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How to Work Harder for a Better World in the Age of Trump
Work harder to transform systems that are unjust, unsustainable, and inhumane. Work harder at helping those at risk. And work harder to understand others’ perspectives.
Nov 24, 2024
I’m one of the approximately 72 million people who voted for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, but this post is written for all my fellow Americans. When I awoke at 4:30 am on November 6 and learned the results of the election, including that my own district in Maine went for Donald Trump, I lay in bed and felt my heart racing. I noticed my harsh and brittle judgments. I experienced incomprehension, sorrow, and fear.
And then I went outside as the sky turned magenta. A loon cried mournfully. An eagle soared above my head. Unlike me, these other species had no idea what could befall them because of human decisions made the day before. But then I realized I couldn’t know the future myself. I had strong evidence to believe that the election results would speed the rate of global warming; reduce the minimal protections for other species; and erode the rights of many living in the U.S., but neither I, nor anyone else, knows the end of this story.
So I asked myself, “Now what?” and the answer for me was clear: Work harder. Work harder to transform systems that are unjust, unsustainable, and inhumane. Work harder at helping those at risk. And work harder to understand others’ perspectives so that bitterness and anger don’t eclipse curiosity and love and so that the persistent perception of “us and them” fades, even in my most private thoughts. I could think of no other way to build a future worthy of our capacity for good and where the dominant pronoun becomes we. We, the people. We, the inhabitants of Earth. We, the parts of ecosystems where all sentient life arises.
If we strive to be a campfire rather than a forest fire, we have a greater capacity to build coalitions that can make a positive difference.
My answer was “work harder” because I can; because I do not face the same risks as others; because, like everyone, I still have a part to play in the unfolding story; and because, as Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote to despair.”
What does “work harder” look like practically, especially for those of us who are not at particular risk? I offer the following image for how to work harder humanely and effectively whether we voted against this shift in our government, voted for it with concerns about its potential negative impacts, or didn’t vote at all.
Picture a clearing in the woods. There, in its center, is a glowing campfire, encircled by people drawn to its warmth and light. Now imagine what happens if too much fuel is added to that fire. Suddenly sparks fly and ignite a tree. The beautiful campfire transforms into a blazing forest fire, and everyone flees.
Metaphorically, we all have a fire inside of us. It is the fire of our passions, of love and hatred, joy and grief, empathy and fury. Some of us are more “fiery” than others, but no matter our nature, our internal fire impacts not just ourselves but also others around us. If we strive to be a campfire rather than a forest fire, we have a greater capacity to build coalitions that can make a positive difference. But at a time when many of our emotions are burning so hot, how can we be a campfire? One of the answers lies in determining the right kind and amount of fuel to consume.
What’s this metaphorical fuel? It’s the news and information to which we expose ourselves; the books and essays we read; the podcasts we listen to; the people we seek to learn from; the social media we peruse; and the communities of which we’re a part. We can ask ourselves if we are consuming the kinds of fuel that help us draw a range of people close so we are able to build healthy, collaborative communities to advance solutions to problems moving forward.
It’s possible that instead of drawing people toward us, they are fleeing because we are full of anger and doom, or, alternatively, because we are gloating and dismissive of others’ deep and legitimate fears. If we are fueling ourselves with media that inflames us, we may become less able to respond wisely. We may diminish opportunities to build bridges for positive action, and our potential for collaboration may go up in smoke.
For some, perhaps the conflagration has seared so deeply because we added so much fuel that we are now burnt out, reduced to embers, unable to contribute much at all. We may need to turn inward to regroup, knowing that before long we must rekindle ourselves.
If ever there was a time to tend our fire carefully, surely it is now. What we do at this moment matters. Even amid our strong emotions, it is imperative to focus on being a campfire and not let what others do or say determine how we behave, not only for the sake of others, but for our own sake, too.
Here are three steps we might take:
- To the greatest degree possible, strive to be a person who radiates warmth. There are many solutionary ways to build systems that are good for people, other species, and the environment, and communication across divides will be essential to build coalitions that temper potential inhumane and destructive outcomes. To do this, determine the best methods to calm your mind and strengthen your resolve. Warmth is not weak; it is not giving up or giving in. It is, rather, helpful in creating positive outcomes together.
