPA’ accomplishments are extraordinary. Though, for all the efforts of the agency, the major problem has been a lack of resources and insufficient government support for regulation, especially when Republicans have had power.

One main obstacle has always been whether or how much environmental regulation negatively affected the economy. Of course, we know that Trump puts the economy first and is a climate change or climate crisis denier. As a result, the evidence on global warming and other environmental harms have continued more than they had to and the dangers have become existential in scope. Indeed, Elon Musk and his young team called DOGE want to further reduce the EPA’s resources, if not eliminate them.

The evidence on global warming is terrifying

Eloise Goldsmith reports for Common Dreams on March 19, 2025 on the World Meteorological Organization’s global temperature records
(https://truthout.org/articles/world-meteorological-organization-last-10-years-have-been-the-hottest-on-record).

“A report released by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday [March 18, 2025] found that not only was 2024 the warmest year in a 175-year observational period, reaching a global surface temperature of roughly 1.55°C above the preindustrial average for the first time, but each of the past 10 years were also individually the 10 warmest on record.

“That’s never happened before,” Chris Hewitt, the director of the WMO’s climate services division, of the clustering of the 10 warmest years all in the most recent decade, told The New York Times.

“All told, the agency’s State of the Global Climate 2024 adds new details to the public’s understanding of a planet that is getting steadily warmer thanks to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Goldsmith continues.

“The report from the WMO, a United Nations agency, includes ‘the latest science-based update’ on key climate indicators, such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean heat content, and glacier mass balance. Many of these sections report grim milestones.

“The trajectory is just incredible,” the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Friday.

“In 2023, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide reached the highest levels in the last 800 000 years, for example, and in 2024, ocean heat content reached the highest level recording in the over half-century observational period, topping the previous heat record that was set in 2023.

“As of 2023, two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, also reached levels unseen in the last 800,000 years.

“‘Over the course of 2024, our oceans continued to warm, sea levels continued to rise, and acidification increased. The frozen parts of Earth’s surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded. Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world,’ wrote WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo in the introduction to the report, which drew its findings from data drawn from dozens of institutions around the world.”

Don’t give up, Goldsmith implores

“As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Another sign of the unfolding climate crisis is that major glaciers around the globe are melting and won’t survive this century, according to scientists and as reported by Jessica Corbett on March 21, 2025 (https://commondreams.org/news/melting-of-glaciers).

Corbett writes, “Scientists on Friday spent the United Nations’ World Water Day and first-ever World Day for Glaciers warning about how fossil fuel-driven global warming melts ice across the planet, endangering freshwater resources and causing seas to rise, with implications for ecosystems, economies, and billions of people.

“In a Friday statement, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo pointed to a publication that the U.N. agency released earlier this week: ‘WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2024 report confirmed that from 2022-224, we saw the largest three-year loss of glaciers on record.’”

“The WMO report was followed by the Friday launch of a 174-page document from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that stresses how ‘billions of people depend on the fresh water that flows from increasingly fragile mountain environments.’”

“The document, The United Nations World Water Development Report 2025—Mountains and glaciers: Water towers, notes that ‘major cities that have been critically dependent on mountain waters include Addis Ababa, Barcelona, Bogotá, Jakarta, Kathmandu, La Paz, Lima, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Mexico City, New Delhi, New York, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo.’”

“‘Globally, up to two-thirds of irrigated agriculture may depend on mountain waters,’ the report states, ‘while the number of people in lowlands that strongly depend on water from mountains increased worldwide from around 0.6 billion in the 1960s to some 1.8 billion in the 2000s. An additional 1 billion people in the lowlands benefit from supportive mountain runoff contributions.’”

“‘Most of the world’s glaciers, including those in mountains, are melting at an accelerated rate worldwide,’ the publication adds. ‘Combined with accelerating permafrost thaw, declining snow cover, and more erratic snowfall patterns… this will have significant and irreversible impacts on local, regional, and global hydrology, including water availability.’”

Corbett cites Michael Zemp, a professor at Switzerland’s University of Zurich and director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, pointed to that finding and others on Friday, noting that from 2000-23, glacier melt caused global seas to rise 18 mm or about 0.7 inches. He said, “This might not sound much, but it has a big impact: Every millimeter [of] sea-level rise exposes an additional 200,000 to 300,000 people to annual flooding.”

Earth’s Land Masses Are Drying Out Fast, Scientists Warn

Bob Berwyn delves into this issue for Inside Climate News, March 27, 2025
(https://insideclimatenews.org/27032025/earth-land-masses-drying-out-fast).

Berwyn makes an astounding point. “Earth has lost enough soil moisture in the last 40 years to change the planet’s spin and shift the location of the North Pole, according to a new study published today in Science that tracks how human activities have disrupted the global water cycle.

“The persistent loss of water from land to oceans has dried out huge portions of every continent and may be irreversible, scientists describing the new research said this week.

“‘Large regions in East and Central Asia, Central Africa, and North and South America show pronounced depletion,’ between 2003 and 2007, the authors wrote.

“When they extended the timeframe to 2021, the depletion of soil moisture grew large enough to cover those areas and also included Europe and the Eastern U.S.

“This study provides robust evidence of an irreversible shift in terrestrial water sources under the present changes in climate,” said Luis Samaniego, a hydrology researcher at the UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany.

“The continents are drying out over time,” said Samaniego, who was not involved in the new study but wrote a related Perspective article in Science.”

“The findings suggest that this decline is primarily driven by shifts in precipitation patterns and increasing evaporative demand due to rising temperatures. As of 2021, soil moisture had made no recovery, the authors noted, adding that they saw little likelihood of recovery under current climate conditions.”

Clean Water? Not If Musk and Trump Get Their Way

Mary Grant considers how Trump and Musk are espousing policies that will compound the water access problem for a growing number of people
(https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/03/21/world-water-day-trump-musk).

Grant identifies five ways that Trump and Musk are “making our water less safe and less accessible.” They have (1) “unconstitutionally canceled clear water projects; (2) Illegally eliminating core functions of the EPA; (3) allowed lead poison in our water; (4) cancelled protections against PFAS in our water; and (5) eviscerating protections that keep water safe from corporate pollution.”

Appointing a pro-Trump, anti-Environmentalist to eviscerate the agency.

Lisa Friedman reports on how Lee Zeldin, Trump’s appointee to head the EPA, is cutting support for the agency (https://nytimes.com/2025/03/29/climate/lee-zeldin-epa.html).

“Over the past nine weeks, Mr. Zeldin has withheld billions of dollars in climate funds approved by Congress, tried to fire hundreds of employees, recommended the elimination of thousands more E.P.A. scientists, and started trying to repeal dozens of environmental regulations that limit toxic pollution. He has filled the leadership ranks at the agency with lobbyists and lawyers from industries that have fought environmental regulations.”

Anti-environmental actions by Zeldin

“Mr. Zeldin’s other priorities at the E.P.A. have little to do with the agency’s half-century mission of protecting public health and the environment. They include increasing fossil fuel use, fast-tracking permits for energy projects, increasing jobs in the auto industry and advancing artificial intelligence.”
“The E.P.A. is one of the most disliked federal agencies among conservatives, according to a Pew Research Center poll, with only 32 percent of Republicans having a favorable view of the agency.

