Dystopian Denials Of Climate Change Don’t Change The Facts

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I just finished the Kamala Harris memoir about the 2024 election, 107 Days. I come away from reading it even more unsettled than ever about the dystopian state of our democracy under President Donald J. Trump and his Project 2025 backers.

Private companies and US citizens are hesitant to practice free speech. Partisan politics are restricting the lives and livelihoods of federal workers — the three-week federal shutdown risks critical systems on which millions of people in the US depend. It could weaken government technology infrastructure for years to come.

MAHA’s fake science is in, researchers and scientists are out.

The Energy Department has published a report that pooh-poohed the severity of climate change. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has committed to rewriting past policy reports on climate science.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within Trump’s Department of Energy has a whole slew of words that are no longer allowed to be uttered during his reign. They include “climate change,” “green,” “decarbonization,”“energy transition,” “‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ energy,” “emissions,”“sustainability/ sustainable,” “carbon/CO2 ‘footprint’” and “tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies.”

Shoot. We here at CleanTechnica wouldn’t have much to write about if our editors implemented such word restrictions.

Meghan Pazik, senior policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, disputes the Trump word bans. Pazik describes how they’re part of a larger agenda of the “administration’s suppression of science, weaponizing deliberate uncertainty, and reiterating once more its authoritarian agenda.” Word bans, she continues, “are conscious decisions that change public discourse and are “a direct, intentional attack on evidence-based science and independent thought which are essential tools for holding governments accountable.”

Democrats Must Speak Out Loudly about the Real Costs to US Citizens

The Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution (Article VI, clause 2) states that the Constitution, treaties, and federal law “shall be the supreme Law of the land.” Underpinning respect for the Constitution is the belief that democracy is worth defending. “But there’s a foundational requirement for it to function that we rarely talk about explicitly, perhaps because it seemed too obvious to require articulation,” deconstructs Chris Armitage, the founder of The Existentialist Republic. “We have to agree about what has actually happened in the world.”

In our post-truth era, agreement is quite hard to come by.

The Climate Action against Disinformation coalition, which comprises 90 climate and anti-disinformation organizations, argues that the digital information landscape is “dangerously polluted, obscuring the truth and delaying the urgent action we need to protect our future.” Rather than found on the fringes of public discourse, evidence suggests that dystopian narratives are becoming “even more mainstream, more violent, and more impactful through repetition.”

I call the originators of climate disinformation “climate entrepreneurs.” They’re online influencers who promote conflict around fossil fuel-driven pollution, and they do so for profit. They make a living from stirring up controversy about renewables and a net zero future. They bombard social media networks with culturally appealing narratives and incite confusion and anger in an effort to undermine common-sense climate governance.

One area that must be made transparent in the face of such subterfuge is how each current government agency closure has detrimental and domino effects on climate action. “This will not only affect research and policy directly, it will also affect what we see and don’t see, and what we say and don’t say,” Rakesh Bhandari, associate director of interdisciplinary studies at the University of California, Berkeley, reminds Politico.

Where does federal power end and state authority begin?

“The state has this power in virtue of its legitimate and cognitive authority,” Bhandari explains. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution was added by the founders in response to anti-Federalist anxieties about an overbearing central government. They added this language to emphasize that the government possessed only limited powers and everything else — including the broad “police power” to regulate health, safety, morals and general welfare — remained with the states. States are currently wallowing in the dirty waters flowing out of the federal government, though.

Some may argue that Democrats have alienated potential conservative voters by refusing to focus on centrist issues. Erica Payne, founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, disagrees passionately.

“Democrats have absolutely, positively NOT moved too far left in terms of what people want for the economy. The complete opposite is true. People want a higher minimum wage. They want higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Their support for labor unions is at a 60-year high. They want something to be done about out-of-control CEO pay. Want a wildly popular agenda that cuts across party lines? Start there.”

Don’t Let ‘Em Forget about the Damage of Fossil Fuels

Trump has installed more than 100 fossil fuel insiders, renewable energy opponents, corporate lobbyists, and far-right think tank alumni across nine agencies during his second term. Dependence on fossil fuels both as feedstock and a source of energy and is at the heart of the intertwined global crises relating to plastics, climate, and toxic emissions.

Yet supporting Big Oil flies in the face of all evidence about how essential clean energy is to ensuring energy security, safeguarding communities, and protecting our planet’s health. Right-wing politicians, lobbyists, and fossil fuel influence groups behind anti-ESG bills are continuing to block companies from responding to climate risk, even as climate impacts accelerate and the costs become unavoidable for investors, pension holders, municipalities, and taxpayers.

“Democrats are pretty silent about what matters most to the GOP: the protection of fossil fuels,” UC Berkeley’s Bhandari adds. Oil, coal, and gas dump carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels come with a damaging and costly downside: they are warming our planet faster than anything we have seen in the geological record. They also cause other forms of pollution that severely harm human health.

It’s also noteworthy that today’s fossil energy system is incredibly inefficient: almost two-thirds of all primary energy is wasted in energy production, transportation, and use — that’s before fossil fuel has done any work or produced any benefit. Over $4.6 trillion per year, almost 5% of global GDP and 40% of what the world spends on energy, is wasted due to fossil fuel inefficiency.

Celebrate Solar & Battery Storage, Over & Over

Trump 2.0 is in the midst of a war on climate change research, which parallels goals of fossil fuel companies. Yet more US homes and businesses are getting their power from renewable sources than ever before — and in greater amounts.

At a time in which electrification of transport, industry reshoring, and surging data center growth are driving up both energy use and peak demand across North America and Europe, clean energy is now the least costly form of new generation to build. Technology like battery storage is helping to make solar and wind more practical. These are facts.

“Solar and storage are the cheapest, fastest ways to bring much-needed affordable power to communities, as electricity demand and costs surge,” says Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for clean energy at Environmental Defense Fund. Pulling the plug on projects without explanation won’t lower electricity bills for families and businesses, and restricting the supply of cheap electricity only makes the problem worse, Kelly explains. “Instead, the Trump administration is doubling down on costly fossil fuels like coal, opening up new federal lands for coal mining and handing out over $600 million in subsidies to keep polluting, aging coal plants on life support.”

With the Trump administration two-tiered approach to energy permitting, “Polluting, expensive fossil fuels get ‘concierge, white glove service,’” Kelly continues, “while cheap renewables and storage get freezes, delays, and cancellations.” The result? More asthma-causing pollution. Fewer clean energy investments that create jobs right now.

Renewable energy came to the rescue in the summer during New England heat waves. Solar panels on homes, schools, businesses, and larger arrays provided up to 22% of the region’s power. That amounted to nearly double the daily average. This reliable output stabilized the grid and saved customers tens of millions of dollars on some of the hottest days in memory. These are the types of climate facts that we need to be stating and restating, over and over again.

Featured photo: “Dystopian” by Axel Bührmann is licensed under CC BY 2.0.