- Avoid scrolling through hateful or gloating rhetoric, and for goodness sake, don’t share memes that fan the flames of outrage, name-calling, or boastfulness. Before you post or share anything, ask yourself if you are adding fuel that might be incendiary.
- Allow yourself to become as curious as possible about the perspectives of others. Whether you voted for Harris, Trump, a third party candidate, or no one, seek out the fuel of knowledge for the purpose of understanding. With understanding comes the possibility of finding common ground with your neighbors who voted differently than you, yet with whom you can still work for healthier, safer, more humane systems. There are solutions to problems that the great majority of us can agree upon.
Doing these things will not make everything OK. We face potentially catastrophic challenges and terrible suffering. It is not lost on me that fires are not just metaphors for this essay. In the last decade real forest fires have been raging with ever greater force and destruction largely because we’ve failed to take action to reduce carbon and methane emissions, something we could have done and still can do.
That said, not doing these things will make everything worse and, to double down on the fire metaphor, may burn bridges at precisely the time we most need to build them—with our neighbors, in our towns and cities, across the aisle in our state legislatures where cooperation and compromise often still occur, and as a nation of people who are mostly of goodwill and who share a desire for a future in which we and our descendants can flourish.
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Trump Picks Big Oil Ally and Drilling Enthusiast Doug Burgum for Interior
"Burgum is an oligarch completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans who cherish our natural heritage," said the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Nov 15, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has chosen billionaire North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a close ally of the fossil fuel industry and vocal proponent of oil drilling, to serve as head of the Interior Department in the incoming administration, a critical post tasked with overseeing hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and water.
Burgum, a friend of oil billionaire Harold Hamm, served as a kind of middleman between Trump's presidential campaign and the fossil fuel industry during the 2024 race. The Washington Postreported that Burgum's selection as interior secretary will "give Hamm expansive influence over policy related to drilling on public lands, at a time his company stands to benefit from the rule changes Trump envisions."
Burgum and Hamm have already worked to shape Trump's energy policy during the presidential transition, with Reutersreporting Thursday that the pair is leading the push for a repeal of electric vehicle tax credits—a key component of the Biden administration's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
During a fundraiser over the summer, Burgum said Trump could "on day one" move to unleash "liquid fuels," accusing the Biden administration of waging war on "American energy."
"Whether it's baseload electricity, whether it's oil, whether it's gas, whether it's ethanol, there is an attack on liquid fuels," Burgum declared.
"We're ready to fight Burgum and Trump's extreme agenda every step of the way."
Trump campaigned on a pledge to "drill, baby, drill" in the face of a fossil fuel-driven climate emergency that is wreaking deadly havoc in the United States and around the world. While the Biden administration has presided over record oil and gas production and approved many new drilling permits to the dismay of climate advocates, Trump has made clear that he intends to take a sledgehammer to any guardrails constraining the fossil fuel industry.
In Burgum, Trump will have an enthusiastic champion of oil and gas drilling in a Cabinet that is shaping up to be a boon for the fossil fuel industry. Burgum helped organize the dinner at which Trump urged the oil and gas industry to raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for tax breaks and large-scale deregulation.
"We're going do things with energy and with land—Interior—that is going to be incredible," Trump said late Thursday.
Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "Burgum is an oligarch completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans who cherish our natural heritage and don't want our parks, wildlife refuges, and other special places carved up and destroyed."
"We're ready to fight Burgum and Trump's extreme agenda every step of the way," Suckling added.
In his current capacity as North Dakota governor, Burgum is pushing a 2,000-mile carbon pipeline project set to be built by Summit Carbon Solutions with the stated goal of capturing planet-warming CO2 and storing it underground. Climate advocates have long derided carbon capture and storage—a method boosted by the fossil fuel industry—as a dangerous scam that can actually result in more emissions.
The Associated Pressreported earlier this year that "the blowback in North Dakota to the Summit project has been intense with Burgum caught in the crossfire."
"There are fears a pipeline rupture would unleash a lethal cloud of CO2," the outlet noted. "Landowners worry their property values will plummet if the pipeline passes under their land."
The North Dakota Public Service Commission is planning to meet Friday to vote on the project.