“So far, Mr. Zeldin appears to be adhering to Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a government overhaul that was published by the Heritage Foundation. It recommends deep cuts at the E.P.A. and an end to the agency’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other gases that are heating the planet. It also calls for weakening the agency’s independent science office.

Mike Ludwig reports on former EPA employees warning about how reductions of personnel will heighten environmental devastation and human harm in an article for Truthout, March 21, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/former-epa-employees-warn-of-polluted-skies-ahead-under-trump).

“Experts and former employees say the Trump administration’s moves to fire key scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and dismantle clean air and water protections will make the United States a ‘sicker and poorer place’ to live while demoralizing the next generation of environmental investigators and public health researchers.

“The rollbacks could lead to a significant increase in hospitalizations and premature deaths from illnesses linked to air and water pollution, public health experts warn. For example, new analysis by former agency researchers at the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network (EPN) estimates that 16 major air pollution rules updated by the Biden administration between 2021 and 2024 would save at least 200,000 lives by 2050.

“Air pollution rules also reduce the pollution driving climate change, which is now widely recognized as a major public health threat.

“However,” Ludwig continues, “last week EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the clean air rules are among 31 environmental protections that will be weakened or eliminated by the Trump administration. According to documents reviewed by House Democrats and reported on by the New York Times, Zeldin also plans to eliminate the EPA’s scientific research office, “firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists” who investigate environmental health threats at federal labs across multiple states.

The public supports tougher environmental rules

A nationwide poll of 1,000 voters taken by EPN shortly after the November elections that found the vast majority of voters — including 76 percent of Trump voters — want the EPA to be strengthened or remain the same. Only 14 percent of all voters agreed the EPA should be weakened. However, environmental groups say Trump’s rollback of EPA regulations alone threatens to reverse more than a decade of progress toward reducing highly toxic pollutants.

Trump acts to worsen environmental harms

Ludwig points out, “President Donald Trump does not appear to be concerned about the consequences of unleashing toxic pollution, including political blowback — or even willing to acknowledge the reality of the environmental issues the EPA is tasked with handling.

On his Truth Social platform earlier this week, Trump claimed he is opening “hundreds” of power plants that will produce energy by burning “BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL” (emphasis is Trump’s). However, Trump does not own any power plants or have the authority to compel companies to burn coal. The term “clean coal” is an oxymoron pulled from a defunct greenwashing campaign largely abandoned by the industry years ago.

Ludwig cites “Patrick Drupp, the director of climate policy and advocacy at the Sierra Club, a group that has pushed for years to retire the dirtiest coal plants, said Trump’s statement is “completely delusional” in 2024.

“There is no such thing as clean coal,” Drupp said in a statement. “There is only coal that pollutes our air and water so severely that nearly half a million Americans have died prematurely from coal in the last two decades.”

Ludwig continues: “Scientists know that coal pollution is linked to asthma and respiratory illnesses, heart attacks, cancer and premature death, but the Trump EPA is still poised to roll back regulations known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that require power plants to limit dangerous air pollution for burning coal.

“Thanks to these rules, mercury emissions from power plants dropped by more than 81 percent from 2011 through 2017, according to analysis by the Center for American Progress. The EPA estimates the regulations prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks each year.

“Technology for removing from smokestacks the mercury and particulate matter that lodges in human lungs and leads to asthma and premature death has existed for years, but some utilities complain that installing and operating these “scrubbers” is too expensive. Last year, 23 GOP-led states sued the EPA over the Biden administration’s air standards, and last week Zeldin announced the EPA would consider granting power plants a two-year exemption while the agency reconsiders the rules, which could lead to an immediate increase in toxic air pollution.”

“Drupp said Trump’s ‘clean coal’ comments are baseless but reveal that he does not care about the ‘health or economic well-being’ of his constituents. While Trump and Zeldin claim onerous regulations are holding the U.S. back economically, EPN estimates that EPA’s air pollution regulations deliver over $250 billion in net benefits to the public annually, with savings on health care and climate spending exceeding regulatory costs by a six to one ratio.

“‘He is only concerned with helping out his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry,’ Drupp said. ‘In exchange for their loyalty and political dollars, he will lie to the American people and sacrifice their lives.’”

Concluding thoughts

There is a groundswell of opposition to much of what Trump and Musk are doing generally and to the environment and most other policies they are supporting. Some federal courts have ruled against their actions; however, Trump and his allies have almost unlimited funds to use in trying to sway the courts. If they are ultimately successful, people around the globe and in the U.S. will be the victims of more and more devastating environmental disasters, economic calamities, and the loss of constitutional rights. Children will be most affected (https://www.unicefusa.org/media-hub/reports/UNICEF-Air-Pollution).

Trump, a climate-crisis denier, will as president exacerbate the problem and give open-ended support to fossil fuel production and consumption and the industries that benefit from them. Rising emissions and the rising temperatures they produce represent an existential realty that will likely threaten to generate massive dislocations of people and threaten the survival of millions, if not billions, of people in America and around the globe. Trump apparently could care less.

Trump will likely pay little attention to the climate crisis, and it will get worse


Bob Sheak, Nov 14, 2024

Introduction

The U.S. remains the second largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, behind China. The Biden administration has done some things in attempts to reduce such emissions, but, despite these efforts, emissions in the US have continued to increase. Indeed, 2024 is the hottest year on record.

Trump, a climate-crisis denier, will as president exacerbate the problem and give open-ended support to fossil fuel production and consumption and the industries that benefit from them. Rising emissions and the rising temperatures they produce represent an existential problem that will likely threaten to generate massive dislocations of people and threaten the survival of millions, if not billions, of people in America and around the globe.

There are plenty of books that tell this cataclysmic story. Here are a few examples. Mark Lynas’ book examines in detail the effects of rising temperatures (Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency). Abrahm Lustgarten focuses on the “uprooting of America” and the millions of people who will be forced to move, as their communities become too hot to continue (On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America). Jeff Goodall zeros in on the effects of Americans of rising heat levels (The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet).

I – Biden’s record on the climate crisis has bright spots

Mike Ludwig reports that Biden made steady progress on climate, but adds that Trump is poised to dismantle it (https://truthout.org/articles/biden-made-slow-but-steady-progress-on-climate-trump-is-poised-to-dismantle-it). On Biden’s climate record, Ludwig writes:

“While politicians and the media obsessed about the economy and immigration under President Joe Biden, his administration has been running the most robust Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a generation, making modest but steady progress on vexing problems such as environmental racism, toxic chemical contamination and updating infrastructure to run on cleaner energy.

“Flush with nearly $29 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding, the EPA is stewarding billions of dollars in grants for upgrading water infrastructure, reducing climate-warming pollution and expanding renewable energy.

