Trump’s America is a Drowned, Burning, Barren One
A Climate Catastrophe in the Making
The United States of America has a lot to worry about. Many fear for the state of the economy. Of course, others, from women to BIPOC to transgender people, are frightened about the results of the recent 2024 election. But something these topics have shockingly overshadowed in the media recently is arguably the most terrifying threat to human existence as we know it – climate change. Frankly, America should be terrified. Donald Trump's state environmental policy goals, and his actions from 2016-2020, are exceptionally dangerous and run counter to the needs of both America and humanity.
However, we must first look at what sort of atmosphere Trump is entering into. Admittedly, during his term in office, Joe Biden struggled to meet his own climate change goals, such as his approval of the ConocoPhillips Willow oil drilling project in Alaska after previously swearing to never drill on federal lands again, “period.” However, Biden has still managed to bring the US back into the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has sworn to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030, has enacted fuel regulation and air pollution cap, and has federally protected public lands. Crucial legislative achievements include the Kigali Amendment, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. These are some of the most intense and progressive investments in climate change reduction and prevention in the world. Granted they still do not meet Biden’s campaign promises, but they provide a bit of hope in a world in which it is severely lacking. In short, if the Democratic Party had been permitted to continue its efforts, the country with the second-highest carbon output in the world may have been able to lead the fight against global warming.
Trump seeks to change this. During his first term, he already went as far as completely removing the words “climate change” from governmental websites, and his next term could go even further. In his 2024 campaign, Trump said multiple times that he wanted to discard virtually all of Biden’s climate change regulations. He promotes fossil fuels and discourages governmental environmental regulations. Project 2025 promises to generate billions of tons more in carbon pollution, which would “wreck the US’s climate targets, as well as wiping out clean energy investments and more than a million jobs.” The 2.7 billion tons of increased carbon would be more than the entire annual emissions of India. Trump looks to be matching his anti-climate change platform for his second go around as well, having nominated the climate change-denying fracking magnate Chris Wright to be the energy secretary. He has also discussed increasing fossil fuel production, and many of his cabinet nominees are proud climate change deniers.
The international political landscape is primed for this destruction. COP29, the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in which heads of state join together to discuss solutions to climate change, was held from November 11-22, 2024. Leaders who have previously opposed Trump's destructive plans, such as Emmanuel Macron, Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, all skipped. The world leaders who are best suited to counter Trump are not present, not just at COP29, but in general, thanks to infighting and disunity. Given the state of the international community, Donald Trump’s approach to climate change will be exceptionally more dangerous than it was in his first term as president.
“But Max,” some might claim. “We need to focus on more tangible matters. The economy. Immigration. Things that have a direct impact on my life.” It is certainly true that “climate change” as a concept does not feel like a remarkably immediate thing. After all, Trump once declared that “since it is cold in New York, climate change does not exist.” The concepts of climate change and global warming can feel very distant, especially to Americans. That does not mean the effects of climate change are intangible. Indeed, looking at the present, the USA alone has already been devastated by multiple tropical storms, and it is a proven fact that such natural disasters worsen with worsening climate change. This is in addition to the California fires, the devastation being wrought on land and water by oil pipelines, the rising number of heatwaves in major cities, and more. This is not to mention ecological destruction from the thawing of permafrost, the bleaching of coral reefs, the desertification of plains, and the melting of polar ice caps. Climate change is very much a tangible and economic matter, in addition to being an environmental issue. It is literally the future of not just the nation, but also humanity and the Earth as we know it.
I, personally, am terrified. Everyone should be. As a recent paper published by over a dozen scientists states, “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled.” Yet, terror does not and cannot mean hopelessness. For one, it is impossible for Trump to completely stop the record-breaking speed at which renewable energy is rising. Green energy is a remarkably rich and profitable field, after all. Activists and international officials still fight daily for clean energy and the protection of our world.
But perhaps this is not enough.
Allow me to be anecdotal. I have been doing my part to fight climate change for nearly two decades, ever since I was old enough to understand it. Climate change was a topic that I knew to be the most pressing concern that humanity was currently facing.
So, I studied. I wrote. And I dreamed.
We must all dream too, if we are to beat back the scourge of global warming. We all might demand that Trump do better and listen to the 99% of scientists who say that climate change is real and deadly. He must look at the flooding in Spain, at the sand dunes in the Amazon Rainforest, at the rising sea levels in Bangladesh, at the heatwaves and tropical storming and wildfires brutalizing the United States of America, and do something about it. We cannot afford to let the leader of the most powerful country in the world close his eyes to science and reason. We must go beyond individual, low-impact, corporate-approved forms of environmentalism, and instead petition, protest, and demand that carbon taxes and caps be implemented, corporations be required to seek sustainable materials and production methods, and mega-farms pay for the water they drain from aquifers, among a myriad of other genuinely impactful - and highly achievable - changes. The best time to turn the page on climate change was the 20th century. The second-best time is right now.
Trump’s environmental policies are destructive. They will lead to a drowned, burned, barren America and world. This is a fact. Let us not succumb to that fact, but rise against it. Otherwise, we are letting terror drown out our dreams, and that in itself would be a tragedy.
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