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"Big Oil and the gas industry knew decades ago that methane was a harmful climate pollutant, but they manufactured the myth of ‘clean’ natural gas in order to protect and expand their business."
Gas companies knew about the climate harms of natural gas much earlier than previously thought and downplayed them to the public, according to a new trove of documents unearthed by an environmental activist group on Monday.
A report released Monday by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) found that—much like Big Oil had deceived the public about the planet-heating impact of oil—gas companies that pushed their product as a "clean" alternative had downplayed natural gas' production of methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years.
The report, which was created through an examination of newly discovered documents and confidential reports, as well as expert interviews, determines that the industry was aware of these harms as far back as 1968, when a report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute found that methane in the atmosphere was connected to “oil fields” and “[gas] distribution system leakage."
"Big Oil and the gas industry knew decades ago that methane was a harmful climate pollutant, but they manufactured the myth of ‘clean’ natural gas in order to protect and expand their business, with no regard for public health or the climate impacts that they knew would result,” said Richard Wiles, president of CCI.
The report examines how the American Gas Association (AGA), an industry group representing many industry giants, hired top public relations firms to change the nation's perceptions of gas as a dangerous pollutant.
Despite acknowledging behind the scenes that they lacked “clear, simple, substantiating facts" to vouch for its safety, industry ad campaigns sought to associate gas with nature, simplicity, and cleanliness. One campaign emphasized that it was "cleaner than coal" and created "virtually no emissions."
The industry also created its own research institute to peddle studies to the public that disrupted a growing consensus around the dangers of methane by emphasizing the uncertainty of the findings and casting doubt on their connection to natural gas.
All the while, internal industry research was finding that methane was not only a major driver of the greenhouse effect, but was being released in far greater quantities than previously known, to the point where it was just as dirty, if not dirtier than coal.
Despite this, the industry helped to keep the "myth" of clean natural gas alive for decades. In the 1990s, the industry funded and provided much of the underlying data for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study concluding that the amount of methane produced by natural gas was low enough that it could be considered a "bridge fuel" to reduce emissions.
Though later research would demonstrate that the study had vastly underestimated the amount of methane being emitted by gas producers, the damage had been done, and the number was cited by the industry for decades to promote its product as a green alternative.
According to a poll conducted by CCI with Data for Progress, 50% of likely voters still believe that natural gas is a form of "clean energy."
“The fraud of clean natural gas has been essential to the industry’s success in the marketplace, and the idea that gas is climate-friendly has been at the heart of the rapid expansion of gas infrastructure over the last two decades,” the report says.
The Center for Climate Integrity has argued that fossil fuel companies should be required to compensate the public for decades of deception that has contributed to the climate crisis.
"Officials who continue to justify expanding natural gas reliance by still claiming it’s clean or safe for the climate are using the same script and manipulated science that gas executives and their PR teams concocted decades ago," Wiles said. "It’s time that these profoundly dangerous lies are finally put to rest. By exposing the gas industry’s deception, we can get one step closer to accountability.”
Can the coalition supporting a fossil fuel phaseout successfully put their road map back into the text, or will petrostrates like Saudi Arabia, backed up by the Trump administration, kill the deal?
Sometimes the metaphors are just too on the nose: On Thursday, the venue for the COP30 climate talks here in Belém, Brazil literally caught fire as delegates continued to wrestle with how to stop the climate from burning. I was just down the hallway from the blaze and was caught up in the confusion as people started running from the flames and out of the huge tented structure. Thankfully, volunteers and Brazilian firefighters responded before anyone was seriously injured and the fire was put out soon after it began.
If only the rest of the talks could move so quickly. When it comes to the larger climate fires still raging across the planet, some countries seem content to pretend it isn’t happening, while others are teaming up with the fossil fuel industry to gleefully pour more fuel on the flames.
Thursday night, the presidency released a new draft text that removed any mention of a road map to eliminate fossil fuels, something more than 80 countries, including the host country of Brazil, have pledged their support behind. It’s the equivalent of pointing at the flames and smoke filling the conference venue and saying, “What could that possibly be? We certainly don’t want to say the word fire.”
The pushback to the latest text was swift. Later on Thursday night, 29 countries sent a letter to the Brazilian COP presidency threatening to block any agreement that didn’t include the fossil fuel phaseout road map. Then this morning, Colombia hosted a packed press conference with Panama, the Netherlands, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, and others to demand COP produce the road map and a just transition plan.
Whether or not countries can agree to a road map to phase out fossil fuels here in Belém, that’s clearly the journey we’re on.
“Not even Orwell could come up with something as absurd as this: something where the truth is edited out because it offends polluters,” said Panama's lead negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey to widespread applause.
Colombia also announced that this March it will host the first ever global conference on the phaseout of fossil fuels. The conference is closely connected with the push for a new Fossil Fuel Treaty that would help end the production and distribution of fossil fuels, an effort that 18 countries and thousands of cities, states, and organizations have now endorsed.
We’ll see over the next 24 hours whether the coalition supporting a fossil fuel phaseout, the climate firefighters, can successfully put their road map back into the text, or whether the arsonists, petrostrates like Saudi Arabia, backed up by the Trump administration, can kill the deal.
Having been to a dozen COPs and watched many of these last minute fights, my guess is that we get some weak, compromised language. There will be two ways to look at that outcome, both of them true: On the one hand, it will be an empty promise and pathetic abdication of responsibility, on the other, another step forward in the fight to end fossil fuels, a fight that we’ve always known would take years and a massive global movement to win.
No matter what comes out of the text, I’ve been inspired to see that movement gaining momentum again. The last few years have been tough for the global climate movement. The Covid-19 pandemic squashed much of the energy created by the Global Climate Strikes in 2019. Over the last year, much of civil society has been focused (rightfully) on the genocide in Gaza or the rise of right-wing authoritarianism around the world. With the last three COPs taking place in Egypt, UAE, and Azerbaijan, there’s been little space for demonstrations, let alone mass protests.