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An Overlooked SCOTUS Case Could Decide the Future of Nuclear Power
The case could determine whether artificial intelligence companies like Microsoft and Google can build a new generation of nuclear power plants but also further limit the power of regulatory agencies.
Oct 21, 2024
Although barely mentioned in the mainstream media, in
granting cert toInterim Storage Partners, LLC v. Texas, a case about the storage of spent radioactive fuel from nuclear power plants, the U.S. Supreme Court may have taken on potentially the most consequential case of its new term.
SCOTUS will decide whether or not to uphold a Fifth Circuit decision that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not have the legal power to license a private corporation to construct an off-site storage facility to hold deadly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
Depending on the legal rationale for SCOTUS’ decision, it could further enhance the power of courts to overturn decisions of regulatory agencies.
The case could determine whether artificial intelligence companies like Microsoft and Google can build a new generation of nuclear power plants to service the voracious hunger of artificial intelligence for electricity. Depending on its rationale, it could also impact the ability of regulatory agencies to function efficiently without being second guessed by courts.
The issues in the case have brought together an unlikely coalition of environmentalists, Texas Republicans, New Mexico Democrats, and the oil and gas industry against an equally unlikely grouping of the Biden administration, the nuclear power industry, and AI tech companies like Microsoft and Google.
The Legal Substance Issues
The environmental and legal issues in the case have a long history. The nuclear power industry has accumulated nearly 100,000 metric tons of radioactive waste that need to be deposited in a place that could be safe for millions of years. Most of the waste is now stored in temporary facilities adjacent to the power plants that create them, but such sites are running out of space and may not be safe long-term. During the 1980s Congress passed and amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act providing for a permanent waste site and then designating Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the sole site. But plans for the site were abandoned due to environmental and political opposition, leaving no permanent site for disposable nuclear waste.
In response, for the first time the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began to grant licenses for “interim” storage facilities which were off-site (and often hundreds of miles away) from the power plants which generated the waste, claiming authority under the Atomic Energy Act. One such license was for an off-site storage facility in the Permian Basin, Texas. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and a private oil and gas company sued, claiming that the federal government lacked the statutory authority to issue a license for interim off-site storage.
The conservative Fifth Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs, opining “Texas is correct. The Atomic Energy Act does not confer on the commission the broad authority it claims to issue licenses for private parties to store spent nuclear fuel away-from-the-reactor. And the Nuclear Waste Policy Act establishes a comprehensive statutory scheme for dealing with nuclear waste generated from commercial nuclear power generation, thereby foreclosing the commission’s claim of authority.”
The Fifth Circuit vacated the license. The U.S. Supreme Court just granted cert and will hear the case this term. Its decision will likely be highly consequential, both for environmental and AI development reasons, and for legal reasons.
Environmentally, the building of new nuclear power plants has been stalled for decades, both because of cost and because of environmental catastrophes like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima and anti-nuclear films like Mike Nichols’ Silkwood starring Meryl Streep.
The Role of High-Tech Companies in Expanding Nuclear for AI
But largely under the radar, the voracious demand for electricity to power AI is leading top high-tech companies like Microsoft and Google to reinvigorate nuclear energy. Goldman Sachs analysts say it takes nearly 10 times the energy to power a ChatGPT than a Google search—data center power center demand will grow by 160% in the next five years. Morgan Stanley projects global data center emissions to accumulate 2.5 billion metric tons carbon-dioxide equivalent by then.
Microsoft has contracted for the currently mothballed Three Mile Island plant to reopen and access its entire output for Microsoft’s data centers. The operator is seeking hundreds of millions in tax breaks from the federal government under President Joe Bidens’s Inflation Reduction Act, which it says are necessary to make the reopening economically feasible. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said in the past that federal subsidies could cut the cost of bringing a new plant online by as much as half.
In March an Amazon affiliate purchased a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania for $650 million.
It will be highly consequential if SCOTUS simply upholds the Fifth Circuit’s result, which would greatly slow high tech’s attempts to kick start nuclear power without time to reexamine the environmental dangers.
Just this week Google announced that it will support building seven small nuclear-power reactors in the U.S., to help power its growing appetite for electricity for AI and jump-start a U.S. nuclear revival.