Other government agencies are involved in climate-related work. Ludwig points out,

“The climate work goes beyond the EPA, with multiple agencies implementing an expansive plan to drastically reduce industrial releases of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. For the first time, federal regulators are questioning whether permitting private companies to export vast quantities of fossil gas produced in the U.S. — including on publicly owned land — could be harmful to both the environment and consumers struggling to pay energy bills.”

Wikipedia has further details on Biden’s Inflation Adjustment Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate-change-policy-of-the-United-States).

“The Inflation Reduction Act was a reconciliation bill that was the largest investment in climate change mitigation in US history to date, setting out provisions to invest in increasing renewable energy and electrifying areas of the US economy. The legislation, signed into law by Biden on August 16, 2022, invests approximately $400 billion to climate-related projects, primarily in the form of tax credits for consumers and private businesses. The majority of these investments is intended to increase the amount of wind and solar energy in the United States grid by providing tax incentives to renewable energy producers, as well as companies that manufacture batteries and wind and solar power components.[145][146][147][148] The Act may also invest $28–48 billion in building retrofits and energy efficiency, $23–436 billion in clean transportation, $22–26 billion in environmental justice, land use, air pollution reduction and resilience, and $3–21 billion in sustainable agriculture.[149][150][151]”

II. Withal, Global warming continues to rise

Despite the efforts of the Biden administration, Austyn Gaffney reports that researchers find that 2024 temperatures are on track for a record high (https://nytimes.com/2024/11/06/climate/2024-temperatures-hottest-year.html). He writes,

“This year [2024] will almost certainly be the hottest year on record, beating the high set in 2023, researchers announced on Wednesday [Nov. 6].

Gaffney cites the research done by “the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union agency that monitors global warming,” and has forecast “that 2024 would be the first calendar year in which global temperatures consistently rose 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

“That’s the temperature threshold that countries agreed, in the Paris Agreement, that the planet should avoid crossing. Beyond that amount of warming, scientists say, the Earth will face irreversible damage.

“Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are dangerously heating up the planet, imperiling biodiversity, increasing sea level rise and drought and making extreme weather events more common and more destructive.

Gaffney quotes Samantha Burgess who refers to recent storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the flooding in Spain to exemplify just how devastating weather intensified by warming can be.”

“A report issued by the United Nations last month found that the world’s current climate plans are inadequate, only providing a 2.6 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that reduction needs to be an order of magnitude larger: at least a 43 percent reduction by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035.”

“The reality is, every fraction of a degree matters,” Dr. Burgess said. “The sooner globally we cut emissions, the sooner our climate will stabilize.”

“If President-elect Donald J. Trump withdraws the United States from the Paris accord, as he has promised and as he did during his first administration, it would be ‘very bad news,’ according to Diana Urge-Vorsatz, a professor at Central European University and vice chairwoman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body that provides governments with scientific information to develop climate policies.”

The US and most world governments are not doing enough

Zia Weise and Lucia Mackenzie provide more details on global warming and how, according to the UN, the world is on track for catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius warming (https://politico.eu/article/united-nations-emissions-gap-global-warming-data-climate-change-report). The article was published on Oct. 24, 2024. Here’s some of what they write.

“The world is already 1.3C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution.

“Current plans and policies will lead to 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius of global warming this century, with zero chance of limiting the temperature increase to the totemic 1.5C target agreed in Paris in 2015, according to a new report out Thursday.

“In fact, existing measures are falling so far short of what’s needed that the world even risks blowing past 2C, the Paris accord’s upper limit, the U.N. warned.

“The severity and frequency of dangerous heat waves, destructive storms and other disasters rises with every fraction of warming. At 3C, scientists say, the world could pass several points of no return that would dramatically alter the planet’s climate and increase sea levels, such as due to the collapse of polar ice caps.

Weise and Mackenzie continue: “If nations do not implement current commitments, then show a massive increase in ambition in the new pledges, followed by rapid delivery, the Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to 1.5C will be dead within a few years and 2C will take its place in the intensive care unit,” said Inger Andersen, the U.N. environment chief.”

“Andersen said that worldwide, measures to reduce emissions will require a ‘minimum six-fold increase’ in investment, ‘backed by reform of the global financial architecture and strong private sector action.’” Such investment is not in the cards during a Trump administration.

“In general, the G20 — which comprises industrialized countries such as the EU and U.S. as well as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia — were responsible for 77 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2023.
In stark contrast, all 55 African Union countries accounted for just 6 percent.”

“After all, while the entire G20 accounted for 77 percent of last year’s global emissions, the largest six polluters among them were responsible for more than 60 percent. The U.N. report doesn’t name and shame, but authors are referring to China (30 percent), the United States (11 percent), India (8 percent), the EU (6 percent), Russia (5 percent) and Brazil (2 percent).”

“Progress among the G20 is a mixed bag: China’s emissions grew 5.2 percent in 2023, while the EU’s fell 7.5 percent; and while China is much more populous, its per-capita emissions in 2023 were 11 tons to the EU’s 7.3 tons.

“U.S. emissions fell by 1.4 percent, but American per-capita emissions remain the second-highest at 18 tons after Russia’s 19 tons. India’s are just 2.9 tons — even though its emissions rose by 6 percent last year.”

U.N. environment chief Andersen urges rich nations like the US to phase out greenhouse gas emissions at a much faster rate than at present.

III. Trump and his administration will reverse the limited achievements of the Biden presidency on climate.

One of Trump’s signature slogans is “drill baby drill,” which means, as he has told us, his upcoming government, once installed after January 20,2025, will (1) increase government support for fossil fuels, (2) reduce support for solar, wind, and geothermal, (3) encourage more export of fracked natural gas, (4) eviscerate or close the Environmental Protection Agency, (5) open up public land to drilling; and (6) serve as an international model for other countries to follow his example.

Mike Ludwig (cited previously) reminds us that “Trump is threatening to unleash pollution, increase emissions and incapacitate the most robust EPA in a generation (https://truthout.org/articles/biden-made-slow-but-steady-progress-on-climate-trump-is-poised-to-dismantle-it). And he will have the power to do it, as result of being chosen to be president by millions of American voters in the recent election.

“…efforts to meet international climate commitments,” Ludwig writes, “seem certain to stall, if not end abruptly, after Donald Trump is reinstalled in the White House and Republicans take over the Senate if not all of Congress. According to the most recent information, as of Nov. 12, Republicans will control the White House, both branches of the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court when Trump and his party come into power after January 20, 2025.”

With such political power, Ludwig continues, “[t]he damage will go far beyond global warming. If Trump’s rhetoric and first-term record are any indication of what is ahead, the president-elect and the industries willing to curry his favor are poised to make the U.S. a more polluted and dangerous place to live.”

Trump will move to make “steep budget cuts” in the EPA, and perhaps move the agency out of the capitol, “as enforcement of clean air and water standards plummets. Career public servants are expected to be replaced with loyalists from the private sector. Back in 2017, Trump appointed a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA.” Trump is also expected to dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the “agency tracks climate change for policy makers and the public.”

Climate scientists at the United Nations are worried. They view the climate crisis with words like “catastrophic” to describe our future without swift action.

