A president who could end the world
TOM ENGELHARDT
Let's imagine for a moment that a nuclear bomb explodes over... well, take your pick: Pakistan, India, or, why not, Ukraine, Russia, or the United States. I guarantee you one thing: the news headlines would be (and I use the word deliberately) explosive for days (weeks, months?) straight, assuming, of course, that any media outlets remained to cover it. And yet, here's the strange thing: at this very moment, the equivalent of a massive, slow-motion nuclear explosion is taking place on our planet, and, mark me, where are the shocking headlines? Where is the shock? Why is this such ephemeral news (or no news at all)?
Why doesn't climate change make the headlines, except in very rare cases (or, which is itself rare, in The Guardian, which has a dedicated "climate crisis" section prominently displayed at the top of its daily online edition)? Yes, in the mainstream media, you can read about melting glaciers and the rising glacial lake level near Juneau, Alaska, or about flooding and the increasing rainy season in northern China, or about this summer's breathtaking heat and fires in Europe, or about the Trump administration's attack on wind power, or about the recent incredible nights of record temperatures in the Middle East—and, if you like, you can add it all up yourself. But don't expect our media to do the same, not with the kind of nonstop headlines that might fit the unfolding disaster we're increasingly facing on our planet, even if it's in what amounts to meteorological slow motion. And when climate change does appear in the news, it's very rare—unlike, say, the Covid epidemic a while back—that it's covered globally. When was the last time, for example, you saw all the raging or even record-breaking fires on this planet compiled into a single article? Yes, I know, there are occasional general articles about climate change, but compared to the daily headlines about whatever passing thing Donald Trump did or said days (or even hours) ago, they barely exist.
In news terms, in fact, his second presidency could be considered the news equivalent of an atomic explosion. Think of him, if you will, as the President of the Headlines, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, without ceasing and in a way that no other American president has ever been treated. Indeed, in news terms, his presidency has clearly been atomic, both figuratively and, in a way, literally. After all, he has made it his mission to ensure that fossil fuels in the United States (and the world) remain the preferred energy source and, as far as his career as president is concerned, an explosive financial resource that is currently inexhaustible. (In that context, it should surprise no one that The fossil fuel industry invested about $445 million in supporting and influence his last electoral campaign and those of his followers in Congress).
It is not surprising, then, that in his second term he made a great effort to expand the production of oil, gas and coal in this country, including the signing of "Four executive orders in April to help revive the beleaguered and polluting coal industry." Meanwhile, he's done everything he can to curb green energy in every way imaginable, including implementing new "Treasury Department restrictions on tax subsidies for wind and solar projects." And that's just the beginning of a long list. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that its subsidies to the fossil fuel industry will cost Americans $80 billion over the next decade. and, of course, they will cost the planet we live on much more.
Sadly, thanks to both Donald Trump and the media, most of the time many of us barely notice that, as I write this and you read it, the slow-motion equivalent of an atomic weapon is being produced on our planet. Meanwhile, the president remains the headline everyone shouts (both literally and figuratively) every day of the week. And yes, it's true that he matters. But does he really matter as much as the almost literal, albeit slow-motion, end of the world—at least as we've known it for all these endless centuries—that he is so distinctively (though generally underreportedly) helping to bring about? I don't think so. Unfortunately, judging by the last election (and much else besides), I seem to be in the distinct minority in this country when it comes to these issues.
However, I doubt that if, between his two presidencies, the media had covered the catastrophic development of climate change as they should have, a man who unashamedly favors the production of oil, natural gas, and coal—the ultimate sources of most of the greenhouse gas emissions now blanketing the planet—would have been elected president a second time. Yet, by and large, unlike Donald Trump or, say, the war in Ukraine, climate change receives only a secondary or passing mention in the daily news stream. Who cares if, with the very distinctive help of our president, we are in the process of essentially devastating this planet as a habitable place for humanity and much else besides?
Are we heading towards a “global nuclear winter”?
However, I don't want to focus solely on Donald Trump, which would be to diminish the merits of the rest of us. To begin with, and it must be acknowledged, it is no small feat that, in our time, human beings have devised two distinct and painfully distinctive ways of acting on planet Earth. Let us consider it a true miracle (albeit one rarely written about) that atomic energy has not been used again since the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were razed to the ground on August 6 and 9, 1945, to end World War II. It is almost inhumane of us to have let 80 years go by without trying to destroy anything with atomic energy again.