And yet, there are green shoots popping up everywhere you look. Last week at COP30, Indigenous leaders marched on the conference center to ensure that their voices and concerns were being heard within the process. Over the weekend, over 70,000 people took the streets of Belém to demand climate justice. Inside the conference venue, there have been dozens of actions, including a big Make Polluters Pay demonstration we helped organize (I got to play a Big Oil CEO and roll around in a sea of dirty money). Back in the US, we saw over 500 events for the Sun Day clean energy day of action this September and millions of people take part in the No Kings demonstrations last month.
Meanwhile, in the real economy, clean energy continues to set records nearly every day. According to the energy think tank Ember, there was no fossil fuel growth in 2025 as clean energy production surged around the world. Whether or not countries can agree to a road map to phase out fossil fuels here in Belém, that’s clearly the journey we’re on.
The question is can we move fast enough. When the COP30 venue caught fire yesterday, I saw people sprinting for the exits while firefighters rushed into action to put out the blaze. We all need that same sense of urgency when it comes to the climate fight ahead. As Greta Thunberg often said, “Act is if your house is on fire.” Maybe seeing the negotiations go up in literal flames will get countries at COP30 to finally take her message to heart.
One of them described her job as offering “concierge, white-glove service” to oil, gas, and coal companies seeking permits from regulators.
A top energy adviser to President Donald Trump admitted in an August interview that the administration is offering "concierge, white-glove service" to fossil fuel companies while blocking and defunding clean energy projects.
The comments, reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, came from Brittany Kelm, a senior policy adviser for Trump's National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), which was established within the Department of the Interior in February.
"We're like this little tiger team, concierge, white-glove service, essentially," Kelm said on the Lobby Shop podcast, "We were put together very particularly with the president's priorities in mind on energy. So keeping coal plants open, establishing critical mineral mining domestically, and then that broader supply chain."
She described her role in the council as being to help oil, gas, and coal companies navigate "the politicals" of agencies that grant permits for new projects. Companies, she said, "can walk out of our office, and they have all the contacts they need" for regulators in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the departments of the Interior and Commerce.
"We know how to unstick what is stuck," Kelm said. "It's a lot of undoing old policies and getting rid of regulatory burdens."
Mahyar Sorour, the director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Fossil Fuels policy project, responded: "The reality of fossil fuel companies getting white-glove, concierge service from the Trump administration would be comical if it weren't so sinister."
"During the election," she continued, "Trump told oil and gas executives that he would clear the way for more production without any safeguards if they gave his campaign a billion dollars—they did, and now Trump is blocking clean energy and giving the oil and gas industry immense handouts in return."
Since retaking office in January, Trump has sought to expand the production of oil, gas, and coal with reckless abandon, without regard to the impacts of carbon emissions on the planet or other environmental impacts of pollution.
As the rest of the world has surged its use of wind and solar projects, surpassing coal for the first time this year, the Department of Energy made a $625 million investment to "expand and reinvigorate the coal industry," which is the dirtiest form of energy.
And July's massive GOP budget contained billions of dollars worth of handouts for the fossil fuel industry, boosted drilling on millions of acres of public lands, mandated oil and gas lease sales, and imposed new fees on renewable development.
At the same time, Trump has singlehandedly reduced the US's growth outlook for renewables by 45%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
As the Post reports:
His administration has held up permits for solar and wind projects since July and blocked wind farms outright. The Energy Department last week canceled $7.6 billion in funding for projects aimed at curbing climate change including installation of renewables, grid upgrades and carbon capture projects. That's on top of $27 billion in funding for clean energy that the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to claw back.
Alan Zibel, an energy and environmental policy researcher for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, joked that while the "White House rolls out 'concierge, white-glove service' for fossil fuels... wind and solar aren't even allowed inside the Motel 6."
This is put on stark display by a report co-authored by Zibel, and released Monday by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, which found that, under Trump, the agencies in charge of regulating energy and environmental policy "have made dozens of hires from the fossil fuel sector, mining conglomerates, and other polluting industries, as well as others who are well-paid to support a dirty energy agenda, such as corporate lawyers and the staffers from far-right think tanks directly tied to Trump's dirty energy agenda."
The report examined 111 executive branch appointees tasked with energy and environmental policymaking across nine agencies and found that 43 are former employees of fossil fuel companies.
While the EPA and Energy Department are each crawling with more than a dozen industry plants, no agency has more than the Interior Department, which has 32 in total.
One of them is Kelm herself, who, according to the report, "has spent her entire career working in Big Oil, most recently doing corporate relations for Shell, and previously in policy for Valero, community affairs for Noble Energy, and other roles for Texas-based oil companies like EnCore Permian and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association."
Far from just lower-level appointees, several agency heads have direct industry ties. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was formerly the CEO of the hydraulic fracking company Liberty Energy and, according to the report, "regularly makes public statements that downplay the effects of climate change, carbon pollution, and the environmental impacts of fracking."
The administration also contains at least 14 corporate lawyers who worked for fossil fuel interests. David Fotouhi, the assistant secretary of the EPA, formerly worked as a lawyer at Gibson Dunn, which has represented oil and gas giants like the American Petroleum Institute, ConocoPhillips, and Energy Transfer. The law firm also helped to advise polluters like Chevron on how to beat lawsuits from state and local governments seeking to hold them legally liable for spreading misinformation about the climate crisis.
The administration also includes at least 12 officials directly handpicked from right-wing think tanks backed by fossil fuel money. Brooke Rollins, secretary of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), helped found the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) in 2021 with Texas oil billionaire and GOP megadonor Tim Dunn.
The oilman funded Rollins' organization to the tune of $400,000, with the explicit goal of staffing the next Republican administration with appointees who would gut US climate policy.
"It would be ideal if we could get rid of this ‘CO2 as a pollutant' business," Dunn said at an AFPI event in 2023.
