How Will We Fight This Climate Nightmare?

A post from the writer Rebecca Solnit has been going around a number of the group chats I’m in. She writes, “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I.”

I’ll admit, I felt a lot like giving up the last 48 hours. Part of me expected the results of Tuesday’s election, but they still hit like a body blow. Watching the incredible surge of volunteers over the past few days, including thousands of climate activists who headed out to battleground states to help get out the vote, had left me feeling hopeful heading into the election.

But it wasn’t to be. Running on a message of hate and division, and backed by fossil fuel billionaires and the world’s richest man, Donald Trump won the election in a relative landslide, improving on both his 2016 and 2020 numbers, while making strong inroads with young people, Latinos, and other members of what we’d come to understand as the traditional Democratic base.

So where do we go from here? What’s next for the climate fight?

Lessons From the Election

First, I think it’s worth trying to draw some lessons from the election. The dust is still settling, and there was so much at play in this chaotic process that it’s impossible to point the finger and say that’s the reason that Trump won and Vice President Kamala Harris lost, but I think there are still a few observations we can make about how the race played out.

The biggest one is about the economy. For the past four years, Americans have been struggling with the high cost of everything from groceries to gas prices. Common Dreams readers know the role that corporations played in driving up costs, from Big Oil taking advantage of the war in Ukraine to constrict supply and jack up the price at the pump, to chain grocers like Kroger intentionally keeping prices high to pad their CEO’s pockets. But that message never really got to the majority of Americans. Democrats were skittish about calling out corporate power, and some late in the game messages about “taking on price gouging” rang hollow as a result.

If they want to win elections going forward, Democrats are going to have to do a much better job of calling out corporate power, including Big Oil, and showing the spine necessary to take them on.

I saw this play out first hand. When gas prices first went up in 2021, we sprang into action and launched the Stop The Oil Profiteering campaign to try and push the White House and Democrats to pass a windfall profits tax. We made some headway with progressive members, and the House eventually passed an anti-price gouging bill, but Democratic leadership never really embraced the message. They were more interested in “claiming credit” for when gas prices went down a bit, not realizing that in doing so, they ended up owning the issue. Instead of clearly saying, “These corporations caused the problem,” they ended up with a muddled message about Russian President Vladimir Putin, supply and demand, and global markets.

In that context, it was easy for Trump to just repeat, “Biden is to blame,” on everything from gas to groceries to the lack of affordable housing. He didn’t need a plan to solve the problem, he just needed to show that he was as angry as you were, and that he knew who to fight. If they want to win elections going forward, Democrats are going to have to do a much better job of calling out corporate power, including Big Oil, and showing the spine necessary to take them on.

Second, I think Harris’ run to the center didn’t help her win over the voters she needed for the election. You can see this on any host of policy issues (with her failure to speak more clearly about the genocide in Gaza at the top of the list), but let’s focus on climate and energy. The Harris campaign was clearly nervous that any talk about energy issues would backfire by reminding some Pennsylvania voters that she’d opposed fracking in the past. But this supposed fracking backlash was always more of a media fabrication: Polling from Climate Power showed that when asked about issues that made them less likely to support Vice President Harris, only 3% of likely voters listed fracking—it just wasn’t on people’s radar screens.

Our job is to fight back, while doing everything we can to keep building a clean energy economy that works for all.

On the flip side, huge majorities of both Harris’ base and independent voters support the buildout of more clean energy, something Trump clearly opposes and will work to undermine. There are clean energy jobs at stake in every battleground state and across the country, but the Harris campaign never effectively weaponized the issue and made Trump’s crazy theories about wind turbines and solar panels a liability. Yes, a lot of environmental groups tried to drive this message, but we needed it from the top down and Harris never fully delivered.

The same dynamic played out with Hurricane Helene and Milton. In the days after Helene hit, I remember going through VP Harris’ various social media feeds and being shocked to see that there was hardly any mention of climate change. When I reached out to folks on the campaign, they said that she was focused on pushing back on disinformation about FEMA and supporting recovery efforts, which is important and admirable, but wasn’t really an answer. Again, I imagine that the campaign felt like calling the storms “climate disasters” was somehow too edgy and might turn off some voters. What that left them with was a professorial response—“this problem is very serious”—rather than a powerful, emotional, resonant message. In that vacuum, fake news about $750 checks and Biden intentionally withholding aid landed. They weren’t “true,” but they felt intense and shocking in a way that people were hungry for.

Did any of this prove decisive in the election? Maybe not. Again, there were so many factors at play and the Harris campaign did a lot of things right. But going forward, helping people understand who is really to blame for their economic hardships, and learning how to harness climate disasters and other disruptive events, are going to be crucial for pushing back on Trump and Big Oil’s agenda.

