FEATURED

Many of us wondered what Donald Trump’s first weeks in office would look like. It has been horrendous– with more appalling news every day. You may have been following all the details or you may have been intentionally avoiding the news. We’ve gone from incompetent and dangerous cabinet nominees to Trump pardoning all of the January 6th insurrectionists, including those who assaulted and injured police officers. The devastating raids on immigrant communities and subsequent deportations have begun.

On climate, the President not only pulled us out of the Paris Agreement, but also ordered even more drilling for gas and oil, suspended renewable energy incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, gutted EPA regulations that protected health and air and water quality, prohibited new offshore wind power installations, and cancelled all programs assisting other nations to respond to the climate emergency. It’s full speed ahead for more emissions.

Then we got firings (many of them illegal) of inspectors general, prosecutors involved in January 6th cases, and FBI leaders and rank and file, eliminating impartiality in the criminal justice system and making the Justice Department an instrument of the President’s personal retaliation and revenge.

Then came the news that Elon Musk’s team has taken “control of the Treasury’s payment system ….

I’m writing to you just before Election Day. By the time you get this and read it, we may, or may not, know more about the election results. In any case, I’ve been thinking about what perspectives may be helpful to us as we go through these tumultuous times.

The struggle against fascism will need to continue, regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next president. One of our two major parties, supported by nearly half of all voters, has virtually no attachment to the truth and little attachment to democracy. The Republican party has been captured by those who favor authoritarianism, white Christian nationalism, and a government that primarily benefits the wealthy and will make the climate crisis much worse.

How this could have happened is an important question and many analysts are writing about it. Right now, I’m more concerned with the fact that it has happened, and how we  find our way forward in this new situation.

Over the years I have written many posts about the climate crisis and about climate justice — good news, bad news, goals, new technologies, activists’ successes, and the depth of the crisis. Today I want to state explicitly what must happen if we are to keep much of our planet inhabitable for human beings and other species. We must end the extraction of oil, gas, and coal everywhere in the world.

Despite all of humanity’s successes in developing and deploying renewable energy, in conserving energy and increasing energy efficiency, and in making a majority of the global population aware that global warming is real and a major problem, fossil fuel production has continued to rise (as the chart above illustrates). While there are many aspects to the climate crisis, the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming. It is emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are causing deadly heat waves around the world, catastrophic storms and flooding, agriculture-destroying droughts, and rising sea levels.

If we are to resolve the climate crisis, we must remove from the face of the earth one of the biggest, most profitable industries of all time–the fossil fuel industry. This is no small task, of course. But I think we must be honest with ourselves that this is what must happen. Nothing else will suffice. As big a task as this is, I believe we can succeed.