“Trump and the Republicans have told a convenient lie to voters, accusing the Democrats of throttling domestic oil and gas production and sending gas and energy prices through the roof. In reality, fossil fuel prices are set by global forces the U.S. president has little control over. The U.S. is already the world’s top producer of oil and gas, and domestic prices would likely come down if the industry didn’t export so much overseas.

“The consequences of this election are clear for those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” said Jennifer Krill, executive director of the environmental justice group Earthworks, in a statement. “Low-income communities and communities of color will bear the brunt of impact, from poisoned air and water to extreme weather events and rising sea levels, all within our lifetimes.” But the effects will be everywhere.

Fossil fuel companies will profit

Evan Halper, Maxine Joselow and Chico Harlan delve into this issue
(https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/06/trump-win-climate-change-oil-gas).

The journalists report, “Trump’s plans have the potential to send fossil fuel companies’ profits soaring while threatening the world’s climate goals.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could reverse the gains the United States has made in fighting global warming, experts said, by cementing his plans to unleash domestic fossil fuel production, dismantle key environmental rules and scale back federal support for renewable energy and electric vehicles.

“It has also raised fears among U.S. allies and even some major energy executives who warn that a U.S. exit from global climate efforts will hurt American industry as the rest of the world shifts away from fossil fuels.

“Trump’s election creates ‘a very long pathway for fossil fuels,’ Ben Cahill, an energy scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a phone interview Wednesday. ‘Investors will feel the outlook is brighter. The industry will be under less pressure.’”

“He (Trump) is expected to ease a suite of restrictions on the oil industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And he will probably cancel the Biden administration’s pause on permits for new liquefied natural gas export projects, clearing the way for the industry to build billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that could increase U.S. emissions and keep gas flowing to other nations for decades to come.”

“Trump is expected to take aim at these investments by targeting President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which he has repeatedly called a ‘green new scam.’ But he would likely need Congress to repeal the law, and some Republican lawmakers may balk.

“Cahill said that the law’s tax credits for consumers, including those for EVs, rooftop solar panels and heat pumps ‘will definitely be on the chopping block’ but ‘the investment incentives for wind, solar and battery storage have proven to be quite popular with big business.’”

Nonetheless, “[t]he incoming president will have much more latitude to reverse dozens of environmental rules that oil and gas executives find burdensome. During an April dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump asked oil executives to steer $1 billion toward his campaign while promising to relax industry regulations.

“The oil industry responded by donating tens of millions of dollars to his campaign and crafting a playbook for the new administration. It includes draft executive orders that would end restrictions on drilling on public lands and shift the Interior Department’s priorities away from protecting vulnerable species and ecosystems.”

“Trump has argued that unshackling oil companies from environmental rules could drive the price of gasoline below $2 per gallon. But energy analysts are skeptical. Prices at the pump typically have little connection to White House policies, and are largely driven instead by the coalition of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia. And Trump will take office at a time when the United States is already producing more oil and gas than any country ever has.

Trump’s record is bad. “During his first term, Trump weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies touching everything from toxic chemicals to endangered species.”

When Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement for the first time, a group called America Is All In announced that dozens of states, cities and corporations were still committed to the pact. Gina McCarthy, the former White House climate czar under Biden and the managing co-chair of America is All In, vowed in a statement Wednesday to continue that fight.

“‘No matter what Trump may say,’ she said, ‘the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back.’

“If Trump pulls the United States from the Paris agreement, it will deal a symbolic blow to the international efforts, given America’s place as the largest historical emitter of planet-warming pollution. Under Biden, the United States has produced record amounts of oil, but it had also positioned itself as a climate leader. Last year, minutes after nations agreed to a historic pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, then-climate envoy John F. Kerry addressed delegates, touting a moment of ‘multilateralism’ and unity, and expressing a sense of ‘awe.’ His remarks drew loud applause.

“Collins Nzovu, who served until recently as Zambia’s green economy and environment minister, said in a recent interview that the global climate process is less credible if the ‘superpower is not at the table for discussing an existential threat.’

“Poorer countries are…depending on the United States to help finance plans that are essential to the world’s climate goals.

“‘No mitigation efforts can work without America at the table,’ Nzovu said.”

Experts discuss the problem

Jenni Doering, Steve Curwood, and their colleagues at Inside Climate News also consider what climate and environmental policies will look like in Trump’s second administration (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112024/climate-and-environmental-policies-during-second-Trump-administration). Here are excerpts from the article, which features a discussion among well-informed analysts.

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering and Steve Curwood with Inside Climate News’s Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle and executive editor Vernon Loeb, about what the election of Donald Trump may mean for the environment.

STEVE CURWOOD: What’s your view of how the world is going to look at us now that we have chosen a leader who denies climate change when we’ve been seeing temperatures going up and storms and such are getting worse and worse?

VERNON LOEB: Well, I think the world has seen this before. When Trump was in office the first time, one of the first things he did was take the country out of the Paris Agreement. Clearly, the world is expecting he’ll do that again.

Climate action didn’t stop when he did that the first time. It won’t stop this time. But I think clearly, world leaders feel like progress on climate is going to be a lot harder to achieve with Trump in office and with the U.S. out of the official agreement. It’s not a good moment for the climate. I don’t think progress is going to grind to a halt, but it’s not a good moment.

LAVELLE: President-elect Trump has made clear that he is going to roll back the regulations that are meant to nudge the auto industry toward electric vehicles over the next decade. He says he is going to repeal that on day one, and that is going to make a big difference.

My colleague Dan Gearino and I have been working all year on writing about the politics of electric vehicles, and one of the analysts we’ve talked to says that there is going to be 40 percent less demand for EV batteries and EV technology under a Trump administration than there would have been under a Harris administration. Those kinds of changes in policy are bound to make a huge difference in how quickly we make the transition—that’s already going on all over the world—to electric vehicles.

LOEB: There’s a long description in Project 2025 about how the EPA’s enforcement capability should be pulled way back. And instead, the agency should move to something called “compliance assistance,” which is working more closely with corporations.

Project 2025 also talks about dismantling NOAA, which is the National Weather Service—the agency that tracks hurricanes—and the National Hurricane Center. Project 2025 even calls for the repeal of the EPA efficiency ratings for appliances, the Energy Star efficiency ratings. So Project 2025 could be a real disaster for environmental protection, if it is indeed the Trump blueprint.

LAVELLE: One of the things Project 2025 says to do is to eliminate EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. It definitely is in the sights of the team around Trump to really redirect this initiative to address environmental justice.

One thing I noticed is that House Republicans this week put out a report on environmental justice grants by the Biden administration, and they’re very critical of those grants because they’re going to groups that, for example, oppose the natural gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast. What this report does is kind of gives a blueprint for the incoming Trump administration on what grants to withdraw, and also kind of a basis for withdrawing the program altogether. That report came out very much with an awareness that Trump is coming into the White House with an eye to cutting back the support for these communities that are overburdened with pollution, and have been for a long time.

DOERING: What do you think is going to happen now that the Trump administration is coming back in and has 20-something natural gas projects which it can potentially give the green light to?

