
As we enter 2025 and this new political era, it is important to recognize the stark divisions of contemporary American life – ones that are not as simplistic or neatly political as the social media outrage machine or 24 hours news networks would have us believe.
On one side are the super-rich, fossil fuel corporations – whose executives watched Donald Trump’s inauguration from penthouse suites overlooking the White House – and their allied politicians. On the other side is everyone else. This majority of Americans includes families grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and whole communities either actively recovering from climate disasters or living in fear that their homes will be next. Most working people, regardless of political affiliation, want a government that responds to popular needs and concerns with solutions that benefit everyone—not just the elite few at the top.
The coming years will be marked by a federal government increasingly controlled by corporations and a ruling class whose grip on power depends on perpetuating the dangerous myth that there is no climate crisis. Industrial-scale fossil fuel pollution, which worsens year after year, is treated as benign. The basic science of the greenhouse effect, taught in every grade school, seemingly doesn’t apply to American oil company executives. To them, the fires, floods, droughts, and worsening social stratification are just a natural tradeoff for “American energy dominance.”
Trump’s day-one executive orders reveal everything we need to know about where his administration’s loyalties lie. They reflect the priorities of his major donors, not the American public. During his campaign, Trump openly requested $1 billion from Big Oil. Executive orders like declaring a “national energy emergency” and rubber stamping more LNG exports are the prize—a quid pro quo—rewarding those who financed his political rise.
Increasing LNG exports at this moment is especially perverse as the latest science and economic analysis from the Department of Energy concludes that unfettered LNG exports are not in the US public interest. LNG exports have already driven up US energy prices. Rubber stamping new export authorizations will only exacerbate the cost of living crisis for working people and concentrate deadly health impacts on local communities. These facts can’t be ignored forever and future administrations have authority to revoke authorizations. It should also be a signal to international buyers of US LNG that banking on increased US LNG is not a long term energy policy worth planning around.
The executive order to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement again will isolate America in international circles, reduce our influence over the global energy transition and cede climate leadership to other countries. The Paris Agreement itself, even without the US, is resilient and strong — it is a pact driven by the will of nearly every nation, backed by communities, businesses and countries committed to climate justice and ending fossil fuels.
Let’s be clear: no one is coming to “solve” the climate crisis for us. We are it and we will not be silenced. The responsibility to fight for a livable planet falls on us. We the people refuse to accept that a devastating status quo is all there is or ever will be.