I’m not sure the Marx Brothers would be happy being compared to Donald Trump, were they still alive, but the latter’s climate policy brings to mind the former’s characteristically chaotic scene in Go West, as Groucho demands “timber!” piling it into the firebox as he Chico and Harpo reduce the train they have taken over to a skeleton, leaving a trail of mayhem and destruction behind them. Under his second presidency, Trump seems set on dismantling piece by piece the infrastructure that would allow the United States to survive the great challenge of our time, the climate emergency, his ideological train hurtling blindly forward.
Trump has returned to the White House riding a storm of climate denial, and with a clear plan: undo all previous advances, deregulating, tearing up treaties and encroaching on protected areas to facilitate the extraction of oil and minerals, at the same time as resurrecting a “clean coal” that is neither clean, nor viable or competitive. He has cut off funding to key scientific agencies like the NOAA, slashed university research funds, halted the construction of EV charging networks, and launched a senseless economic war based on arbitrary tariffs that has isolated the United States from its former allies.
The question we need to ask is what will happen when the next major climate disaster hits? Because it will. More intense hurricanes, out-of-control wildfires, prolonged droughts, lethal heat waves, or historic floods are no longer future dystopias, but the country’s reality and future. And when they strike again, and it’s not a matter of if, but when, the United States will discover what it means to confront them without allies, without science, without planning, and with an economy mired in unprecedented debt.
Congress has warned that US public debt could exceed 200% of GDP as a result of Trump’s fiscal policies. At the same time, US universities are losing research talent at alarming rates, with Canada and the European Union inundated with applications from scientists who no longer feel their work is valued in what was once the world’s knowledge hub. The devastation will not only be environmental: it will be scientific, economic, social and diplomatic.
Worse, when disaster strikes, there will no longer be a network of countries willing to help. Why should they, when Trump has insulted, boycotted and undermined them? Trump’s international policy has consisted of dynamiting bridges to build walls. But when cities are burned down or entire communities engulfed by water, those bridges could have been routes for humanitarian aid, technical cooperation or logistical coordination. They will not be.
What is brewing is much more than a political setback. As a result of a premeditated demolition of the modern state and its ability to protect its citizens from systemic crises we are seeing the destruction of the scientific and strategic capabilities needed to withstand the future. And all wrapped in a rhetoric of false grandeur and hollow patriotism, which protects no one when the air becomes unbreathable, crops fail, or storms devastate communities.
Meanwhile, the American population is anesthetized, bombarded by disinformation, dazzled by empty promises and befuddled by media distractions. But reality cannot be denied. Climate change does not negotiate. The laws of physics cannot be vetoed by decree.
And when Trump’s train to nowhere comes crashing to a halt, there will be nothing left to burn.
(En español, aquí)
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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