LOEB: The Biden administration put a hold on those projects as it considered the climate implications. My hunch is that that will be one of the first things Trump does away with and basically gives those plants the green light as part of his energy dominance, “drill, baby, drill” approach. Of all the industries, none has fared better under Trump than the fossil fuel industry. I would expect a real explosion of LNG exports over the next four years under Trump, too.

DOERING: Remind us why are climate activists so concerned about those terminals?

LOEB: The terminals just lead to more fracking. We’re already the leading oil and gas nation in the world, and if we can continue to frack and start exporting our natural gas as liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, which is still somewhat smarting from the loss of Russian natural gas, it just means more fracking. And when you’ve got more fracking, you’ve got more air pollution, more greenhouse gas emissions, more produced water piling up with no place to dispose of it. LNG exports means more fracking across the nation.

CURWOOD: I’ve seen some research that says that the actual carbon footprint of exported natural gas can even exceed that of burning coal.

LAVELLE: As somebody who’s been writing about this for a long time, I usually focus on the stories I’m telling and what I’m working on, not looking out at the big picture that much. This forces you to look at the big picture. And anyone who has young people in their lives, you think, what kind of world are we leaving for them? The way I deal with it is just focus on the importance of the work we’re doing, trying to explain the science and tell people really that there are things that can be done to address climate change, and we know what they are, and it’s going to take all of us to do something about it.

CURWOOD: Talk to me about what some people call the glimmer of hope: the states and localities.

LOEB: Voters in Washington firmly rejected a measure on the ballot that would have overturned the state’s signature climate law. In California, the voters approved a $10 billion bond fund for projects that focus on resiliency and coastal adaptation and response to floods and wildfires. And similarly, in Honolulu, voters also approved a climate resiliency fund there. So kind of a mixed result, right?

While the national vote was going for Trump, who’s someone who’s sort of avowedly almost a climate denier, you’ve got majorities in these states clearly voting for climate change measures to fund things like adaptation and resiliency.

Concluding thoughts

The Trump/Republicans win in a blow-out “red” wave defeat of Democrats in the recent elections. At the same time, some Americans will continue their struggles to combat the sources of the problem, namely, fossil fuel companies and their economic and political allies, including Trump and the Republican Party.

Members of the World Resources Institute contend that “all hope is not lost” (https://wri.org/insights/trump-climate-action-setbacks-opportunities-us). The authors, Cristina DeConcina, Jennifer Rennicki, and Gabby Hyman, identify “several pathways remain to keep momentum for climate action alive.”

“For one, there are bipartisan climate-friendly opportunities to seize, such as continued clean energy development, which has already delivered tremendous economic benefits in both red and blue states. There is also support from both sides of the aisle for next-generation geothermal energy and from the business community for decarbonizing heavy industries and strengthening international supply chains to ensure U.S. competitiveness and security. These initiatives would bolster U.S. manufacturing and national security, while also benefitting the climate.

DeConcina and her colleagues continue.

“In addition, subnational actors like states, cities, businesses and tribal nations boldly stepped up during Trump’s first term in office. They can — and early signs show they will — take up the mantle of leadership again in the climate fight.
Some of the major opportunities include:

“When President Trump announced in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, American communities, states, tribal nations and business leaders quickly coalesced to form America Is All In. More than 4,000 mayors, governors, university presidents and business leaders signed the We Are Still In declaration, committing to meet the emissions-reduction targets set in the Paris Agreement and continue engaging with the international community. The 2019 Accelerating America’s Pledge report found that bottom-up leadership from states, cities, businesses and other subnational actors would reduce U.S. emissions by up to 37% by 2030, even without federal intervention.

“And since the first Trump administration, subnational climate action initiatives have only grown in strength and commitment. Managing Co-Chair of America Is All In and former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said recently, ‘No matter what Trump may say, the shift to clean energy is unstoppable, and our country is not turning back.’”

“Many states have enacted ambitious climate policies. For example, the 24 states and territories that comprise the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, representing 54% of the U.S. population and 57% of the U.S. economy, have committed to achieving net-zero emissions no later than 2050.

“Some states are poised for even greater action before Trump takes office. In California, voters overwhelming approved Proposition 4, a $10 billion bond measure that will help the state prepare for the impacts of climate change. Just after the election, California’s Governor Newsom announced a special session of the state legislature to take steps “to safeguard California values”— including the fight against climate change — ahead Trump’s second term. A day later, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved updates to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), designed to accelerate the development of cleaner fuels and zero-emission infrastructure to help the state meet legislatively mandated air quality and climate targets.

“At the same time, voters in Washington state upheld a new law that forces companies to cut carbon emissions while raising billions to support programs such as habitat restoration and climate preparation. Maryland’s Governor Moore issued a wide-ranging executive order earlier this year directing state agencies to develop climate implementation plans to ensure the state could continue working towards its ambitious climate change targets, which aim for net-zero carbon by 2045.

“In parallel, cities have long played a crucial role in advancing climate policies and will continue to do so. Climate Mayors, which started as a network of 30 mayors in 2017, is now a bipartisan network of nearly 350 U.S. mayors driving climate action in their communities. These cities continue investing in public transportation, green infrastructure and local emissions-reduction initiatives — all of which will continue to mitigate the impacts of climate change and build more sustainable urban environments with or without federal action on climate.”

Too little action on the climate crisis

Bob Sheak, April 21, 2024

Introduction

The best evidence on the climate crisis indicates that emissions from fossil fuels continues to increase, global temperatures continue going up, the temperature of the oceans rises at an unprecedented rate, more and more communities across the earth suffer debilitating heat levels, and there are rising levels of suffering, massive emigration, and environmental degradation.

Military policies exacerbate the climate crisis

Wars and militarized foreign policies compound the problem.

(See, for example, Barry Sanders” book, The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, or Neta C. Crawford’s The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War.)  

Melissa Garriga considers the effects of war on the climate crisis in an article published on April 20, 2024, and titled “Don’t Let Warmongers Greenwash their Ecocide This Earth Day” (https://commondreams.org/opinion/ecocide-2667821672). Note that there is, by and large, bipartisan support for increasing the military budget. Here’s some of what Garriga writes.

“As Earth Day approaches, prepare for the annual spectacle of U.S. lawmakers donning their environmentalist hats, waxing poetic about their love for the planet while disregarding the devastation their actions wreak. The harsh reality is that alongside their hollow pledges lies a trail of destruction fueled by military aggression and imperial ambitions, all under the guise of national security.

“Take Gaza, for instance. Its once-fertile farmland now lies barren, its water sources poisoned by conflict and neglect. The grim statistics speak volumes: 97% of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption, leading to a staggering 26% of illnesses, particularly among vulnerable children. Israel’s decades-long colonial settler project and ethnic cleansing of Palestine have caused irrefutable damage to the land, air, and water, consequently contributing to the climate crisis. In fact, in the first two months of the current genocide campaign in Gaza, Israel’s murderous bombardment, which has killed nearly 35,000 people, also generated more planet-warming emissions than the annual carbon footprint of the world’s top 20 climate-vulnerable nations. Yet, despite these dire circumstances, U.S. lawmakers persist in funneling weapons to Israel, perpetuating a cycle of violence and environmental degradation.”

