By Joe Árvai
After four years of U.S. progress on efforts to deal with climate change under Joe Biden, Donald Trump’s return to the White House is swiftly swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction.
On his first day back, Trump declared a national energy emergency, directing agencies to use any emergency powers available to boost oil and gas production, despite U.S. oil and gas production already being near record highs and leading the world. He revoked Biden’s orders that had withdrawn large areas of the Arctic and the U.S. coasts from oil and natural gas leasing. Among several other executive orders targeting Biden’s pro-climate policies, Trump also began the process of pulling the U.S. out of the international Paris climate agreement – a repeat of a move he made in 2017, which Biden reversed.
None of Trump’s moves to sideline climate change as an important domestic and foreign policy issue should come as a surprise.
During his first term as president, 2017-2021, Trump repealed the Obama-era Clean Power Plan for reducing power plant emissions, falsely claimed that wind turbines cause cancer, and promised to “end the war on coal” and boost the highly polluting energy source. He once declared that climate change was a hoax perpetuated by China.
Since being elected again in November, Trump has again chosen Cabinet members who support the fossil fuel industry.
But it’s important to remember that while Donald Trump is singing from the Republican Party songbook when it comes to climate change, the music was written long before he came along.
Money, lies and lobbying
In 1979, the scientific consensus that climate change posed a significant threat to the environment, the economy and society as we had come to appreciate them began to emerge.
The Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, commissioned by the U.S. National Research Council’s climate research board, concluded then that if carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, there was “no reason to doubt that climate changes will result.” Since then, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by about 25%, and temperatures have risen with it.
The report also concluded that land use changes and the burning of fossil fuels, both of which could be subject to regulation, were behind climate change and that a “wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”
But none of this came as a surprise to the oil industry. Working behind the scenes since the 1950s, researchers working for companies such as Exxon, Shell and Chevron had made their leaders well aware that the widespread use of their product was already causing climate change. And coinciding with the Ad Hoc Study Group’s work in the late 1970s, oil companies started making large donations to national and state-level candidates and politicians they viewed as friendly to the interests of the industry.
Geoffrey Supran
The oil industry also implemented a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt about climate science and, in many cases, about their own internal research. The strategy, ripped from the pages of the tobacco industry playbook, involved “emphasizing uncertainty” to cast doubt on the science and calling for “balanced” science to sow confusion.
This strategy was helped by the creation and financial backing of lobbying organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Global Climate Coalition, both of which played central roles in spreading falsehoods and casting doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change.
By 1997, when 84 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, the oil industry had built an effective apparatus for actively discrediting climate science and opposing policies and actions that could help slow climate change. So even though President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1998, the United States Congress refused to ratify it.
Partisan politics and the psychology of belonging
The Kyoto Protocol experience demonstrated that the lobbying and disinformation tactics used by oil companies to discredit climate science could, on their own, be highly effective. But they alone didn’t shift climate change from a scientific question to an issue of partisan politics. Two additional ingredients for completing the transition were still absent.
The first of these came during the election campaign of 2000. At the time, the coverage of the major news networks converged on dividing the country into red states, which lean right, and blue states, which lean left.
This shift, though seemingly innocuous at the time, made politics even less about individual issues and more like a team sport.
Rather than asking people to construct their voting preferences based on a wide range of issues – from abortion and gun rights to immigration and climate change – votes could be earned by reminding and reinforcing for voters which team they should be cheering for: Republicans or Democrats.
This shift also made it easier for the fossil fuel industry to keep climate change off state and federal policy agendas. Oil companies could focus their money, lobbying and disinformation on Republican-controlled states and swing states where it would make the biggest difference. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, for example, that it was a red state senator, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who brought a snowball to the Senate floor in February 2015 to “prove” that the planet was not warming.
The final ingredient had everything to do with human nature. Building on the analogy of a rivalry in sports, the red vs. blue state dynamic tapped into the psychological and social forces that shape our sense of belonging and identity.
Subtle but powerful social pressures within groups can make it harder for people to accept ideas, evidence and arguments from those outside the group. Likewise, these within-group pressures lead to preferential treatment for members who are in alignment with the group’s perspectives, up to and including placing greater trust in those who appear to represent the group’s collective interests.
Within-group pressures also create stronger feelings of belonging among those who conform to the group’s internal norms, such as which political positions to support. In turn, stronger feelings of belonging serve to further reinforce the norms.
Where to from here?
Opposing or supporting action on climate change has become part of millions of Americans’ cultural identity.