The Fight Ahead

Which brings us to the fight ahead. We don’t know exactly what Trump is going to do on climate and fossil fuels, but if Project 2025 and his campaign rhetoric is any indication, it’s going to be a nightmare. We can expect the Trump administration to not only take a bulldozer to environmental laws and regulations, but do everything they can to weaponize other parts of the government, like the Interior and Department of Energy, to promote fossil fuel development.

Our job is to fight back, while doing everything we can to keep building a clean energy economy that works for all.

First and foremost, that means standing in solidarity with our frontline allies. We know that Black, brown, and Indigenous people are at the forefront of fossil fuel expansion and bear the brunt of pollution and toxic chemicals. We need to push donors to invest more with grassroots groups in these communities and do what we can as activists to support their fights. As our frontline, and especially our Indigenous allies will remind us, they’ve been fighting under an oppressive system of white supremacy all their lives. While the struggle may be more intense over the coming years, it isn’t new, and we’ve got tools and tactics to fight back.

We can ensure that Trump faces massive resistance if he attempts to roll back clean energy programs that are creating jobs and saving consumers money, especially in Republican districts and states that have received the majority of benefits from the IRA.

Second, we need to do everything we can to slow new fossil fuel development. Try as he might, Trump can’t build new fossil fuel projects unilaterally. Remember his campaign promise to build the Keystone XL pipeline? It never happened. We need to do everything we can to stop new projects in their tracks, from going after project financing, to filing lawsuits, to organizing grassroots campaigns that can stop projects on the ground. And remember, this isn’t just a fight for progressives or liberals: Many of these projects go through deeply conservative areas, and there are lots of folks in Trump’s base who may change their opinion on the merits of “drill, baby, drill” when it shows up in their backyard. As Rebecca Solnit reminds us, “the fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.” We may not be able to stop every handout to the fossil fuel industry, but saving even one community from a destructive project is worth the fight. Every pipeline, every fossil fuel export terminal, and every fracking well we can stop matters.

Third, we need our cities, states, and federal allies to play offense. We don’t need to give the fossil fuel industry carte blanche to pursue their planet wrecking agenda. Now is the time to double down on building public support for the lawsuits and investigations that could ultimately hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception. Over 30 cities, states, municipalities, and tribal governments are already suing Big Oil, and I think we’ll see dozens more in the years to come. We can also push more states to follow Vermont’s lead and pass Climate Superfund bills that will force oil and gas companies to pay for climate damages—the biggest one currently on deck is in New York, where pressure is ratcheting up on Gov. Kathy Hochul to act. As fossil fuel CEOs tighten their grip on D.C., we can still get after them from every other corner of the country.

Fourth, let’s make the clean energy buildout unstoppable. The Biden Administration should be doing everything it can to get any remaining funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) out the door before they leave office. In the meantime, we need to start preparing to defend the clean energy programs and projects in our cities, states, and communities. We can ensure that Trump faces massive resistance if he attempts to roll back clean energy programs that are creating jobs and saving consumers money, especially in Republican districts and states that have received the majority of benefits from the IRA. But defense won’t be enough: We also need to create a movement of people all across the country who continue to accelerate the deployment of clean energy. Progress will be decentralized, but it doesn’t need to be derailed—especially if we all get to work.

Fifth, we need to tell a better story about climate and clean energy that connects with everyday people’s lives. There are so many good examples across the movement of groups making these connections: Environmental justice groups are connecting pollution directly to individual health; local clean energy groups are showing people how going solar will reduce electricity bills; mutual aid networks are effectively responding to extreme weather events and helping people connect the dots to climate and fossil fuels. It’s time to double down on all that work and more, while making sure that these narratives are echoed by our political leaders. As I said above, Democrats haven’t done a good job blaming Big Oil for things like inflation and high gas prices—that needs to change if they want to win elections in the future.

Finally, we need the Biden administration to do everything it can on climate before Trump takes office. Get all the money from the IRA out the door. Conclude the Department of Energy’s studies on the impacts of Liquified Natural Gas exports and show they aren’t in the public’s interest. Reject major new export facilities like the CP2 carbon megabomb in Louisiana. Ban drilling on public lands and waters. Set aside new protected areas. Yes, Trump will be able to claw back some of these actions, but in some cases, doing so will require years of legal challenges. I’d rather we keep them busy trying to undo progress than actively doing damage.

It is completely understandable to feel demoralized right now. Take time to let this sink in. Take time to grieve. Support your friends and family to do the same. But remember, as Joan Baez said, “Action is the antidote to despair.” I’ve already felt the small flame of hope inside of me begin to burn brighter as I’ve gotten to plot with friends and colleagues about the fight ahead. The road won’t be easy, but it’s one we’ll walk together. Onwards.