Garriga continues.

“All of this destruction to the environment and acceleration of the climate crisis happen silently under the veil of ‘national security,’ while discussions on how the environmental toll of war is the most significant national security threat are absent in D.C. While the threat of nuclear annihilation and civilian casualties rightfully dominate headlines, the ecological fallout remains an underreported tragedy. The Pentagon is the planet’s largest institutional emitter of fossil fuels; Its insatiable appetite for conflict exacerbates climate change and threatens ecosystems worldwide. To make matters worse, the U.S. government wants to fund this destruction to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars a year while poor and low-wealth communities worldwide bear the brunt of climate catastrophes with little to no resources to protect themselves.

“At the heart of this destructive cycle lies a perverse economic incentive, in which war becomes a lucrative business at the expense of both people and the planet. The narrative of GDP growth masks the actual cost of conflict, prioritizing financial profit over genuine progress in education, healthcare, and biodiversity. However, instead of war-economy metrics such as the GDP, we could embrace alternative metrics such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)that reckon with the actual toll of war on our world. We can shift from endless growth toward genuine well-being by valuing air quality, food security, and environmental sustainability.”

Partisan deadlock

When all is said and done, there are significant differences between Biden and the Democrats and Trump and the Republicans. Right-wing politicians in the U.S. and around the globe refuse to support or even identify changes that could, at least, increase the chances of slowing down the climate-crisis problem. Indeed, Trump and his followers reject or ignore the scientific and empirical evidence documenting the problem and want unhindered domestic use and export of fossil fuels with no significant government regulatory barriers.

Democrats, moderates, and leftists accept the mounting scientific evidence that the climate crisis is real and growing threat to humanity and life on earth generally and do offer relevant policies, though their policies, not always environmentally good, have not yet had the effect of reducing the emissions of fossil-fuel-related conduct and operations.

There are three parts to this post, considering (1) the evidence, (2) Trump’s denialism, and (3) Biden’s mixed results. Then there are concluding thoughts on what surveyed Americans think and how some are actively protesting the lack of sufficient government action to curtail the climate crisis.

#1 – The evidence on the rising climate  crisis

The numbers

Bill McKibben considers the “numbers on climate” in an article published by Common Dreams on April 12, 2024 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/not-fast-enough-on-climate).   

“At the most fundamental level, new figures last week showed that atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—reached new all-time highs last year. Here’s how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the figures:

“While the rise in the three heat-trapping gases recorded in the air samples collected by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) in 2023 was not quite as high as the record jumps observed in recent years, they were in line with the steep increases observed during the past decade.

“The global surface concentration of C02, averaged across all 12 months of 2023, was 419.3 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 2.8 ppm during the year. This was the 12th consecutive year CO2 increased by more than 2 ppm, extending the highest sustained rate of CO2 increases during the 65-year monitoring record. Three consecutive years of CO2growth of 2 ppm or more had not been seen in NOAA’s monitoring records prior to 2014. Atmospheric CO2 is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.”

McKibben continues.

“Entirely unsurprisingly, the planet’s temperature has also continued to rise. Temperature rise is not as smooth as the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, because other factors—El Niños, volcanoes, and so on—can superimpose themselves on top of the greenhouse gas emissions to push temperatures slightly higher or lower. But at the moment, everything is coming up very very hot. March was the hottest March ever recorded globally, according to European monitors. As The Guardian reported:

“This is the 10th consecutive monthly record in a warming phase that has shattered all previous records. Over the past 12 months, average global temperatures have been 1.58°C above pre-industrial levels.

“This, at least temporarily, exceeds the 1.5°C benchmark set as a target in the Paris climate agreement but that landmark deal will not be considered breached unless this trend continues on a decadal scale.

Brett Wilkins also refers to the numbers in an article published on April 6, 2024

(https://commondreams.org/news/greenhouse-gas-emissions-266771709).

“NOAA  said the three most important human-caused greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide—”continued their steady climb during 2023.”

“While the levels of these heat-trapping gases did not rise “quite as high as the record jumps observed in recent years,” the figures ‘were in line with the steep increases observed during the past decade.’

“Global surface CO2 concentrations averaged 419.3 parts per million (ppm) last year, an increase of 2.8 ppm. It was the 12th straight year in which worldwide CO2 concentrations rose by more than 2 ppm.

“Atmospheric methane—which while not as abundant as CO2 is up to 87 times more potent over a 20-year period—increased by 10 parts per billion (ppb) to 1,922.6 ppb, while nitrous oxide rose by 1 ppb to 336.7 ppb.”

According to NOAA:

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is comparable to where it was around 4.3 million years ago during the mid-Pliocene epoch, when sea level was about 75 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7°F higher than in pre-industrial times, and large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.

“About half of the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to date have been absorbed at the Earth’s surface, divided roughly equally between oceans and land ecosystems, including grasslands and forests. The CO2 absorbed by the world’s oceans contributes to ocean acidification, which is causing a fundamental change in the chemistry of the ocean, with impacts to marine life and the people who depend on [it]. The oceans have also absorbed an estimated 90% of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.

“‘Methane’s decadal spike should terrify us,’ Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist who heads the Global Carbon Project—which tracks global emissions but wasn’t part of the NOAA effort—told NBC News.

“Fossil fuel pollution is warming natural systems like wetlands and permafrost,” Jackson added. “Those ecosystems are releasing even more greenhouse gases as they heat up. We’re caught between a rock and a charred place.”

The oceans are becoming hotter

Delger Erdenesanaa reports on relevant research for the New York Times, April 10, 2024 (https://nuytimes.com/2024/04/10/climate/ocean-heat-records.html).

“The ocean has now broken temperature records every day for more than a year. And so far, 2024 has continued 2023’s trend of beating previous records by wide margins. In fact, the whole planet has been hot for months, according to many different data sets.

“‘There’s no ambiguity about the data,’ said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. ‘So really, it’s a question of attribution.’”

“Last month [March 2024], the average global sea surface temperature reached a new monthly high of 21.07 degrees Celsius, or 69.93 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a research institution funded by the European Union.

“March 2024 continues the sequence of climate records toppling for both air temperature and ocean surface temperatures,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a statement this week.

Coral Reefs are dying

Catrin Einharn, writes that scientists find that rising ocean temperatures negatively affect the ability of coral reefs to survive

(https://nytimes.com/2024/04/15/climate/coral-reefs-bleaching.html).

“Top of Form

Bottom of Form

The world’s coral reefs are in the throes of a global bleaching event caused by extraordinary ocean temperatures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and international partners announced Monday.

“It is the fourth such global event on record and is expected to affect more reefs than any other. Bleaching occurs when corals become so stressed that they lose the symbiotic algae they need to survive. Bleached corals can recover, but if the water surrounding them is too hot for too long, they die.

“Coral reefs are vital ecosystems: limestone cradles of marine life that nurture an estimated quarter of ocean species at some point during their life cycles, support fish that provide protein for millions of people and protect coasts from storms. The economic value of the world’s coral reefs has been estimated at $2.7 trillion annually.