However, doubling down on climate policies that are in lockstep with our own political leanings will serve only to strengthen the divide.
A more effective solution would be to set aside political differences and invest in building coalitions across the political spectrum. That starts by focusing on shared values, such as keeping children healthy and communities safe. In the wake of devastating fires in my own city, Los Angeles, these shared values have risen to the top of the local political agenda regardless of who my neighbors and I voted for. It’s clear to all of us that the consequences of climate change are very much in the here and now.
Natural disasters across the U.S. have also brought the risks of climate change home for many people across the country. This, in turn, has led to bipartisan action on climate change at the local and regional levels, and between government and the private sector.
The U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors from both parties who are working to advance efforts to slow climate change, is one such example. Another example is the many U.S. companies with ties to government that participate in the First Movers Coalition, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries that have proven difficult to decarbonize, such as steel, transportation and shipping.
But, unfortunately for climate action, examples like these are still an exception rather than the norm. And this is a problem because the current climate challenge is much bigger than a single city, state or even country. The past year, 2024, was the hottest on record. Many parts of the world experienced extreme heat waves and storms.
However, every movement has to start somewhere. Continuing to chip away at the partisan barriers that separate Americans on climate change will require even more coalition building that sets an example by being ambitious, productive and visible.
With the new Trump administration poised to target the recent progress made on climate change while preparing executive actions that will increase greenhouse gas emissions, there’s no better time for this work than the present.
Joe Árvai is Director of the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability and Professor of Psychology, Biological Sciences, and Environmental Studies at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
JimboXYZ says
Wat is the driver for climate change ? Big oil is just meeting demand of the individuals that continue to overpopulate. I know it’s going to hit some folks harder to hear it. But growing from 92K to 130+K and no end in sight for those that continue to add HP to their trucks & muscle cars. Might be time to look in that mirror & own anyone’s hand in it. Me I get 31/38 mpg, EPA rating. I ride a bike as often as possible to conserve fuel. When Alfin, Biden-Harris grow Flagler county & FL like it has. That has to be owned too. I can’t see what more I could cut back on. I draw the line on going without HVAC. And bear in mind, this is even with FPL ramping up the solar farms that are going on line. So we’ll pay more in our power bills to get those online. To say Biden-Harris succeeded, what a bunch of nonsense that is. Alfin & Biden needed that grid mandate to grow this area and ten so grossly underfunded it that it’s just this mess that we are in the middle of. Nice of them to spend the money that nobody has. Here’s a suggestion, stop having babies ? That’ll also save us from building 2 schools at $ 405 million, it would’ve stopped us from needing & being forced to build a $ 250 Million Sewage Treatment Facility. Look in the mirror, if you were piling it on those of us that didn’t add to the problem. I know I reduced consumption where I could, it’s glamorous life, but I’m certain in the upcoming years there’s going to more cramming it down my throat that I have to pay more for less. I’m not the only one paying more & getting less, going without even. Thanks to those who sandbagged our lives over the last 4 years ? I’m sure they got paid well for doing that. Done with being a victim, No will be a word that is used more often. Get used to hearing that from me, even more than I’ve ever said No ! Don’t like it, go somewhere else, I’m not paying for any more half-witted schemes that just make matters worse. Don’t cloak those schemes in DEI&B or whatever stupidity the mentally ill conjure up. The stupid rednecks aren’t empowered either. You don’t need a boat, a 4WD, motorcycles and whatever other idiotic hobbies you have that do nothing more than increase carbon footprint. Those EV’s aren’t a solution either.
Ben Hogarth says
I think the “answer” as to how “big oil / gas” was so easily able to sabotage public policy over the decades was simply – economics. All they had to do was scare the average blue-collar (and even white collar) families into the idea that transforming american energy from the (now) traditional oil and gas to renewable energy, would put thousands or millions out of a job. Ironically, the introduction of renewable energy has created jobs – many many jobs.
But the point is that it is easy to sell americans on fear. It is easy to keep americans hooked on the status quo because a known suffering is better than the unknown. It is easy to dissuade americans through misinformation and disinformation campaigns because who cares about facts when it’s much more satisfying to see your side of the argument “win.” It is easy to convince americans of a lie than to convince them they have been lied to. It is easy to keep americans down in the dirt because getting up isn’t easy.
We know how politics work and we know how elections are won. Michael Douglas’ presidential character in “The American President” said it best: “I’ve known Bob Rumson （conservative） for years, and I’ve been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn’t get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character.”