"Texas-based billionaires have taken over the Trump administration, providing a steady stream of staffers and an extreme set of policy ideas that consciously favors the most polluting forms of energy," said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a senior researcher with the Revolving Door Project. "Trump's policies aid the fossil fuel industry's exploitation of the public sphere for private profit while simultaneously sabotaging renewables and ensuring that the US remains trapped in a dirty energy economy."
From one corner of the continent to the other, Americans figured out dozens of ways to make their hopes for the future felt, even in this darkest of political periods.
Your correspondent is…bushed, so excuse typos, lapses of thought, and imprecise prose. But I wanted to tell all of you about how Sun Day played out across the country on Sunday before I fell into bed. In a word, spectacular.
You know, from reading these missives, that this day has been in the works a long time; we needed, in the face of massive and bizarre attacks from the White House and Congress on sun and wind power, to stand up for the idea of cheap, clean energy. At nearly 500 events across the country, that’s what happened. From one corner of the continent to the other (still waiting for pictures to come in from Alaska and Hawaii) Americans figured out dozens of ways to make their hopes for the future felt, even in this darkest of political periods. A remarkable account in the New York Times quoted one organizer, summing it up beautifully:
“I really wanted it to be celebratory and uplifting,” said Laura Iwanaga, who led the organization for Portland’s Sun Day event for the local chapter of Third Act, a nationwide climate advocacy organization founded by Mr. McKibben. “We all know what we’re fighting against, but we don’t always think about what we’re fighting for.”
For me, the very first picture of the day came from my grandson, out to greet the rising sun.
Soon they were pouring in from events across the country. Many featured big crowds and important people: I was in New York, where people crammed into a downtown church to hear the city’s comptroller Brad Lander talk about deploying the city’s $300 billion pension fund to back clean energy...
...and then spilled out into a nearby park for speeches from a US senator (Peter Welch), the state’s remarkable lieutenant governor (Antonio Delgado), a state assemblywoman (Emily Gallagher), and the ever-present and ever-powerful Rev. Lennox Yearwood. Oh, and a unforgettable rendition of "Here Comes the Sun" from Sun Day musical ambassador Antonique Smith.
Those were powerful memories that will last my life. But I was also taken by the pictures that showed quieter moments—for instance, people huddled in basements so that they could see their neighbor’s heat pumps or solar inverters, demystifying the whole process of converting to clean power. This is from South Carolina—and it’s how we’re going to turn people into solar consumers across the country.
And here are Wisconsites setting out on a solar tour of the state’s capital.
Some of the images were spectacularly beautiful. Christal Brown choreographed a dance among the solar panels on the campus of Middlebury College.
And some were literally sweet—here’s someone making s’mores in a solar oven in San Leandro, California.
Everywhere the beauty of the logo (thanks Brian Collins, Beth Johnson, Eron Lutterman) was on display. (Oh, and read the account of its design from Fast Company).
So many people and organizations helped make the day happen: Fossil Free Media, of course, with Jamie Henn and Deirdre Shelly leading an amazing crew; Solar United Neighbors, the Sierra Club, Mothers Out Front, Climate Revival, Green Faith, Dayenu, a hundred more. My colleagues at Third Act were absolutely crucial: here’s Deborah Moore and Anna Goldstein, who worked around the clock.
But everywhere there were kids out enjoying the spectacle. Our great hope is that they’ll grow up in a world where it seems utterly obvious to power the planet with clean energy from the sun, instead of filling the air (and their lungs) with the smoke from humanity’s fires.
For a day it was possible to believe in all of that—and the human energy that belief unleashes allows us to make it happen. Even as the afternoon went on, I was hearing of plans to introduce balcony solar laws in half a dozen states (and of plans to take this day global in the years ahead). In some sense the work has just begun.
I’ll have many more images and reports in the days ahead—we’ve barely begun to sift through all that’s been pouring in these last hours. But time for a well-earned rest (and I have an early morning trip to Chicago—the beat goes on!). As the sun goes down (and the batteries that have been soaking up sunshine all afternoon kick in) I just want to say: Thank you all so very very much
The fossil fuel industry spent big to push through a $1 billion provision in the GOP budget bill, which the senators said would allow some oil companies to "pay no federal income taxes whatsoever."
Four Democratic U.S. senators are demanding an explanation from Big Oil after a $1.1 billion tax loophole was added to the Senate version of the GOP's budget reconciliation megabill.
Letters sent Thursday by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called out the CEOs of two oil giants, ConocoPhillips and Ovintiv, which they say "lobbied furiously" for the handout.
The companies, the senators said, "[stand] to benefit tremendously from this provision and ha[ve] spent big to support it—while preserving the many government subsidies for the oil and gas industry already in the tax code."
They asked for the companies to disclose how much they have spent lobbying Republicans for the tax break and how much of a windfall they expect in return.
The provision in question, approved by the Senate Finance Committee last week, would shield many large oil companies from the Inflation Reduction Act's corporate alternative minimum tax, or CAMT. Introduced in 2022, the CAMT requires that companies making more than $1 billion pay 15% of the profits they report to shareholders.
"The rationale for CAMT was simple," the senators said. "For far too long, massive corporations had taken advantage of loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share, sometimes paying zero federal taxes despite earning billions in profits."
The GOP bill modifies how oil companies are required to report earnings, allowing them to exempt "intangible drilling and development costs," which in turn allows more companies to fall below the $1 billion earnings threshold.
The senators highlighted a 2023 earnings call by Marathon Oil, recently acquired by ConocoPhillips, in which executives said the CAMT was the only income tax they were required to pay.
"If enacted," the senators said, "this provision would reduce or even eliminate tax liabilities for oil and gas companies under CAMT, allowing some to pay no federal income taxes whatsoever."
The letter highlighted lobbying filings by ConocoPhillips and Ovintiv in which they "explicitly prioritize" securing this handout.
