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renewable energy
Trump Keeps Declaring Fake Emergencies That Make Our Real Emergency Worse
Pre-Trump, there was one true emergency on our planet—its rapid heating. Now of course there’s another—the implosion of economies.
Apr 09, 2025
We are living through a week unlike any other in my lifetime; maybe the last truly comparable stretch was the bank closure that marked the start of the FDR administration, but then the president was there to tell Americans they had nothing to fear; now we have a president who can only insist we “take our medicine.” He is constantly hyping the fear, and he is doing it with the constant invocation of a word—”emergency”—designed to send us into ever-deeper panic.
So I’ve been doing my best to think as calmly about that word as I can, with the hope that it will offer at least a bit of mental pathway through this horror and perhaps point toward the exit.
Let’s start with one of the less-noticed executive orders of the past week—by no means the most important, though if it is carried out it will probably affect more square miles of the U.S. than any other. This is a memorandum from Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture and hence the overseer of America’s vast National Forests. In it she declares “an emergency situation on America’s National Forest system lands.”
This emergency on our national forests, in the administration’s view, is
due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species, and other stressors whose impacts have been compounded by too little active management.
For example: • The 2023 Wildfire Hazard Potential for the Unites States report identifies 66,940,000 acres of NFS lands under a very high or high fire risk.
• Roughly 78,800,000 acres of NFS lands are already experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing, insect and disease infestations.
As a result, the Forest Service is commanded to dramatically increase the amount of logging on these forests, exempting them from the longstanding system of oversight and challenge from communities and tribes affected by logging. Forest supervisors have been told to increase the volume of timber offered for sale on our lands by at least 25%.
Now, as many of us have been patiently explaining for years, the biggest cause of increased fire on our forests is the dramatic increase in global temperatures that has extended fire season in California virtually year-round, and for extra months on either end across the West. The biggest infestation of insects has come from pine bark beetles, and that is directly tied to a fast-warming climate. As Cheryl Katz explained almost a decade ago:
Bark beetles are a natural part of the conifer forest life cycle, regularly flaring and fading like fireworks. But the scope and intensity in the past two decades is anything but normal, scientists say, in large part because rising temperatures are preventing the widespread winter die-off of beetle larvae, while also enhancing the beetles’ killing power. Not only are the insects expanding into new territory, they’re also hatching earlier and reproducing more frequently. New infestations become full-blown with astonishing speed, and the sheer numbers of beetles exceeds anything forest experts have seen before. [One expert] says he’s seen spruce beetle epidemics in Utah so intense that when the insects had killed all the trees, they began attacking telephone poles.
To the extent that forests needed thinning to reduce wildfire risk (and it’s not at all clear that it does), the Biden administration worked to get the effort underway, spending $4 billion on the work—in some areas they were ahead of schedule, and in others behind, but overall
“the scale of spending is unprecedented,” said Courtney Schultz with Colorado State University. The forest policy expert said millions of acres had been through environmental review and were ready for work.
“If we really want to go big across the landscape—to reduce fuels enough to affect fire behavior and have some impact on communities—we need to be planning large projects,” she said.
Where the work was lagging, it was largely the result of a lack of bodies—something that will be considerably harder now that the Forest Service has laid off 3,400 workers. But at any rate, the new logging mandated under the “emergency declaration” isn’t the careful thinning work that might reduce fire intensity—instead, the forest industry is getting access to what it really wants, large stands of big trees. It is, in other words, a money grab by vested interests that supported Trump’s campaign.
That new cutting will make climate change worse, because as we now understand that letting mature forests continue to grow is the best way to sequester carbon. Meanwhile, cutting down those forests will mean far fewer trees to hold back the increasing downpours that climate change is producing. (A new study released yesterday showed that even in areas of the West where climate change is drying out forests and increasing blazes, there’s also a big jump in deluges—what one expert called an “eye-popping.”) I remember sitting down with the chief of the Forest Service under former President Bill Clinton, almost three decades ago, and even then he said the service’s internal data showed the greatest dollar value of the forestlands was water retention, not timber.
So, to summarize: We’ve invented an emergency where none exists. (The only thing even resembling an emergency in timber supply will come if we continue to tariff Canadian producers). We’ve abandoned most of the slow and patient work to deal with a problem, and replaced it with a boondoggle designed to increase short-term profits for Trump donors. That will juice the one actual emergency we do face worse—the rapid increase in global temperature—and it will make the effects of that emergency harder to deal with.
I’d submit that the “emergency” that Trump is actually responding to—the one that motivated his Big Oil donors to donate half a billion dollars in the last election cycle—is the rapid increase in renewable energy deployment.