The tech companies claim that reviving nuclear power will decrease CO2 emissions and help with global climate change. But they ignore the long-standing warnings of environmentalists of the potentially catastrophic dangers of nuclear power.
If SCOTUS upholds the Fifth Circuit decision outlawing the licensing of off-site nuclear waste dumps, it could considerably slow the renewed push for nuclear power, particularly by high-tech companies. That might give more time to evaluate the potential dangers of widespread renewal of nuclear power.
But depending on the legal rationale for SCOTUS’ decision, it could further enhance the power of courts to overturn decisions of regulatory agencies.
The Fifth Circuit used several rationales to block the license of temporary off-site nuclear waste facilities. The first, and least concerning, is its statutory holding that the Atomic Energy Act is “unambiguous” and “nowhere authorizes issuance of a materials license to possess spent nuclear fuel for any reason, let alone for the sole purpose of storing such material in a standalone facility.” If SCOTUS upholds the Fifth Circuit purely on statutory interpretation grounds, it would create few problematic precedents for regulatory agencies in general.
The Major Questions Doctrine
But the Fifth Circuit unnecessarily went further, holding that “even if the statutes were ambiguous, the [government’s] interpretation would not be entitled to deference by the courts” pursuant to the Chevron Doctrine, under which for previous decades, until recently rejected by the Roberts Court, judges deferred to the expertise of regulatory agencies when reasonably interpreting ambiguous statutes.
The Fifth Circuit cited SCOTUS’ precedent-setting 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, in which, for the first time, a conservative majority of SCOTUS justices relied on the “major questions” doctrine to overturn a major Environmental Protection Agency rule. Under the newly invented “major questions” doctrine, SCOTUS ruled that courts should not defer to agencies on matters of “vast economic or political significance” unless the U.S. Congress has explicitly given the agencies the authority to act in those situations.
Citing West Virginia v. EPA, the Fifth Circuit held that “[D]isposal of nuclear energy is an issue of vast ‘economic and political significance.’ What to do with the nation’s ever-growing accumulation of nuclear waste is a major questions that—as the history of the Yucca Mountain repository shows—has been hotly contested for over half a century.”
It’s questionable whether the Fifth Circuit needed to reach the issues concerning the major questions doctrine in order to block the waste depository. It had already decided that the statutes were “unambiguous” and therefore it was not necessary to decide what would happen if they were “ambiguous,” which is the only situation in which the major questions doctrine might arguably apply. If SCOTUS wants to affirm the Fifth Circuit’s result, it can simply agree that the statutes were unambiguous and treat the parts of the decision involving the major questions doctrine as mere dicta. That would set no additional precedent for when courts can question the expertise of regulatory agencies.
What Party Has the Right to Sue?
There’s also a procedural issue in the case, that depending on SCOTUS’ rationale, could set precedent allowing a wider range of entities to legally challenge regulatory agency decisions. Under the Hobbs Act, a “party aggrieved” by an agency’s final order may seek judicial review in a federal appeals court.
The NRC argued, however, that the plaintiffs were not parties aggrieved by the NRC’s licensing order because they were not parties to the underlying administrative proceeding. The Fifth Circuit cited its own precedent asserting that the Hobbs Act contains an “ultra vires” exception to the party aggrieved requirement when the petitioner attacks the agency action as exceeding its authority and therefore the plaintiffs had a right to sue.
In granting cert SCOTUS agreed to rule on two questions. First is the substance issue on whether the government exceeded its authority in granting the off-site nuclear storage license. The second is the procedural issue of whether an allegation of ultra vires can override statutory limitations on jurisdiction, as the Fifth Circuit held. If SCOTUS rules that the Fifth Circuit was wrong to grant jurisdiction to the plaintiffs, the likely result would be that the licenses for off-site nuclear waste facilities would go forward and expand.
It will be highly consequential if SCOTUS simply upholds the Fifth Circuit’s result, which would greatly slow high tech’s attempts to kick start nuclear power without time to reexamine the environmental dangers. At the same time, if SCOTUS also rules that the plaintiffs had an ultra vires right to sue, it could further cripple the ability of regulatory agencies to act to protect the public interest under broad grants of power.
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