Referenced throughout is the aggressive effort to court Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who wrote the loophole into the Senate bill. According to OpenSecrets, Lankford received more than $546,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry—his top source of industry donations—between 2019 and 2024.
The senators described the industry's lobbying as "especially insulting" because "Senate Republicans are trying to pay for this handout with cuts to other programs that would end up raising energy prices for everyday Americans."
The GOP bill would eliminate tax breaks for clean energy that incentivize consumers to purchase electric vehicles and make their homes more energy-efficient, including the home energy-efficiency and residential clean energy credits.
Citing data from Rewiring America, the senators estimated that ditching the two credits would cost the average household up to $2,200 per year in savings on utility bills.
The Center for American Progress projects that eliminating electric vehicle credits would increase demand for gasoline, raising prices by 27 to 35 cents per gallon by 2035. Americans will pay the oil and gas industry "an additional $339 billion for gasoline and $75 billion for electricity by 2035," the May report says.
"Congress should not raise energy prices for working families to deliver handouts to Big Oil," the senators said.
Ten years from now, Donald Trump will be remembered ruefully as our country’s very own King Canute, who used the full force of presidential power in a failed, futile effort to halt the tides of technological change.
He lived over 1,000 years ago, but King Canute’s life still has some important lessons for our own time. After conquering England, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden, he forged a vast North Sea empire that made him, by the year 1030, the greatest of all the Viking kings. At that peak of power, he ordered his courtiers to place a throne on the seashore. There, according to a contemporaneous account, he shouted at the rising tide: “Thou, too, are subject to my command, as the land on which I am seated is mine and no one has ever resisted my commands with impunity. I command you then not to flow over my land, nor presume to wet the feet and the robe of your Lord.”
But the tide, of course, kept rising and waves soon washed over the legs of his royal person. Stunned and chastened, Canute leapt backwards, saying, “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings.”
In our time, specifically on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump, who had vanquished his rivals, took office with full control of Congress, making him an exceptionally powerful president. On that day, he ordered his courtiers to set up an executive desk at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C. There, before waves of cheers from MAGA-capped supporters, he commanded that the U.S. quit the Paris climate accord, announcing: “We are going to save over a trillion dollars by withdrawing from that treaty.”
In March, despite Donald Trump’s many prohibitions, wind and solar surged to 25% of the U.S. electrical supply, and when combined with other forms of “clean energy” like hydropower, already generated 51% of the country’s total electricity output, surpassing fossil fuels for the first time.
Retiring to the Oval Office, he then signed another executive order eliminating “the electric vehicle (EV) mandate” by ending “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies.” More broadly, that decree also removed any barrier to the development of “domestic energy resources—with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower… and nuclear energy resources.”
Like King Canute before him, President Trump was attempting to do nothing less than command the tides to recede. Not the ocean tides, of course, but the no less powerful tides of economic and technological change. For the United States, and indeed the world, is at the cusp of a new industrial revolution in the way we live and work that will, within the coming decades, do nothing less than save humanity from the rising threat of global warming.
To grasp the full import and unstoppable power of this impending change, let’s take a moment to place our current era in its historical energy context. Over the past 500 years, as I argued in my book To Govern the Globe, human life has been transformed by three great revolutions in the basic energy infrastructure that drove the global economy and shaped all human life on this planet.
Starting in the 16th century, European nations forged the world’s first maritime empires through technologies that maximized the power of nature’s raw energy. In the era’s first technological advance, Portugal’s agile sailing ship, the caravel, used multiple sails to master the winds and thereby conquer sea lanes from the South Atlantic to the South China Sea. Somewhat later, the Dutch district at Zaan (near Amsterdam) became the world’s first dedicated industrial zone, where 150 powerful windmills cut logs into low-cost lumber for shipyards that would build the world’s largest merchant fleet with 4,000 ships on the high seas. Starting in the 15th century, Portugal combined water mills with massed teams of enslaved laborers on the island of São Tomé off the coast of Africa to create a new form of agribusiness, the fazenda or sugar plantation, whose phenomenal profitability—achieved by using cruel coercion to push the energy output of the human body beyond its natural limits—soon led to the spread of slavery to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American colonies.
During the 19th century, Britain’s coal-fired industrial revolution brought an energy transition that would move the world quickly beyond the wind and muscle power of the previous four centuries. Steam engines started powering factories in 1786, riverboats in 1810, railways in 1829, trans-Atlantic steamships by the 1830s, and the British Royal Navy’s warships by the 1840s. Meanwhile, Britain’s coal production soared from just 9 million tons in 1800 to a peak of 292 million tons in 1913. By the 1850s, an armada of steam engines was transforming the nature of work worldwide—powering factories, driving sawmills, threshing grains, husking rice, pulling gang plows, and crushing sugarcane. Coal-powered construction equipment sculpted the Earth’s surface, as steam shovels (patented in 1839) moved mountains, steam dredges (1844) cut canals, and steamrollers (1867) flattened roadways. Between 1880 and 1900, the number of steam engines in the United States tripled from 56,000 to 156,000, accounting for 77% of all the power that drove this country’s first industrial revolution.
That era of coal-fired energy, for both steam engines and electrical generation, lasted for nearly a century until it, too, began to fade during the 1950s before the power of petroleum. Even on the eve of World War II, when the United States produced two-thirds of the world’s petroleum, oil accounted for only one-third of its energy supply and just 10% of that of other industrial societies like Europe and Japan. However, as American automobile ownership climbed from 40 million units in 1950 to 213 million in 2000, oil consumption surged from 6.5 million barrels daily to a peak of 20 million barrels. By the time the 1973 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo roiled American life, with gas lines of angry motorists wrapping round the block in cities across the country, oil accounted for 46% of total energy needs in the U.S., 60% in Western Europe, and an overwhelming 73% in Japan.
