Pulse of the Peninsula: Trump’s message to world: drop dead

Karen Rubin

Donald Trump has declared the U.S. will withdraw from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement — leaving behind 194 countries to join Syria and Nicaragua (which didn’t sign because the accord didn’t go far enough) as the only countries not to pledge cooperation in meeting this existential crisis.

There needs to be repercussions, within the U.S. and from outside.

It isn’t enough to upend NATO and the United Nations. Trump has to flip the bird on the entire planet.

Why? Because he can. Because he is an arrogant fool; a little man who gets orgasmic pleasure out of being able to bully the whole world.

But he is supported by Mike Pence, Scott Pruitt and most Republicans. How has it happened that climate change has become a test of tribal membership?

Because climate change is a stand-in for preserving the power of the status quo (the Elites as Trumpers would mock). And in a society where cash is equivalent to political power, there is desperation to keep profit on one side of the ledger.

The rise of Silicon Valley during the Clinton era disrupted the Old World fossil-fueled industrial-military complex. We even renamed our époque, displacing the Industrial Age with a new label, the Information Age and now The Digital Age.

It wasn’t just the economic transition that was feared, Climate Change — like the Information Age — was a move toward globalization (underpinning Obama foreign policy), threatening to undermine tribal controls and nationalism.

In contrast, Trump’s “America First” doctrine is founded on the notion that the world is a giant arena of competing nations, with winners and losers — evoking the image of the Roman Colosseum where gladiators battled to the death.

Indeed, Trump justified withdrawing from the Paris Accord not because he challenged climate science, but on bogus claims that it threatened “sovereignty” and would weaken the U.S. economy in order to give advantage to China and India (“They are laughing at us”).

These are demonstrable lies:  the Paris Accord is voluntary, nations came up with their own plan to meet their own targets, there are no penalties or enforcement mechanism.

As for the lie about hurting the economy: the U.S. has the strongest economy on the planet — growing a steady 2 percent is decent for a mature economy, adding 11 million jobs under Obama with the fastest growth (to 9.8 million) in clean energy jobs (growing at 10 times the rate in the economy and 2.5 times the number of fossil fuel jobs. But what is the real fear?

Adherents of climate action have a sense of being a citizen of the world with a greater responsibility beyond one’s own national interest, undermining the national government’s authority and control — the direct opposite of Trump’s “America First” doctrine. International cooperation is essential to solve this existential crisis facing the planet.

But the United States has a unique responsibility. We are the biggest carbon polluter in history, generating four times greenhouse gas-emissions per person than China, a country with 4 times the population, and 10 times India, and  disproportionately responsible for the damage done to coastal communities and island nations, for famine-stricken Africa and cyclone-battered Philippines, as much as flooded Louisiana and scorched California.

Climate action also requires that “sustainability” be factored in as a cost of doing business — which means, at least initially, a slight cut into shareholder profits until the technology and use thresholds turn in favor of clean-renewable energy sources and conservation.

But shareholders don’t actually get “profits” from the companies — the extra cash is used to pay for lobbyists and to fund campaigns for or against politicians.

Climate activists — the new gen environmentalists — are seen as communal, as in “communist” or “socialist” and a threat to capitalism, the same source of antagonism to single-payer health care.

Moreover, a citizen of the world is more accepting of diverse cultures, religions, and personal persuasions.

Their openness to cultural differences and open-mindedness makes them a threat to evangelicals and orthodox religionists as well as authoritarian nationalists.

That is basis for common cause between the religious right and capitalists going back to the 1960s (coinciding with the birth of the Environmental, Anti-War, Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements, all upending the power structure).

Pulling out of Paris may be more symbolic action — a gigantic middle finger to the world, and heaven help us if other countries use it as an excuse to abandon their commitments — but what Trump is actually doing is more harmful by reversing all the policies and programs that Obama had in place that enabled the U.S. to reduce its carbon emissions to 1990s levels.

Instead of the U.S. being a global leader, as under Obama, Trump is turning the U.S. into a pariah. And the U.S. would deserve it.

Trump said that “the world is laughing at us” — more of a symptom of his psychosis — but now, Putin and China are in fact laughing.

China now has opening to be the world leader while Russia is ecstatic over America’s retreat from moral leadership — what country would trust any “deal” with the US?

But the damage to the U.S. economy, to public health, to infrastructure, to the nation’s ability to innovate by tying us to a dirty, destructive and finite fossil fuel, forcing American families to pay through their noses for expensive fossil fuels and repair the damage caused by climate catastrophes, not to mention the threats to national security because of increased conflict and deprivation (200 million climate refugees) will also weaken this nation.

Rome comes to mind.

What’s to be done?

Every signatory to the Paris Accord should impose tariff or carbon fees on U.S. imports.

Those millions who marched and now feel like frustrated, forgotten fools must continue to march, rally, protest not at the White House but at local Congressional offices; vote out politicians who don’t support climate action.

Consumers need to seek out companies that practice sustainability and overtly reject those that don’t. Use social media to promote or pan.

Investors need to divest of stocks in companies that reject sustainability; instead invest in bonds that build such things as water treatment plants, clean-energy utilities.

Support organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC.org), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF.org), League of Conservation Voters (LCV.org), the Sierra Club, which are suing the Trump Administration, as well as local, grassroots organizations like Reach Out America (reachout-america.com) and the Queens/Nassau chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org).

Thankfully, states and localities are taking matters into their own hands. The climate revolution will continue, against our own federal government.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Washington State are holding fast to their goal of transitioning to clean, renewable energy — forming the United States Climate Alliance — and together with states like Massachusetts and cities like New York City and Atlanta (accounting for 30 percent of the world’s economy), will keep the U.S. from going into a fossil fueled abyss.

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