In 2017/8, the first two years of Trump’s term, there were 30 large
weather and climate disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, for a combined total of 3,525 deaths and $411 billion in losses. Costly and deadly storms are, of course, not new, but scientists have determined that their frequency and intensity are rising because of the warming climate.
Countless more deaths and destruction are on the way as sea levels rise, hurricanes intensify, forest fires expand and violent conflicts around the world are stoked by famines, floods and forced migrations.
The safety of billions of people around the world is directly threatened by the actions of Trump and his fossil-fuel cronies. Recent evidence points to the
possibility of dire tipping points beyond which climate change would be vastly accelerated.
Who wins in this rampant and cruel destruction of nature and livelihoods? A tiny group of wealthy elites and their political partners who sit atop the global fossil-fuel machine. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the US Senate win (though their children and grandchildren lose) since the fossil-fuel industry predominantly directs its campaign donations to the Republican Party.
According to the tally of opensecrets.org, the energy and natural resources industry gave $141 million in
campaign contributions in the 2018 elections, with 78% going to Republicans. The industry also spent nearly $327 million on
lobbying in 2018, setting up a lot of lucrative jobs for retired industry-friendly congressmen and staffers.
There is more to the political calculus. Trump hopes to repeat 2016 in racking up the Electoral College votes of small coal-producing states such as West Virginia and Wyoming. America’s Electoral College voting system gives these small states disproportionate sway in the presidential elections. Wyoming, for example, has three presidential electors, or one per 192,000 population; California, by contrast, has 55 presidential electors, or only one per 719,000 population.
An overwhelming proportion of Americans know the truth about human-induced climate change and want action.
In a Pew survey taken in October 2019, 79% of respondents answered that humans are contributing to climate change. Some 67% held that the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of global climate change. And 77% called on the federal government to prioritize alternative energy over fossil fuels.
The major Democratic presidential candidates —
all of them — are fighting Trump on climate change. Bernie Sanders has unveiled the most comprehensive
Green New Deal plan, and targets Big Coal and Big Oil to help pay for it. His plan will create millions of green jobs. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg have all unveiled climate plans as well. Given the lopsided majority of Americans in favor of climate action, the issue should certainly favor the Democrats in 2020. Yet America’s broken political system poses major obstacles for the Democrats.
Most importantly, they must battle the well-funded propaganda of the fossil-fuel industry, along with
Fox News and the
opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, leading properties in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and ones that are thoroughly devoted to the fossil-fuel status quo. They must overcome the industry’s massive campaign contributions to the Republicans.
They must overcome the Electoral College’s small-state bias that favors the Republican Party, and which gave Trump the presidency in 2016 even as he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. And in contrast to Europe’s vibrant and rising green parties, which win parliamentary seats in Europe’s proportional representation systems, America’s first-past-the-post voting system blocks a viable new green party in the Congress.
The darker truth is that Washington politics runs contrary to public opinion not only on climate change but on many pressing issues, including limiting healthcare costs, taxing the rich, cracking down on pollution, controlling gun violence and other issues.
Large American majorities favor not only action on climate action but also
government-negotiated drug prices,
higher taxes on the rich, and
stronger gun control. Yet in all of these cases, corporate lobbies carry the day against public opinion. In the US political process, at least until today, big money wins over public opinion.
There is new hope in the New Year. In 2020, voters can stop America’s downward spiral toward plutocracy and environmental ruin. The 2020 elections can herald the triumph of the common good over corporate greed. Our survival depends on it.