After those three energy transitions over the span of 500 years, the world is now at the cusp of a fourth great transformation that will indeed prove critical for humanity’s survival. Energy from coal and oil may have freed the world from the curse of slavery and brought unprecedented prosperity to millions, but burning all that carbon also carried the threat of climate change. As early as 1896, Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius published the world’s first report on global warming, predicting with uncanny prescience that a continued increase in carbon (CO2) emissions would raise “the temperature in the Arctic regions… about 8-9°C.” Between the Rio Earth Summit that finally recognized the problem in 1992 and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, where 195 nations signed an agreement to limit CO2 emissions, the world started a fitful and initially unsuccessful transition to alternative energy.
At the outset, it seemed as if governments were trying to force a shift to alternative energy that carried high costs for questionable results. Solar panels were expensive then and their energy output was low. The few electric-powered cars cost a relative fortune and couldn’t go very far. By 2016, the climate issue had also become bitterly partisan, with the first Trump administration banning the federal government from any mention of climate change while trying desperately to save coal-fired electrical plants and introducing 74 executive actions to weaken environmental protections.
Now that technology has resolved so many of the cost constraints holding back the world’s transition to alternative energy, it’s possible to grasp the shape that America’s new industrial revolution is likely to take within a decade or even less (no matter who is the president of the United States).
But as had happened during the world’s earlier energy transitions over the past 500 years, technological innovation was already fusing with economic rationality to catalyze a phenomenally powerful transformation in the world’s energy infrastructure. After solar and wind power began spreading across the globe around 2000, engineering innovation and economies of scale began making alternative energy not only ever more affordable but also ever more efficient. Between 2010 and 2019, the cost of solar power fell by 82% from $0.37 per kilowatt hour to just $0.05. By 2020, the International Energy Agency, known for its rigorous analysis, reported that the world’s best solar schemes already had the “cheapest… electricity in history.”
By the time Joseph Biden took office in 2021, the tides of technological change were just starting to turn. In a bid to ride that tide, the Biden administration invested a massive $1 trillion in “clean energy”—including semiconductor manufacturing ($446 billion), clean power ($188 billion), and electric vehicles ($182 billion).
Despite all the Biden-Harris election hype about factories built and jobs created, the gains for the country’s energy infrastructure were still… well, distinctly incremental. By the end of Biden’s term in December 2024, wind and solar had inched up to just 17% of U.S. electrical generation, though they had finally passed coal, that dirty fuel left over from the horse-and-buggy era, which fell to a historic low of 15%. Simultaneously, however, natural gas surged to a record 43% of the U.S. energy supply, meaning that carbon was still king. Compared to Norway where a proliferation of 400 chargers for every 100,000 Norwegians has allowed EVs to hit 90% of new car sales, even leading American states like California still only have a pathetic 46 chargers per 100,000 population—a key reason EVs still account for just 8% of this country’s new auto sales.
But beneath such dismal statistics, by the end of Biden’s term there were also some significant signs of deep, underlying change. In September 2024, an industry group reported that solar energy, which had been four times more expensive than fossil fuels in 2010, was now less than half the cost (56% lower) than them.
Despite all the political (and climate change) pyrotechnics of Trump’s tumultuous first months in office this year, those deeper processes of technological change have continued their ceaseless, mechanistic march toward transformation. Indeed, in recent months there have been some telling signs—veritable portents—that we are indeed at the cusp of a transition to alternative energy of sufficient power to drive a new American industrial revolution. Let’s read the tea leaves.
In April, the first driverless 18-wheeler “robotruck” appeared on a U.S. highway, delivering refrigerated goods along Interstate 45 in Texas. In May, Elon Musk announced the debut of Tesla’s “cyber cab” service in Austin, Texas, with 10 driverless trial cars that are expected to lead to the deployment of “hundreds of thousands of robotaxis across the U.S.” Lending substance to that claim, Alphabet’s competing Waymo taxi service announced in May that its paid driverless rides had doubled to 10 million in the previous five months, launching the company on “a path to profitability.” Within days, China’s top EV car maker BYD had dropped a “price bombshell” by slashing the sticker price on its top-selling Seagull subcompact to an amazingly low $7,700—and that, mind you, is for a brand-new sedan loaded with self-driving features and able to travel a 200-mile range on a single charge. These days in America, it would be hard to beat that price with any sort of gas-powered car, even, say, a 2012 Honda Civic with 150,000 miles on the clock.
But perhaps most important, in March, despite Donald Trump’s many prohibitions, wind and solar surged to 25% of the U.S. electrical supply, and when combined with other forms of “clean energy” like hydropower, already generated 51% of the country’s total electricity output, surpassing fossil fuels for the first time. “This is a first signal,” explained energy analyst Nicolas Fulghum, “that the U.S. is approaching a tipping point where clean power takes the lead over fossil generation, and where the importance of coal and gas inevitably starts to fade.” Indeed, just this month, the authoritative International Energy Agency announced that the “global energy investment scene is changing fast,” with two-thirds of this year’s $3.3 trillion investment in energy production slated for “renewables” (such as wind and solar), double the amount for fossil fuels.
If that impending transformation follows the pattern of history’s past transitions, technology and the global economy are about to achieve a sudden, silent synergy that will unleash not just a tide but a veritable tsunami of socioeconomic change. To cite some past examples, within the 15 years after George Stephenson launched The Rocket, a steam locomotive with an average speed of just 13 miles per hour in 1829, Britain covered the country with 2,200 miles of rail lines, transforming English life and work. And in the 10 years after 1907-1908, when Henry Ford upgraded the mass production of his Model-T motorcar, the price for it dropped steadily from $850 to just $260 while the number of automobiles registered nationwide soared from 140,300 in 1907 to nearly 5,000,000 in 1917, putting America on the road to becoming a petroleum-powered nation on wheels.