This pattern more or less holds across the board. Each “emergency” we’re supposedly dealing with is, at worst, a long-term problem that needs serious and patient work, work that had begun in earnest under the Biden administration. Fentanyl deaths and illegal border-crossings—which if you can remember back three weeks ago were the original “emergency” justifying tariffs on Canada and Mexico—had both been falling sharply in the last year. The “emergency” justifying tariffing every country on Earth and also the penguins was the exact opposite of an emergency: a 50-year hollowing out of industrial areas, which again had begun to reverse because of the Inflation Reduction Act—specifically targeted by the Trump administration for reversal. As The Washington Postpointed out this week, a “stunning number” of battery and EV factories have been canceled in the last month, most of them in red states.
According to data from Atlas Public Policy, a policy research group, more projects were canceled in the first quarter of 2025 than in the previous two years combined. Those cancellations include a $1 billion factory in Georgia that would have made thermal barriers for batteries and a $1.2 billion lithium-ion battery factory in Arizona.
“It’s hard at the moment to be a manufacturer in the U.S. given uncertainties on tariffs, tax credits, and regulations,” said Tom Taylor, senior policy analyst at Atlas Public Policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investments appear to be stalled, he added, but haven’t been formally canceled yet.
“It’s working-class people in places like Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan, and Arizona that have seen some of these projects get canceled,” Keefe said. “And I can tell you who’s benefiting—China and other countries that are doubling down.”
I said before that there was one true emergency on our planet—its rapid heating. Now of course there’s another—the implosion of economies, likely to lead (if history is its usual guide) to military conflict. But I’d submit that the “emergency” that Trump is actually responding to—the one that motivated his Big Oil donors to donate half a billion dollars in the last election cycle—is the rapid increase in renewable energy deployment.
Reutersreported over the weekend that, for the first time in American history, less than half of electricity generated in March came from fossil fuels: “More power was instead generated using renewable sources such as wind and solar, which in March reached an all-time high of 83 terawatt hours.” It’s wonderful news, of course, heralding the chance at a new world. But that’s the crisis that Big Oil faces, and to fight it they’ve been willing to drag us all down.
It’s small comfort that the man they picked to do that job, Donald Trump, is so stupid that in the process of wrecking the American economy he’s actually putting big pressure on the oil industry too. He’s doing his best: Alone among industries, fossil fuel was exempted from tariffs, in what The Guardiancalled “a clear sign of the president’s fealty to his big oil donors over the American people,” and yesterday he commanded the Department of Justice to try and stop states from suing the oil industry or enforcing the Climate Superfund laws that charge Exxon et al. for the bridges and roads that taxpayers must constantly rebuild. (Trump comically called these efforts “extortion,” even as he attempts to blackmail every country on Earth, plus of course the penguins, with his tariffs). Trump’s even trying to boost coal this week, even though the data shows that 99% of the time it would be cheaper to build new renewables.
But the damage he’s doing to the world economy threatens to spill over to the oil industry—as the price of a barrel plummets, the chances of drilling new wells plummets too. According to the Times yesterday, Harold Hamm—Trump’s industry bundler—was wondering how to explain to the president that “when you get down to that $50 oil that you talked about, then you’re below the point that you’re going to drill, baby, drill.” Fossil fuel stocks have fallen sharply. Ha ha.
But in reality there’s one immediate and overwhelming emergency. It’s name is TrumpMuskVance, and it’s threatening to engulf almost everything in its unholy flames. People—even a few senators (thank you Cory Booker)—have begun pulling the alarms, and the volunteer fire company has begun to respond (such thanks to all who came out for the Hands Off rallies this weekend). We’re going to need quick wits, courage, incredibly hard work, and some real luck to put out this moronic inferno—but that’s the job of being a citizen in 2025. You matter as a political actor, more than any of us ever have before; I’ll make sure you know of the opportunities to put your talents to use!
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A Different 'Abundance Agenda': Avoiding Delusions and Diversions
If there is to be a decent human future—perhaps if there is to be any human future—it will be fewer people consuming less energy and creating less stuff.
Mar 30, 2025
For the next few weeks, the buzzword in US debates on the liberal/left about economics and ecology will be “abundance” after the release of the book with that title by Ezra Klein (New York Times) and Derek Thompson (The Atlantic magazine).
The book poses politically relevant questions: Have policies favored by Democrats and others on the political left impeded innovation with unnecessary red tape for building projects? Can regulatory reform and revitalized public investment bring technological progress that can solve problems in housing, infrastructure, energy, and agriculture? The book says yes to both.