The GOP, the oil tycoons and robber barons of the 21st Century… all of them are “Bob Rumson’s.” Their problem isn’t the science and facts, it’s that they can’t sell it. SO instead, they practice the 5 D’s of advanced political dodgeball: they dodge, deflect, deride, dissuade, and dodge. And when that doesn’t work, they grandstand and use parliamentary tactics in Congress to block any chance for reform and passage of meaningful policy that could help uplift this nation from the shackles of fossil fuels.
But I have a secret to share with those few of you still reading. It doesn’t matter. We all could end fossil fuel emissions tomorrow, globally, and this planet is now absolutely locked-in for a hell of a ride over the coming years and decades. Global warming and climate change will continue to deteriorate global economics. Pandemics, Category 5 level storm events, famine, food shortages, supply chain disruption, and human conflict (war) are all coming to your living room. It’s not a question of philosophy or politic… or even science now. It’s math. Cold, hard, calculation of cause and effect. And anyone who has paid attention to the “math” knows just how absolutely devastating the next few years will be, catalyzing what will functionally be the end of human civilization as we have known it the past few centuries. I don’t know what comes after it, but I do know that this is coming and there is absolutely no stopping it now. The oil tycoons won. They got their years of joy and pillaging the public coffers. They will die in their beds having led whatever enriched lives they did for the time and period they did. Laughing all the way to the bank while the average American argues in their kitchen and living rooms about how to pay their utility bill and buy groceries.
So if things are already that bad for us, what will the very near future look like? Well, Florida is ground zero for sea level rise and water quality / environmental devastation. South Florida will in the coming few decades end around Boca Raton. But Floridians won’t need to wait for then to get in on some of the action. Coastal communities and condo associations are rapidly becoming the game of hot-potato and musical chairs. Very very soon the insurance industry will retract entirely, and some locations will be uninsurable at all. With the GOP running the show the insurers also won’t have to come good on claims by their insureds. They will just grind you down in paperwork and red tape through attrition without any government to protect you. In other words, the home you are sitting in right now could be worthless and the parcels you own something that will not be transferrable or sellable in the future. You are stuck. What effects do you think that will have on macroeconomics? Think about the Dominoe effect.
Meanwhile, global food supplies will dry up as crop losses worldwide cause third world nations to enter into an era of permanent famine and destitution. Do you think this will decrease or increase the movement of humans as refugees? What about conflict? War? Genocide? And the pandemics and diseases to come will make Covid actually look like a mild cold even though it absolutely wasn’t. Covid had around a 3% mortality rate at its height and worse hit areas. Bird flu averages in mortality range of between 30% and 80% depending on a series of conditional factors but averaging 50%. I call it the “Thanos virus” for a reason.
I’m done belaboring the point on climate change. I’m also done trying to convince my fellow citizens of the need for action and reform. The game is over. All I can do now is help educate about the coming impacts and effects. And remember too that all of what I have said is about legacy (existing) pollution and not the acceleration of pollution that we sound committed towards with the new world order. SO best of luck to everyone. You’re going to need it. Because humans have selected themselves for extinction within the next 100 years. That’s not rhetoric. That’s math.
Laurel says
Ben Hogarth: As dreary as that sounds, you may be correct. I knew all this was coming, I just never thought I’d see so much of it in my lifetime. I keep hoping that science will overcome. However, it is way too clear that the public can be so manipulated over such utter nonsense as a trans using what bathroom.
Now, it’s the oligarchs. Half the people in the U.S. believe this handful of abundantly rich people are going to saint-like save us. They won’t. But here’s the thing: the Earth rights itself. Humans are overrunning the planet, and Musk wants more. So what, right? When the Earth gets out of natural balance, it will react to balance itself again. It will rid itself of us. Like George Carlin said “It will shake us off like fleas.” Maybe Musk will be sitting, happily, in a bubble on Mars. Here, plants will grow in the cracks of pavements, and take over buildings. More aggressive animals will evolve into other types of creatures. The Earth will right itself again.
Pogo says
@BH is right
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=On+The+Beach
On the beach, every day — all over the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A10XOjcQRfQ
Hey Mitch — how’s the weather where your lying ass, and soul, is headed?
Sherry says
Thank you Ben, Laurel and Pogo! Unfortunately, I’m very much afraid that your sage observations are completely disregarded by the members of the Maga cult. Their complete madness has essentially doomed the human population on planet earth.