Now that technology has resolved so many of the cost constraints holding back the world’s transition to alternative energy, it’s possible to grasp the shape that America’s new industrial revolution is likely to take within a decade or even less (no matter who is the president of the United States). After rendering high-cost fossil fuels largely obsolete by 2035, solar and wind power, backed by storage farms equipped with new safer technologies like sodium-ion batteries, will create a reliable electrical grid, cutting the country’s basic energy costs by well over half and sparking a proliferation of innovation.
In the decades to come on our interstate highways, the left lanes will undoubtedly be filled with endless packs of a dozen or more electric-powered, driverless 18-wheelers, drafting six feet apart. They will be guided by uninterrupted digital signals transmitted from fiber optic cables laid down along the median strip, slashing both fuel consumption and transport costs. Those semi-trailer platoons will be headed for massive distribution depots that are likely to ring American cities, large and small. From them, drivers will be dispatched with robot-packed loads for the delivery of foodstuffs and consumer goods direct to individual households. Those truckloads will also include things like factory-produced complete kitchens and bathrooms for on-site installation at mass-assembly construction sites—slashing costs and making housing once again more affordable for working Americans.
Since an EV is simply a steel box housing a battery, for about $9,000 an American family will be able to purchase a brand-new, self-driving sedan with a 600-mile range from a single 10-minute charge, providing maintenance-free transportation for a typical monthly fuel cost of about $35. With the electrical grid generating cheap solar power, every urban hub will be connected to its suburbs by electrical rails and to its own neighborhoods by electrified mass transit. Once downtown, commuters will move about easily, freed from the stress and cost of parking by fleets of robotaxis that will move quickly through inner-city streets no longer jammed with private cars. Their only competitor for curb space will be the flotilla of delivery vehicles whose drivers will circulate ceaselessly about the city, fulfilling same-day orders.
With the world’s lowest cost for critical inputs of energy and transportation, combined with the most extensive grid of fiber optic cables, the United States will hold the pole position in the ceaseless race for international competitiveness. Once modern history’s fourth great transformation takes hold and that new energy infrastructure is in place, productivity, profits, and global power will soon follow on a far healthier and cooler planet. With domestic transport costs but a fraction of those for international shipping, the economic logic of “nearshoring” will become inescapable, making “Made in the USA” compellingly economical and creating countless new jobs that could strain the country’s labor supply.
Oh yes, and I almost forgot: all that technology will, of course, be emissions-free and so will bring America close to net-zero carbon emissions well before the 2050 date mandated by the 2016 Paris climate accord.
Ten years from now, Donald Trump will be remembered ruefully as our country’s very own King Canute, who used the full force of presidential power in a failed, futile effort to halt the tides of technological change that, by then, will have launched this country headlong into the world’s new industrial revolution.
This is not simply a policy mistake. It’s a calculated abdication of leadership for a fleeting political win.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the cancellation of 24 clean energy and industrial decarbonization projects. The agency claimed this move would save taxpayers $3.6 billion. But the real cost—economic, environmental, and geopolitical—will be far greater.
The decision came just days after the World Meteorological Organization warned that the planet has a chance of breaching 2°C of warming within five years. Around the same time, Norway’s $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund—the largest in the world—projected that climate risk could erase 20% of its U.S. equity holdings. While other nations mobilize to confront escalating threats, the United States—the largest economy on Earth—is retreating. This is not simply a policy mistake. It’s a calculated abdication of leadership for a fleeting political win.
We’ve seen this pattern before. From “beautiful, clean coal” to climate denial in congressional hearings to billions in fossil fuel donations, the Republican Party has long treated climate action as a culture war wedge. Clean energy is no longer debated on the merits—it’s dismissed as “woke,” undermined not out of ideological consistency, but political convenience. Market-based climate solutions could align with core conservative values: competition, energy independence, national security. Instead, Congress continues to treat policy as performance—enabling headlines over outcomes, symbolism over strategy.
The consequences are immediate, and they are devastating.
We didn’t just cancel 24 projects. We canceled momentum. We canceled trust. We canceled a framework that had finally begun to reconnect federal capacity with local ambition.
Tens of thousands of potential jobs vanished overnight. The canceled projects spanned over a dozen states—from Alabama and Texas to California and Massachusetts. Cities like Birmingham, Baytown, Toledo, Zanesville, Modesto, and Holyoke had been preparing for long-overdue industrial upgrades: electrified glass furnaces, carbon-captured cement kilns, regional hydrogen hubs. These weren’t theoretical moonshots. They were shovel-ready projects with partners in place. Economic development agencies were mobilized. Union halls were staffing up. Community colleges had launched clean workforce programs. Then came the call: It’s over.
DOE’s rationale? These projects didn’t offer sufficient return on investment. But no cost-benefit analysis has been released. What we do know: The canceled projects would have reduced over 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually—the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road. These weren’t speculative technologies. They targeted sectors like steel, cement, chemicals, and paper—industries where emissions can be reduced, but not without public investment.
This wasn’t just climate policy. These were air quality improvements in neighborhoods with decades of industrial pollution. These were middle-class jobs, modernized infrastructure, and new revenue streams for local governments. They signaled that decarbonization could drive renewal—not austerity. That message mattered, especially in regions where federal support has long felt abstract or nonexistent.
So why cancel them?
Because it made for good optics. Many of the projects were located in red or swing districts. Cutting them allowed Republicans to posture against “wasteful” spending and energize their base. It transformed serious infrastructure investments into political theater. And Congress went along—not out of principle, but out of paralysis.
DOE now says it will redirect resources to long-horizon technologies: fusion, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. These are important pursuits. But they won’t cut emissions at a cement plant in 2028. They won’t lower energy costs at a food processing facility next year. And they won’t create jobs in Modesto or Toledo.
There’s nothing wrong with moonshots—unless they come at the expense of shovel-ready progress.
Because these projects weren’t paper proposals. Local governments had hired staff. Contractors were preparing bids. Manufacturers were retooling supply chains. Students had enrolled in new clean industry training programs. With no warning, that entire ecosystem has been upended.
