Real crisis is climate change

In the opening hours of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national energy “emergency.” 

Claiming there’s an energy “emergency” when America’s oil and gas production is at an all-time high is laughable. The only emergency today is that Donald Trump’s oil billionaire friends want to enrich themselves even faster while ripping off American taxpayers and trashing our public lands.

There is an actual crisis today: 2024 was the hottest year on record, and the Earth crossed the 1.5-degree warming threshold. Floods, fires and extreme weather claim thousands of American lives and cost our economy billions of dollars each year. Today’s executive order is Donald Trump’s attempt to double down on the drivers of climate change while the rest of the world recognizes the true threat. It’s especially ironic that Trump is focused on increasing drilling in Alaska, a state that is warming much faster than the rest of the world.

The good news is that the energy transition is under way whether or not Donald Trump supports it. His oil billionaires may want to slow down American ingenuity and progress, but wind, solar and geothermal power, along with new storage technologies, are getting cheaper by the day. Trump’s second term is off to a predictable start, but the country can see he is on the wrong side of history.

– Rachael Hamby, Center for Western Priorities, Durango