Following President Trump’s most recent attack on wind turbines as a source of clean and renewable energy, The Washington Post is out with an article that frames his comments as part of a campaign strategy for 2020. The Post notes that the president has also “zeroed in on consumer issues such as energy-efficient appliances, carbon-reducing fuel standards and plastic straw bans” in an effort to contrast himself with the environmental policies of the Democrats. Mission accomplished, I would say! The article makes much of the president’s personal feelings on these issues, but the larger unifying factor is Trump’s use of hot-button issues to distract from the overwhelming and existential climate crisis that’s upon us. In this, the president is hardly acting only out of his own impulses, but advancing the interests of the oil and gas industries that have done so much to bring us to this awful point. He’s also obviously got his eye on stirring up a cultural clash between his base and the know-it-all liberals who don’t want Americans to use sippy straws or incandescent lightbulbs.
It is never anything but sickening to hear the most powerful man on the planet claim that climate change is not real, but as with his attacks on Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump is providing his opponents with powerful weapons that we can all use to bring this sordid presidency to an end in 2020. It’s not just that his remarks on such important topics are so deeply bizarre, misleading, and contradictory that, for example, the Post felt compelled to run a whole separate article on his latest wind power comments just to explain why the president isn’t as crazy as he sounds. Beyond this, Donald Trump’s anti-environment policies are built on a structure of interlocking and self-defeating lies that obscure a basic fact: his policies rip off, poison, and risk the planetary future of all Americans, his base and his opponents alike.
Take the White House’s reversal of an Obama-era policy to ban incandescent and halogen bulbs, to have been effective January 1, 2020. The Trump administration presents this as an economic victory for Americans, except that it’s not. The more energy-efficient bulbs might be more expensive up-front, but they would save the United States $14 billion in energy costs every year, along with eliminating 38 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. At the most basic level, Trump expects that most Americans don’t understand basic economics — that sometimes you need to pay more upfront to save money long-term. Instead, this common-sense idea is ignored in favor of a MAGA narrative in which a tyrannical government tries to micro-manage the bulb choices of Americans.
The same dynamic plays out in the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back auto emissions standards. It doesn’t take a math whiz to realize that Americans won’t benefit by paying more for gas to run their cars and trucks every years, even putting aside the broad environmental benefits. But why put aside the environmental benefits? - less exhaust in the air wouldn’t just help fight climate change, it would also help local air quality. This is to say nothing of how gas-guzzling American cars will be shunned by buyers abroad, as American manufacturers see market share taken away by environmentally-savvier competitors.
Things get weirder, but arguably even dicier for the president, as his critiques get narrower and more obscure. He’s been on a tear against low-flush toilets and water-efficient dishwashers, which as most people know are elements of a vicious plot to deny god fearing-Americans the grace of cleanliness. Indeed, according to the Post, Trump “has specifically asked for the chance to weigh in on a change to dishwasher standards that will be finalized next year.” Yet by the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimates, “the typical American family can save $380 in annual water costs and save more than 17 gallons of water each day by buying appliances that meet” upcoming energy standards. Why does Trump want us to waste an extra $400 year on literal waste?
Particularly frustrating, but also an area of great vulnerability for the president, is the enormous lie that rollbacks on environmental protections do no harm to the environment. According to White House spokesman Judd Deere, “While eliminating harmful and unnecessary regulations, this President has unleashed the American economy, provided greater regulatory certainty, achieved energy independence, and continued to safeguard the water supply and improve air quality.” The assertions that the president is either keeping water safe or improving air quality are demonstrably untrue. According to an analysis at CNBC, just a handful of Trump administration regulatory rollbacks are set to poison communities around the U.S. and accelerate global warming. From refusing to hold oil and gas producers responsible for methane emissions, to allowing industry and farmers to poison drinking water without consequence, to helping coal plants keep on chugging, Trump policies are set to degrade our environment and our health. It is one thing to make the case that environmental regulations hurt the economy — an argument, of course, that dismisses the right of all Americans to clean air and water — and quite another to simply lie about the inevitable results of your policies.
Donald Trump can try to pretend that all government action on the environment is a form of tyranny, but when he opposes policies that combat climate change while also saving Americans money, the lies start to come apart. Throw on an extra helping of self-serving mendacity about how more pollution means the environment is cleaner, and you’ve got a combustible mix of stupidity and lies waiting for his opponents to light it up and toss it back to him like a renewable energy Molotov cocktail.