Those debates have short-term political implications but are largely irrelevant to the human future. The challenge is not how to do more but how to live with less.
All societies face multiple cascading ecological crises—emphasis on the plural. There are many crises, not just climate change, and no matter what a particular society’s contribution to the crises there is nowhere to hide. The cascading changes will come in ways we can prepare for but can’t predict, and it’s likely the consequences will be much more dire than we imagine.
If that seems depressing, I’m sorry. Keep reading anyway.
Rapid climate disruption is the most pressing concern but not the only existential threat. Soil erosion and degradation undermine our capacity to feed ourselves. Chemical contamination of our bodies and ecosystems undermines the possibility of a stable long-term human presence. Species extinction and loss of biodiversity will have potentially catastrophic effects on the ecosystems on which our lives depend.
Why aren’t more people advocating limits? Because limits are hard.
I could go on, but anyone who wants to know about these crises can easily find this information in both popular media and the research literature. For starters, I recommend the work of William Rees, an ecologist who co-created the ecological footprint concept and knows how to write for ordinary people.
The foundational problem is overshoot: There are too many people consuming too much in the aggregate. The distribution of the world’s wealth is not equal or equitable, of course, but the overall program for human survival is clear: fewer and less. If there is to be a decent human future—perhaps if there is to be any human future—it will be fewer people consuming less energy and creating less stuff.
Check the policy statements of all major political players, including self-described progressives and radicals, and it’s hard to find mention of the need to impose limits on ourselves. Instead, you will find delusions and diversions.
The delusions come mainly from the right, where climate-change denialism is still common. The more sophisticated conservatives don’t directly challenge the overwhelming consensus of researchers but instead sow seeds of doubt, as if there is legitimate controversy. That makes it easier to preach the “drill, baby, drill” line of expanding fossil fuel production, no matter what the ecological costs, instead of facing limits.
The diversions come mainly from the left, where people take climate change seriously but invest their hopes in an endless array of technological solutions. These days, the most prominent tech hype is “electrify everything,” which includes a commitment to an unsustainable car culture with electric vehicles, instead of facing limits.
There is a small kernel of truth in the rhetoric of both right and left.
When the right says that expanding fossil energy production would lift more people out of poverty, they have a valid point. But increased production of fossil energy is not suddenly going to benefit primarily the world’s poor, and the continued expansion of emissions eventually will doom rich and poor alike.
When the left says renewable energy is crucial, they have a valid point. But if the promise of renewable energy is used to prop up existing levels of consumption, then the best we can expect is a slowing of the rate of ecological destruction. Unless renewables are one component of an overall down-powering, they are a part of the problem and not a solution.
Why aren’t more people advocating limits? Because limits are hard. People—including me and almost everyone reading this—find it hard to resist what my co-author Wes Jackson and I have called “the temptations of dense energy.” Yes, lots of uses of fossil fuels are wasteful, and modern marketing encourages that waste. But coal, oil, and natural gas also do a lot of work for us and provide a lot of comforts that people are reluctant to give up.
That’s why the most sensible approach combines limits on our consumption of energy and rationing to ensure greater fairness, both of which have to be collectively imposed. That’s not a popular political position today, but if we are serious about slowing, and eventually stopping, the human destruction of the ecosphere, I see no other path forward.
In the short term, those of us who endorse “fewer and less” will have to make choices between political candidates and parties that are, on the criteria of real sustainability, either really hard-to-describe awful or merely bad. I would never argue that right and left, Republican and Democrat, are indistinguishable. But whatever our immediate political choices, we should talk openly about ecological realities.
That can start with imagining an “abundance agenda” quite different than what Klein and Thompson, along with most conventional thinking, propose. Instead of more building that will allegedly be “climate friendly,” why not scale back our expectations? Instead of assuming a constantly mobile society, why not be satisfied with staying home? Instead of dreaming of more gadgets, why not live more fully in the world around us? People throughout history have demonstrated that productive societies can live with less.
Instead of the promise of endless material abundance, which has never been consistent with a truly sustainable future, let’s invest in what we know produces human flourishing—collective activity in community based on shared needs and reduced wants. For me, living in rural New Mexico, that means being one of the older folks who are helping younger folks get a small-scale farm off the ground. It means being an active participant in our local acequia irrigation system. It means staying home instead of vacationing. It means being satisfied with the abundant pleasures of this place and these people without buying much beyond essentials.
I’m not naïve—given the house I live in, the car I drive, and the food I buy from a grocery store, I’m still part of a hyper-extractive economy that is unsustainable. But instead of scrambling for more, I am seeking to live with less. I know that’s much harder for people struggling to feed a family and afford even a modest home. But rather than imagining ways to keep everyone on the consumption treadmill, only with more equity, we can all contribute ideas about how to step off.
