���This ‘climate change,’ it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly last month. “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
And, thusly, the man holding the job that should be leading the world into a new era announced his abdication of that position – as his actions over the past eight months have indicated his preference for poisonous polluters who line his pockets over the people of this country, the people of the world and the well-being of planetary life as a whole.
With Trump, it is always a question of whether he is driven by willful ignorance or grifting greed. But the result bodes the same ills on the climate front.
Following Trump’s [“DERANGED”] UN embarrassment, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen extolled the progress being made in Europe toward a livable world.
Von der Leyen explained, “That is our way to climate neutrality by 2050. And my message is that the world can count on the European Union’s continued climate leadership,” she said.
For this effort, according to Efe Ozkan of Turkey’s Adolu Anjasi, “the EU will remain the world’s largest provider of climate finance, by mobilizing up to 300 billion euros to support the clean transition worldwide through their global gateway investment program.”
In August, Source NM reported, “Several congressional Democrats on Friday slammed the Trump administration’s announcement it will cancel nearly $7 billion in grants to fund solar energy projects for low-income households” and WyoFile reported, “Trump greenlights 14.5 million-ton coal expansion in Wyoming.”
On Sept. 29, Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams elaborated:
“On the heels of reporting that the U.S. Department of Energy banned staff from using ‘climate change’ and related terms, the DOE on Monday announced a $625 million investment ‘to expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry.’”
Earlier last month, Oil Change International, in a paper titled “Paying for Climate Chaos,” reported, “the government will hand out $34.8 billion to big oil and gas companies this year, and that these companies are set to get almost an additional $4 billion in subsidies thanks to the so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ passed by congressional Republicans and signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year,” according to Common Dream’s Brad Reed.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres countered Trump’s ramblings by predicting “a new energy era,” and condemned such “vast fossil fuel subsidies” as Trump hands out.
While the U.S. continues pushing a 20th century paradigm, “Clean energy received double the investment of fossil fuels last year,” Guterres said. “Clean is competitive, and climate action is imperative.”
The conclusion is inevitable. While Trumpian policies line the pockets of those who line his pockets, the rest of the world is transitioning toward renewable energy. Those countries will be the ones developing new technology, cornering new markets, exerting what was once the leadership of a U.S. relegated to the backwaters of history.
Even if Trump does not alienate what friends we have left, China poses a real danger to our future standing.
“In my experience with China,” Carney said, “they are, amongst other things, very sincere and engaged on climate. This is a country run by engineers. This is a country that understands a lot of the engineering solutions to issues around emissions.
“They have happened to have built a real competitive advantage in a number of these areas as well. So, there’s a question of how and there is almost a standing offer from them about how to engage in global comments in and around climate.”
The Chinese have a commitment to science that was once the hallmark of this country – before science denial became a tenet of the Creed of Greed – one corollary being the racist xenophobia that is already directing our scientists and foreign science students elsewhere.
Maybe wistfully, but certainly with disgust, our most famous scientist, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, assessed the situation.
“We didn’t get to the Moon by being dumb. We didn’t get to the Moon by thinking Earth was flat. We didn’t get to the Moon by rejecting what scientists tell us. … Our greatest risk of extinction in this world is not a runaway virus or asteroids. … It is people in charge not heeding the warnings of science.”
Earth continues to get hotter.