#2 -Trump’s denialism

Trump doubles down

Scott Waldman offers documentation on how Trump had been dismissive and increasingly willing to reject the scientific evidence (https://politico.com/news/2024/01/12/trump-second-term-climate-science-2024-00132289). While president, Trump “pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, staffed his environmental agencies with fossil fuel lobbyists and claimed — against all scientific evidence — that the Earth’s rising temperatures will ‘ start getting cooler.’”

A second term would be worse

Waldman expects that “a second Trump presidency to show less restraint.

“Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on climate science and policies — eclipsing even his first-term efforts that brought U.S. climate action to a virtual standstill. Those could include steps that aides shrank back from taking last time, such as meddling in the findings of federal climate reports.

“‘The approach is to go back to all-out fossil fuel production and sit on the EPA,’ said Steve Milloy, a former Trump transition team adviser who is well known for his industry-backed attacks on climate science.

Trump celebrates Iowa caucus win

“In his first term, Milloy said, Trump surrounded himself with too many people who were part of Washington’s political class and resisted dismantling parts of the government. ‘A lot of the people he appointed were unfortunately weak,’ Milloy said.”

“But as the GOP front-runner, he’s gone back to alleging that human-caused global warming is fake, is baselessly blaming whale deaths on wind turbines and said last month that if elected he would be a ‘ dictator for one day’ — in part so he could ‘drill, drill, drill.’”

Trump and his advisers are planning for more fossil fuels

“Meanwhile,” Waldman writes, “many of his former staffers are building out a comprehensive plan to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels. And Trump allies expect that the former president would fill his next administration with officials who are even more hostile to efforts to address global warming.”

“Dana Fisher, director of American University’s Center for Environment, Community and Equity, called the change in tone both notable and dangerous — showing that Trump is no longer concerned about reaching moderate and independent voters with his approach to climate policy.”

Plans to avoid “mistakes” of Trump’s first presidency if reelected

“Trump’s first term was defined by rolling back and weakening climate policy.

He gave energy lobbyists key positions of power, spent four years attempting to dismantle fossil fuel regulations and withdrew from the Paris Agreement. His appointees fought to keep coal-burning power plants open — even when utilities wanted to close them on economic grounds — and opened an antitrust probe of automakers that had volunteered to meet stiff clean-air standards.”

“Dozens of conservative groups have banded together to write climate policy goals that would devastate virtually every regulation of the fossil fuel industry.

The Project 2025 effort, led by the Heritage Foundation and partially authored by former Trump administration officials, also would turn key government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, toward increasing fossil fuel production rather than public health protections.

“‘We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,’ Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, told E&E News for a story last year. ‘Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power Day 1 and deconstruct the administrative state.’”

May not be a winning election issue

“Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults want the government to do more to address climate change, according to a CNN poll released last month. Most want the government to cut emissions in half by 2030, including 50 percent of Republicans and 95 percent of Democrats, the poll found.”

Trump’s corporate support

Maxine Joselow and Josh Dawsey offer information on this point

(https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/12/oil-drilling-federal-lands-biden).

“On Thursday [April 11], Trump held a private dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club and resort with about 20 oil executives from some of the country’s biggest firms, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Continental Resources, Chesapeake Energy and Occidental Petroleum, according to a guest list reviewed by The Washington Post. The effort was largely organized by Harold Hamm, an oil billionaire and Trump donor who runs Continental Resources and has helped recruit other donors to the Trump campaign.

“In recent months, Trump has also talked with energy executives about the need for fewer regulations on drilling and has asked the executives what they need to drill more oil, according to people who have heard his comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

U.S. continues to produce and consumer higher rates of fossil fuels

It’s not as though the U.S. was drilling less oil and gas. “The United States is now pumping more crude oil than any country in history, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The trend is inconvenient for Trump as he seeks to loosen regulations on the energy industry, and for Biden as he touts his ambitious climate agenda on the campaign trail.”

————-

#3 – Biden’s mixed results

Policy and spending initiatives are up

Oliver Milman reports that “Biden races to commit billions to climate action as election looms” (https://theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/11/biden-climate-change-policy-election).

“In recent weeks, large tracts of funding has been announced by the administration to help overcome some of the thorniest and esoteric challenges the world faces in driving down carbon pollution, seeding the promise of everything from the advent of zero-emissions concrete to low-pollution food production, including mac and cheese and ice-cream, to driving the uptake of solar panels and electric stoves in low-income households.

“‘We are seeing billions of dollars going into really tricky parts of the energy transition and if there’s momentum behind this we will be measuring the impacts many years in the future,’ said Melissa Lott, a professor at Columbia University’s climate school. ‘I would expect these investments to have knock-on impacts well outside the US’s borders.’

“The spending,” Milman writes, ‘is the most significant yet to come via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill, and the gusher of cash has a certain urgency.”

“Last week, $20bn was awarded under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a mechanism set up by the IRA, to non-profit groups [to green banks] that will provide low-interest loans for clean energy projects, such as installing solar panels on community centers, or heat pumps and induction stoves in households that couldn’t otherwise afford them.

Milman continues.

“The aim of these new ‘green banks’ will be to multiply this infusion – the EPA predicts that the private sector will increase the overall funding seven-fold to about $150bn, accelerating the replacement of polluting appliances with cleaner versions, greening public transit and boosting renewable energy going to the grid, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.

“Each small win will deliver new emissions cuts, culminating years beyond the next election term, as will the Biden administration’s other big recent announcement, of $6bn to drive the decarbonization of industrial processes such as making steel, creating aluminum, pouring concrete and even producing ice-cream and pasta.”

“The administration has also poured millions into climate adaptation. On Thursday, it announced $830m in grants to boost the resilience of transportation infrastructure to climate disasters and extreme weather. And last month, it awarded $120m to Indigenous tribes to prepare for climate impacts.”

Leasing reforms

This news is reported by Earthjustice and published on April 12, 2024 by Common Dreams (https://commondreams.org/newswire/earthjustice-applauds-overdue-reforms-to-federal-oil-and-gas-leasing-program).

“Today, the Biden administration unveiled long-awaited reforms that will hold the fossil fuel industry to more reasonable standards when operators seek to lease and develop oil and gas on public lands. The Bureau of Land Management’s new Oil and Gas Rule includes new provisions that will save taxpayers money, help ensure public lands are used for their highest value, and better protect communities and the environment.”

Maxine Joselow and Josh Dawsey also report on the “leasing” story (https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/12/oil-drilling-federal-lands-biden).

“A final rule from the Bureau of Land Management will require firms to purchase bonds of $150,000 per lease on federal lands, up from $10,000.”

“The Biden administration on Friday finalized a landmark rule that will require oil companies to pay at least 10 times more to drill on federal lands. The rule from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management represents the first comprehensive update to the federal oil and gas leasing program in more than 30 years, and is intended to generate more money for taxpayers.”