Our choices are clear: We can drill more, which will simply get us to a cruel end game even sooner. We can pretend that technology will save us, which might delay that reckoning. If we can abandon the delusions and diversions, there’s no guarantee of a happy future. But there’s a chance of a future.
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Greenpeace Protests EU Gas Imports That Empower 'Autocrats' and 'Political Bullies'
"Energy sovereignty through renewables is no longer just an environmental necessity, it is a matter of security," one campaigner said.
Mar 27, 2025
Carrying banners reading, "Their gas, your cash" beside images of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, eight members of Greenpeace Belgium took to the sea on Thursday to protest the arrival of U.S. and Russian liquefied natural gas imports into the port of Zeebrugge, as part of a larger campaign to push the European Union to abandon fossil gas by 2035.
Greenpeace activists faced off against the U.S. Marvel Swallow on board the Greenpeace vessel the Arctic Sunrise, as well as in smaller inflatable boats, according to a statement. Greenpeace Belgium further reported on social media that the group also confronted a Russian gas tanker. The campaigners argued that, in addition to worsening the climate crisis, relying on methane gas imports for its energy puts the E.U. at the mercy of foreign strongmen.
"Autocrats like Putin fund their wars with gas revenues, while political bullies like Trump use their dominance as gas suppliers to pressure European countries economically and politically," Greenpeace Belgium spokesperson Joeri Thijs said from the Arctic Sunrise. "Meanwhile, families and communities struggle with soaring energy bills and extreme weather fueled by fossil gas. This dependence leaves us all vulnerable. Energy sovereignty through renewables is no longer just an environmental necessity, it is a matter of security."
❗ We’re in action RIGHT NOW. ❗ The Arctic Sunrise is currently confronting both a Russian and an American gas tanker set to Zeebrugge with fossil gas. We are here to say: our energy bill HAS TO STOP fueling Trump’s US nor Putin’s Russia. #StopFossilGas #TheirGasYourCash
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— Greenpeace Belgium (@greenpeace.be) March 27, 2025 at 7:35 AM
The protest comes roughly two months after Trump declared an energy emergency in the U.S. in a bid to increase fossil fuel production. While the U.S. emerged as the world's largest LNG exporter under former President Joe Biden, the Biden administration also paused approvals of new LNG exports while it conducted a study into their impacts. The results of that study, released in December, confirmed the warnings of climate advocates that sending LNG abroad would exacerbate the climate crisis and the local pollution burden of frontline communities while raising domestic energy prices.
After taking office, however, Trump promptly reversed the Biden pause, and, earlier this month, conditionally approved exports from Venture Global's controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 terminal in coastal Louisiana. There are now signs that European leaders may cave to Trump's desire to export more U.S. fossil gas in an attempt to avoid tariffs. The U.S. is already the leading fossil gas importer to the E.U., at 45% in 2024.
When it comes to Russian gas, the E.U. has had sanctions in place against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and launched a ban on the transshipment of Russian LNG at E.U. ports on Wednesday. Yet, the bloc has had a hard time weaning itself off of Russian gas—imports rose by 18% during 2024 as Russia became the its second-leading source of methane gas imports. The E.U. also spent more on Russian oil and gas than it delivered in aid to Ukraine.
"Europe's overreliance on fossil gas leads to rising energy bills, sickness, deaths, destruction of nature, and climate chaos."
"The E.U.'s dependence on fossil fuel imports, with all the problems that brings, can't be broken without a wholesale move to renewable energy and a clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels, including fossil gas," Thomas Gelin, energy and climate campaigner at Greenpeace E.U., said in a statement. "The first step must be an immediate ban on all new fossil fuel projects in the E.U.; it's senseless to prepare for more fossil fuels than we need. No new pipelines, no new gas terminals, no half-measures: a ban on all new fossil fuel projects, pure and simple."
The E.U. has succeeded in curbing its gas demand by 20% between 2021 and 2024, and overall imports fell by 19% last year. Greenpeace is calling on the bloc to build on that success with a ban on all new fossil fuel projects, a ban on investments in fossil fuels, and a phaseout of fossil gas by 2035. An open letter to member countries making these demands has been signed by over 81,000 people.
"Europe's overreliance on fossil gas leads to rising energy bills, sickness, deaths, destruction of nature, and climate chaos," the letter reads. "Fossil gas is a dirty, deadly fossil fuel like oil and coal. This is why the European Union and its member states must act now and #StopFossilGas and all other fossil fuel projects before it's too late."
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