That has not prevented, however, eight other countries develop devastating nuclear arsenals, potentially capable of ending the world (and there will undoubtedly be more). Currently, it is estimated that there are around 12 nuclear weapons of various types on the planet, enough to destroy an almost unimaginable number of planets. Worse still, two of the countries that possess them, India and Pakistan, came close to starting a full-scale war between themselves, even going so far as to exchange conventional missiles, before agreeing to a ceasefire. And it must be borne in mind that if those countries were to use nuclear weapons against each other in what would still be considered a "limited" nuclear war, The result would most likely be not just almost unimaginable local destruction, but planetary devastation. The huge dust clouds from those nuclear explosions could block out the sun, leaving us in what has been called a global "nuclear winter", in which more than two billion people on this planet could die.
And though he's rarely thought of as such, Donald Trump isn't just a distinctly dystopian president, but also one who might bring about the end of the world. No, I'm not even referring to that recent moment when he announced he was moving two US nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles closer to… Oops, I almost wrote “the Soviet Union” (which just goes to show how desperately old I am—a bit older, in fact, than the first use of nuclear weapons on this planet). Yes, the correct word is, of course, Russia, or, as he put it, closer to the “appropriate regions” in response to what he called “highly provocative” comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
And consider that not just a threat, but a gesture that could end the world. (Never mind that he himself had long been concerned about atomic weapons, repeatedly warning of the possibility of a "Third World War."). And don't forget that this country recently also decided to re-station some of its nuclear weapons in Great Britain (which is already a nuclear power). Of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to those comments about submarines by insisting that his country "no longer considers itself bound by the self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles." And it should be noted that, at this point, China has the third largest and fastest growing arsenal of all.
In a sense, given the continued growth of these arsenals and the spread of such weapons across much of the globe (not to mention the recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities), The danger of a nuclear conflict appears to be clearly increasing.
Is hell on Earth coming?
Someday, if we humans are still here to remember the Trumpian moment in history and that first method of ultimate destruction hasn't been used again, humanity will undoubtedly find itself facing the second version head-on. After all, regardless of what he hasn't (yet) done regarding nuclear weapons, Donald Trump has fully embraced that second global nightmare. Think of it as his drive to create a world not of nuclear winter, but of climate summer.
Or perhaps it would be better and more accurate to simply think of our future as a clear and potentially overly literal hell on Earth. Imagine the global heat, fires, floods, whatever, that the future holds. Yes, some countries are working hard to implement alternative forms of energy that don't emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and turn this planet into a hell, but even those that are doing so aren't doing it fast enough.
Take China, for example. Its green energy installation—its solar and wind power—is not only greater than that of any other country on the planet, but exceeds that of all of them combined. What it has done in terms of building new green energy facilities could not be more impressive, as is its production of electric cars (unparalleled at this point on the planet, with more than 60% of global sales of such vehicles). However, before you start feeling too optimistic, also consider this: no country, not even all the others combined, burns more coal than China, nor is it building the number of new coal-fired power plants that that country still plans to open. In 2023, it accounted for 95% of new coal construction, A trend that seems to have continued to the present. Can you believe it?
And then, think about my own country, the (increasingly dis)united United States of America. It had done very little to eliminate fossil fuels even before Donald Trump entered the White House for the second time. After all, It was already the world's largest producer of crude oil and exporter of natural gas when Joe Biden became president. And despite his administration's modest attempts to address climate change, oil and gas production was—yes!— even greater when he left office (just as happened with Donald Trump in his first term).
And so it goes, apparently. It should be much stranger than it seems right now to live in a time when a slow-motion apocalypse of an almost unimaginable kind is unfolding, with a distinctly apocalyptic president in the White House stirring up a daily storm (on every topic except climate change). Yes, the fires, floods, heat waves, and droughts are all getting more intense on planet Earth. And in a world that, in its own way, seems to be going (literally) to hell, Donald Trump clearly seems determined to make that reality even worse. Even if atomic weapons are never used, we appear to be heading toward what could be considered the very opposite of a global nuclear winter. Think of it as a summer of global climate change, a slow-motion version of hell on Earth.
Can you believe it? Just thinking about it makes me sweat.