That decision undermines more than climate credibility. It erodes trust in governance itself. How can communities build long-term economic development strategies if federal support can be revoked without explanation? Why would private investors stay at the table when the public sector walks away midstream?
Meanwhile, other nations are surging forward. The European Union is investing in clean steel and cement. Canada is building out low-carbon supply chains. Norway is doubling down on green industry. And China is scaling solar, electric vehicles, and hydrogen at unprecedented speed—cementing not only energy dominance but geopolitical power.
For an administration that brands itself “America First,” this is anything but. It is a strategic withdrawal—from economic competitiveness, global leadership, and the industrial future itself. We are ceding the next era of manufacturing—not just to allies, but to adversaries.
And none of this should be surprising. The Trump administration has been explicit about its intent: Strip climate out of agency missions, dismantle regulatory capacity, and discredit climate science. But the deeper failure lies in what Congress has allowed. The legislative branch is no longer functioning as a check on executive excess. It has become a bystander to the dismantling of public purpose.
We didn’t just cancel 24 projects. We canceled momentum. We canceled trust. We canceled a framework that had finally begun to reconnect federal capacity with local ambition. We walked away from thousands of jobs, millions of tons in emissions cuts, billions in co-investment—and a fragile sense of possibility.
And we did it for a press cycle. To placate donors. Fully aware of the consequences.
The cost won’t just be measured in carbon. It will be measured in time lost, in broken partnerships, in shuttered training programs and shelved contracts. And in the widening distance between the future we could build—and the one we keep choosing instead.
Hochul’s decision to delay the implementation of New York’s Cap-Trade-and-Invest Program is a deeply misguided one that ignores the connection between the climate crisis and our city’s affordability crisis.
“Mom, there’s smoke coming from the Palisades!” Those were the words my 15-year-old son yelled to me last fall as he gazed out our apartment window in Upper Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River. Looking over, there was indeed a plume of smoke rising across the river. By the next day, our apartment building smelled like a campfire. Over the following week, I read urgent social media posts from neighbors about brush fires in nearby Inwood Hill and Fort Tryon Parks. It felt dystopian, out of place for New York. The experience reminded me of talking with my young niece in the Bay Area, who once matter-of-factly told me that she couldn’t play outside because the air quality was bad. That wasn’t so unusual for California. But experiencing it here in New York? That was something entirely new.
Those fires of November 2024 made clear something we as New Yorkers have been largely ignoring since Superstorm Sandy: The frontlines of the climate crisis have reached the Big Apple. Given that urgency, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision in January to delay the implementation of New York’s Cap-Trade-and-Invest Program (NYCI) is deeply misguided. It’s a shortsighted decision with no political upside that ignores the connection between the climate crisis and our city’s affordability crisis. It is imperative that the governor quickly reverse course.
Back in 2019, New York leapt to the fore in setting ambitious benchmarks for greenhouse gas reduction and a just transition to a renewable economy. New York’s landmark Climate Law set out a process for this transition, and the law is now a model for other states and helped inspire former President Joe Biden’s climate policy.
Just as planting a tree is an act of faith in the continuity of community, investing in a livable, sustainable future for all New Yorkers is keeping a promise to our children, who will reap the benefits for generations to come.
But now we’re playing catch-up: Our state is failing to hit its emissions targets. Add to that a hostile presidential administration that largely denies the existence of the climate crisis, and is resolutely committed to investing in polluting fossil fuels, and you’d think the governor would step up to the plate. But instead, Gov. Hochul is retreating into a corner at the worst time.
Cap-and-invest policies are popular and effective. As recently as this past November, voters in Washington State voted overwhelmingly to continue their state’s cap-and-invest program. Why? Because Washingtonians saw the benefits of cap-and-invest in their everyday lives: greater access to affordable and free public transit; cleaner air in and around schools with zero-emissions school buses and efficient HVAC systems; and lower energy bills for low-income households and small businesses, who receive support for upgrading their gas furnaces to efficient electric alternatives. California, whose cap-and-invest program has been in place for over a decade, has seen even greater benefits thanks to the more than $26 billion that the law has generated.
New York has been part of a regional cap-and-invest program since 2009 called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI has cut power plant pollution by 50% in participating states and generated over $2 billion in revenue in New York alone. The proceeds funded job creation, air pollution monitoring in affected communities, and the installation of over 4,000 electric vehicle charging ports.
By refusing to implement NYCI, Governor Hochul is depriving our state of at least $2 billion in additional annual revenue. NYCI would support thousands of new jobs. It would facilitate new efficient electric heat pumps for homes across the state, which would save the average household $1,000 per year in energy bills. It would enable the buildout of EV infrastructure and empower communities to develop and implement a range of local clean energy initiatives. And at a time when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a severe budget shortfall, NYCI would help make public transit more efficient, accessible, and reliable. All of that would reduce pollution—meaning a cleaner future for all.
NYCI isn’t free. But the costs of the program pale in comparison to the price we pay for climate-fueled extreme weather events and the health effects of fossil fuel pollution. We also know that the costs of inaction in New York State far outpace the costs of meeting our 2030 and 2050 emissions targets—by $115 billion.
Implementing NYCI isn’t just a financial issue, it’s a moral one. As someone organizing for climate action within my Jewish community, I often turn to Jewish tradition for inspiration. I think about a Jewish folk tale, about an old man planting a fig tree. When a passerby skeptically asks him if he expects to live long enough to consume the fruits of his labor, the old man replies, “My ancestors planted for me, and now I plant for my children.” Just as planting a tree is an act of faith in the continuity of community, investing in a livable, sustainable future for all New Yorkers is keeping a promise to our children, who will reap the benefits for generations to come.
It’s time for Gov. Hochul to avoid further inaction and implement the NYCI. At a time when the costs of climate action have never been higher, Gov. Hochul should take responsibility and lead New York toward a just transition toward a cleaner future.