————–

Concluding thoughts

Despite laudable efforts by Biden and his administration, oil and gas production and consumption continue rising in the U.S. The evidence is compelling and has long aroused the concerns of scientists. Climate scientist Michael Mann concludes his recent book, Our Fragile Moment, as follows.

“Even under a business-as-usual scenario where we fail to build on climate policies already in place, the warming of the planet is unlikely to exceed 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit)….But at this level of warming, we can expect a lot of suffering, species extinction, loss of life, destabilization of societal infrastructure, chaos, and conflict.”

“That’s not a world in which we want to live, and it’s not a world that we want to leave behind for our children and grandchildren” (p. 240).

A majority of Americans, especially young adults, express concern about the climate crisis

While many in the public would not willingly sacrifice their economic positions to saving the planet, polls find that a majority of Americans have some worries. The Pew Research Center’s survey “of 8,842 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 25-Oct. 1, 2023, finds that 43% of Americans think climate change is causing a great deal or quite a bit of harm to people in the U.S. today. An additional 28% say it is causing some harm (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-read/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/#) ….

“Looking ahead, young adults ages 18 to 29 are especially likely to foresee worsening climate impacts: 78% think harm to people in the U.S. caused by climate change will get a little or a lot worse in their lifetime.”

“Despite widespread concern about future climate impacts there has been a slight decline in participation in forms of climate activism. The survey finds 21% of U.S. adults say they have participated in at least one of four climate-related activities in the last year, including donating money to a climate organization or attending a climate protest. This is down slightly from two years ago when 24% of Americans said they had participated in a climate-related activity.”

Other findings from Pew Research Center.

“…Americans are largely skeptical that climate activism builds public support for the issue or spurs elected officials to act. Just 28% think climate activism makes people more likely to support action on climate change and only 11% say it is extremely or very effective at getting elected officials to act on the issue.”

“Consistent with the slight decline in levels of climate activism, there has been no increase in personal concern on the issue in recent years. Overall, 37% say they personally care a great deal about the issue of climate change. This share is down 7 percentage points from 2018 and about the same as it was in 2016, the first time the Center asked the question.”

Partisan differences

The Pew research confirms that Republicans and Democrats have much different expectations for how climate change will impact their lives. “Just under half of all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expect to make no sacrifices in their everyday lives because of climate change. By comparison, 88% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expect to have to make at least minor sacrifices.”

“These partisan gaps are closely tied to differing expectations about national impacts: 86% of Democrats expect harms from climate change in the U.S. to get worse during their lifetime; just 37% of Republicans say the same.”

There are climate activists who are concerned about too little government action

As one example, Jessica Corbett reports on Sunrise protesters (https://commondreams.org/news/sunrise-movement-los-angeles). Here’s some of what she writes in this article published on April 15, 2024.

“Six young activists were arrested outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Los Angeles home on Monday while calling on the White House to declare a climate emergency, according to the youth-led Sunrise Movement.””

“‘My generation is spending our teenage years organizing for climate action because people like Kamala Harris have failed us,’ said Adah Crandall, one of the activists arrested after blockading the street outside her California residence overnight.

“‘We’re ready to do whatever it takes to win a climate emergency declaration—we will camp out overnight, we will get arrested, we will mobilize our peers by the thousands to win the world we deserve,’ the 18-year-old continued. ‘The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.’”

“The White House has been praised for climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as well was a recent pause on liquefied natural gas exports. However, the president has also faced criticism for continuing fossil fuel lease sales, backing the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Willow oil project, and skipping last year’s United Nations summit.

“Just last week, the Biden administration approved a license for a pipeline company to build the nation’s largest offshore oil terminal off of Texas’ Gulf Coast—despite surging fossil fuel pollution that is pushing up global temperatures.

“Sunrise last week condemned the approval as ‘very disappointing’ and also joined with Campus Climate Network and Fridays for Future USA to announce Earth Day demonstrations intended to pressure Biden to declare a climate emergency.”

An international movement

Olivia Rosane writes on a “Youth Lead Global Strike Demanding ‘Climate Justice Now’ (https://www.commondreams.org/news/youth-strike-climate-justice). The article was published on April 19, 2024. Here’s some of what Rosane reports.

“Ahead of Earth Day, young people around the world are participating in a global strike on Friday to demand ‘climate justice now.’

“In Sweden, Greta Thunberg joined hundreds of other demonstrators for a march in Stockholm; in Kenya, participants demanded that their government join the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty; and in the U.S., youth activists are kicking off more than 200 Earth Day protests directed at pressing President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.”

“The first global youth climate strike, which grew out of Thunberg’s Fridays for Future school strikes, took place on March 15, 2019. Since then, both emissions and temperatures have continued to rise, with 2023 blowing past the record for hottest year. Yet, according to Climate Action Tracker, no country has policies in place that are compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.”

“The global strikes are taking place under the umbrella of Friday’s for Future, which has three main demands: 1. limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, 2. ensure climate justice and equity, and 3. listen to the most accurate, up-to-date science.”

“Participants shared videos and images of their actions on social media.

European strikers also gathered in London, Dublin, and Madrid.

In Asia, Save Future Bangladesh founder Nayon Sorkar posted a video from the Meghna River on Bangladesh’s Bola Island, where erosion destroyed his family’s home when he was three years old.”

Also in Bangladesh, larger crowds rallied in Dhaka, Sylhet, Feni, and Bandarban for climate action.

“Young climate activists in Bandarban demand a shift to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels,” said Sajjad Hossain, the divisional coordinator for Youthnet for Climate Justice Bangladesh. “We voiced urgency for sustainable energy strategies and climate justice. Let’s hold governments accountable for a just transition!”

“In Kenya, young people struck specifically to demand that the government sign on to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“As a member of the Lake Victoria community, the importance of the treaty in our climate strikes cannot be overstated,” Rahmina Paullette, founder of Kisumu Environmental Champions and a coordinator for Fridays for Future Africa, said in a statement. “By advocating for its implementation, we address the triple threat of climate change, plastic pollution, and environmental injustice facing our nation.”

“Halting fossil fuel expansion not only safeguards crucial ecosystems but also combats the unjust impacts of environmental degradation, ensuring a more equitable and sustainable future for our community and the wider Kenyan society,” Paullette said.

“In the U.S., Fridays for Future NYC planned for what they expected to be the largest New York City climate protest since September 2023’s March to End Fossil Fuels. The action will begin at Foley Square at 2:00 pm Eastern Time, at which point more than 1,000 students and organizers are expected to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to rally in front of Borough Hall.

“‘The strike’ is part of a national escalation of youth-led actions in more than 200 cities and college campuses around the country, all calling on President Biden to listen to our generation and young voters, stop expanding fossil fuels, and declare a climate emergency that meaningfully addresses fossil fuels, creating millions of good paying union jobs, and preparing us for climate disasters in the process, Fridays for Future NYC said in a statement.”

“The coalition is planning events leading up to Monday including dozens of Earth Day teach-ins beginning Friday to encourage members of Congress to pressure Biden on a climate emergency and Reclaim Earth Day mobilizations on more than 100 college and university campuses to demand that schools divest from and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry.”