A new climate in Washington

Excerpts from Climate Politics by Lisa Friedman at the NYT

The expression “first do no harm” is a popular term used to express the underlying ethical rules of modern medicine. Although this is generally thought to have been taken from the ancient Greek Hippocratic oath, no translations of the oath contain this language. It is however a term worth reconsidering as the new conservative MAGA administration considers its operational assignments following inauguration day on January  20, 2025 as Donald Trump and J D Vance are sworn in (or sworn at) on the west lawn of the US Capital.

Amongst the many harms about to be inflicted on Americans, Canadians, and pretty well everyone else are those concerning the environment: harms long planned by the rich to further enrich themselves; harms ignorant and scornful of science and evidential data; harms which will enact a heavy toll on all Americans especially the most vulnerable. Those seeking confirmation of these intentions need look no further than Project 2025 where the malicious plan can be read in dreadful detail. We were told.

In lockstep with petrostates everywhere the Trump administration is about to unleash a war on any and all green energy initiatives by giving the fossil fuel industry the “green” (!) light not only to continue with business as usual, but to actively encourage expansion of fossil fuel extraction including in environmentally sensitive area such as the Arctic.

So here’s how things will unravel [with thanks to the NYT]

1. Trump will pull out of the Paris Agreement. Allies say he’ll strip the phrases “climate change,” “clean energy” and “environmental justice” from every agency website.
2. He will repeal pollution limits on automobiles, power plants and factories.
3. Agencies will give oil and gas companies easier access to federal lands for drilling. Trump’s team also has big plans for the Interior Department, which oversees nearly 500 million acres of federal land, and for the Energy Department. Soon they will become almost entirely focused on aiding fossil fuel companies.
4. He will work with a Republican-controlled Congress to repeal as much as possible of President Biden’s signature climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The 2022 law offers $390 billion over 10 years to reduce emissions. It funds wind and solar power, electric vehicle battery factories and nuclear reactors. Trump calls the law wasteful, and many Republicans are eager to dump its clean energy provisions to help pay for tax cuts that Trump has promised. He would ditch a $7,500 tax credit for people who purchase electric vehicles. Trump also dislikes offshore wind turbines, which he has falsely claimed are causing whales to wash ashore dead. He wants to end a tax break for building them. Note however that roughly 80 percent of the law’s clean-energy money spent in the first two years has flowed to Republican congressional districts, making a repeal politically challenging especially amongst republicans.
5. Trump’s transition team also wants to hollow out the E.P.A. itself. It would like to move the agency’s headquarters outside Washington, push out civil servants who thwarted Trump’s policies during his first administration and put political appointees in roles traditionally reserved for nonpartisan experts.

The result of all this?

The United States will emit more greenhouse gases than ever before. Such a change will frustrate and discourage other nations, many from developing nations who have already expressed their disgust with less-than-adequate commitments from COP-29.

Those committed to a more sustainable world will need to discover new ways to work around the federal government, possibly aligned with sympathetic state leaders and the few industry supporters of green initiatives.

Follow the money, because money and wealth drive these conservative decisions and initiatives. As the Good Book says: “The love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Timothy 6:10) Beneath all the antics, the posturing, the deceit lies a fundamental human crisis. When we place our personal security in the orbit of our own ambitions, life comes up short. When our insecurity fosters fear—of difference, of security, of the presence (or absence) of love—humans do unspeakable things to each other. Now is such a time. Said of Deitrich Bonhoeffer he “didn’t choose to be a martyr. He simply tried, as many others did, to be decent in the face of evil.”

Let us all try to do likewise.