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda," wrote one conservationist.
With the help of 25 Democrats, the Senate voted Thursday to confirm U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of the Interior, billionaire and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum—an ally of the fossil fuel industry.
Environmental groups expressed alarm over Burgum's nomination. As secretary of the interior, Burgum will oversee hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and water, and he has also been tapped as the president's "energy czar" and to lead a separate White House energy council.
During his confirmation hearing, Burgum told senators that the U.S. can use energy development as a way to promote peace and to lower consumer costs, and also raised concerns about the reliability of renewable energy sources promoted during the Biden administration, according to CBS News.
Burgum sailed through his confirmation process, securing his position atop the agency with a vote of 79-18.
The 18 senators who did not vote for him were: Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) were absent.
Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade associate and lobbying firm for the U.S. oil industry, expressed enthusiasm about Burgum's confirmation, according to The Washington Post.
"Doug Burgum has long been a champion for American energy leadership," Sommers said in a statement to the Post. "We look forward to working with him to implement a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing, starting with removing barriers to development on federal lands and waters and developing a new five-year offshore program."
Meanwhile, environmental groups blasted the Senate's confirmation of Burgum.
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda. That isn't the leadership our public lands need," said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement Friday. "Burgum's loyalty to Trump ignores both the economic realities and the climate crisis we're facing today, especially in Alaska."
The youth climate organization Sunrise Movement called Burgum's confirmation "a win for Big Oil billionaires" and pointed to Burgum's reported role in planning a meeting between Trump and energy executives in spring 2024, during which Trump suggested that they raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for tax breaks and large-scale deregulation.
"From opening more public lands for extraction to attacking countless protections of lands, water, and wildlife, it's clear that President Trump is committed to expanding fossil fuels and catering to industry at the expense of our climate, public lands and waters, and wildlife," according to a Wednesday letter sent to the Senate from over 30 environmental, watchdog, and public interest groups. "Doug Burgum will be charged with carrying out this unpopular and dangerous agenda."
To protect D.C. and Maryland residents from the health-harming impacts of NO2, policymakers must act to help households move to pollution-free, efficient electric appliances such as induction cooktops.
We were squeezed together in the small, upstairs bedroom of a single-family home in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood. George, the homeowner and father of a nine-month-old, had brought us there to test for nitrogen dioxide emissions from his gas stove.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is one of several pollutants created when gas is burned. A pulmonary irritant, NO2 is invisible, odorless, and linked to asthma and other health concerns. A recent study found that NO2 may affect child cognitive development, with higher exposure in infants associated with increased risk of behavioral problems later on. There is no indoor safety standard for NO2, but the Environmental Protection Agency has established an outdoor health protective standard of 100 parts per billion for one-hour exposure. George’s kitchen had registered an alarming 294 ppb.
George had asked us to test his nursery upstairs, well away from the gas stove. We placed the detector in the crib and waited. Then, a reading of 190 ppb flashed across the screen—nearly twice the EPA’s maximum exposure limit.
There is no reason a nine-month-old—or any of us—should be breathing health-harming nitrogen dioxide in our homes.
George’s house was one of nearly 700 D.C. and Maryland homes we tested as part of a community study to investigate hazardous emissions from gas. We chose to focus on gas stoves because they are located in the middle of families’ living areas and generally not vented outside. In apartments, single-family homes, condos, and row houses, we recorded NO2 levels 15 minutes and 30 minutes after turning on the stove, and took a third reading 15 minutes after turning the stove off.
Nearly two-thirds of the kitchens we tested registered NO2 levels exceeding 100 parts per billion. In D.C., 77% of kitchens register NO2 over 100 ppb, with an average high reading of 181 ppb.
The stories are endless. In an American University student apartment NO2 levels spiked to 862 ppb—over eight times the recommended limit—and only decreased after turning on a vent fan. In other homes, ventilation fans seemed to have no impact at all. We found significant NO2 in the upstairs bedrooms we tested. Some kitchens tested had elevated NO2 levels one or two hours after the gas stove was turned off.
Increasing ventilation can help reduce NO2 exposure from gas stoves. But to protect D.C. and Maryland residents from the health-harming impacts of NO2, policymakers must act to help households move to pollution-free, efficient electric appliances such as induction cooktops.
Induction cooking is becoming the preferred choice among chefs due to its efficiency, safety, and ease of use. Chef Jon Kung switched to induction cooking because his building lacked ventilation and gas stoves produced indoor air pollution. Award-winning chef Eric Ripert says he “fell in love” with induction within days.
Induction cooktops rely on electromagnetism to transfer heat to the pan, eliminating the combustion that creates NO2. About 90% of the energy goes toward cooking food, while gas stoves waste 70% of their energy heating the surrounding air. With no flame and little residual heat, induction stoves keep kitchens cool, reduce the risk of burns, and are easy to clean.
Officials in D.C. and Montgomery Country have already taken steps to incentivize electrification, including adopting healthy building standards that ensure new homes are built with electric equipment. Low-income D.C. residents can now apply for free home upgrades to install clean energy heating and cooking equipment thanks to the recent passage of the Healthy Homes Act.
These are steps in the right direction, but policymakers must do more to reduce reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure and to block gas companies from spending consumer money on new pipelines that raise costs for customers and lock in our reliance on gas.
With an influx of federal and state incentives, now is the best time to electrify. D.C. recently unveiled programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, which provide up to $800 for an induction cooktop and $2,000 for an electric panel upgrade to income-eligible residents. Federal tax breaks for clean, efficient heating equipment and cooking equipment are available to all residents regardless of income.
Our Beyond Gas study shows that burning fossil fuels in our homes is exposing us to pollutants that make us sicker. There is no reason a nine-month-old—or any of us—should be breathing health-harming nitrogen dioxide in our homes. Clean energy alternatives are available and far superior. Our leaders need to act now to help D.C. and Maryland residents make this change.