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Donald Trump is using his bully pulpit to foist fossil fuels on the U.S. and on the world, but his efforts may backfire.
When I was a cub reporter at the New Yorker in the early 1980s, New York City was actually a somewhat seedy and dangerous (if fascinating) place (sort of fitting the image currently assigned it by MAGA ideologues who have ignored its almost complete makeover into a remarkably safe enclave). In those days, anyone wandering the Times Square neighborhood where I worked could count on seeing a three-card monte game on every block, with fast-talking card sharps hustling the tourists. It wasn’t very sophisticated, but it must have worked because they were out there every day.
The grift playing out this week in the federal government around climate is no more complicated, but it too relies on speed and distraction. On the first day of his term, U.S. President Donald Trump set up the con by asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions were dangerous. Yesterday, EPA czar and former failed gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin dutifully made his long-awaited announcement: Nothing to fear from carbon dioxide, methane, and the other warming gases.
“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said when he first announced the idea. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S., and more.”
Trump didn’t really need to do this in order to stop working on the climate crisis—he’s done that already. The point here is to try and make that decision permanent, so that some future administration can’t work on climate either, without going through the long and bureaucratic process of once again finding that the most dangerous thing on the Earth is in fact dangerous.
The problem with this simple one-two punch from Trump and Zeldin is that someone will challenge it in court as soon as it becomes official. “If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court,” said Christy Goldufss of the Natural Resources Defense Council. And they’ll have an argument, since—well, floods, fires, smoke, storms. I mean, if carbon dioxide was dangerous in 2009, that’s a hell of a lot more obvious 16 years later. The Supreme Court upheld the idea that CO2 was dangerous in 2007—here’s how Justice John Paul Stevens began that opinion:
A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related. For when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it acts like the ceiling of a greenhouse, trapping solar energy and retarding the escape of reflected heat. It is therefore a species—the most important species—of a “greenhouse gas.”
But that was a different, and non-corrupted, Supreme Court. John Roberts wrote the dissent, and he’s doubtless eager to do with climate change what he’s already done with abortion. But that would be easier if they had some “well-respected experts” to say that there’s not any trouble—stage three of this grift. It’s true that there aren’t any well-respected experts that believe that, but the White House has hired several aged contrarians who have maintained for decades that global warming is not a problem, even as the temperature (and the damage) soared. And yesterday they released a new report that reads more or less like a Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it they cherry pick data, turn to old and long-debunked studies, and in general set up a group of strawmen so absurd that one almost has to grin in admiration. Actual climate scientists were lining up to say their papers had been misquoted, but all you needed was a modicum of knowledge to see how stupid the whole enterprise was. Just as an example, our contrarians hit the old talking point that CO2 is plant food—indeed, “below 180 ppm [parts per million], the growth rates of many C3 species are reduced 40-60% relative to 350 ppm (Gerhart and Ward 2010) and growth has stopped altogether under experimental conditions of 60-140 ppm CO2.” Great point except that there is no one calling for, and no way, to get CO2 levels anywhere near that low. I led a large-scale effort to remind people that anything above 350 ppm is too high, and that was so successful that we’re now at 420 ppm and climbing. Too little carbon dioxide is a problem for the planet in the way that too little arrogance is a problem for the president
And yet, when it finally reaches the court, they will doubtless cite this entirely cynical and bad-faith document to buttress the case that the EPA should be allowed to stop paying attention to carbon dioxide. As I said, it’s a pretty easy to follow swindle, but they count on the fact that most people won’t. Butter won’t melt in their mouths—as Energy Secretary (and former fracking executive) Chris Wright said in his foreword to the new report:
I chose the [authors] for their rigor, honesty, and willingness to elevate the debate. I exerted no control over their conclusions. What you’ll read are their words, drawn from the best available data and scientific assessments. I’ve reviewed the report carefully, and I believe it faithfully represents the state of climate science today.
Every word of that is nonsense, but it doesn’t matter—because it’s an official document on the right letterhead it will do the trick. This is precisely what science looks like when it’s perverted away from the search for truth. It’s disgusting.
Still, there’s another grift also underway this week, and this one that may work the other way and do the world some good. The president announced his new trade deal with the European Union, which calls for 15% tariffs—but it’s sweetened by the European promise to buy $750 billion worth of American natural gas in the next three years. Trump has essentially been using the tariff process as a shakedown, a way to repay his Big Oil cronies for their hundreds of millions in support: it’s pretty much exactly like a mob protection racket, where you buy from the guy you’re told to or you get a rock through the window. The White House quickly put out a list of thank yous, including one from the American Petroleum Institute: “We welcome POTUS’ announcement of a U.S.-E.U. trade framework that will help solidify America’s role as Europe’s leading source of affordable, reliable and secure energy.”
And yet, as Reuters first noted and then many others also calculated, the numbers are clearly nonsense. First, the E.U. actually doesn’t buy any energy itself, and it can’t tell its member states what to purchase; in fact, even those member states usually rely on private companies to buy stuff. Second, it’s physically impossible to imagine the U.S. selling Europe $250 billion worth of natural gas a year. As Tim McDonnell wrote at Semafor:
Total U.S. energy exports to the world were worth $318 billion last year, of which about $74.4 billion went to the E.U., according to Rystad Energy. So to meet the target, the E.U. would need to more than triple its purchases of U.S. fossil fuels—and the U.S. would need to stop selling them to almost anyone else.
“These numbers make no sense,” said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a researcher specializing in European gas markets at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
The biggest reason it won’t happen, though, is that Europe is quickly switching to renewable energy. As Bill Farren-Price, head of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, explained to the Financial Times:
“European gas demand is soft, and energy prices are falling. In any case, it is private companies not states that contract for energy imports,” he said. “Like it or not, in Europe the windmills are winning.”
Trump will doubtless coerce some countries into buying more liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the short run, and that will do damage. Global Venture announced Tuesday that they’d found the financing for the massive Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) export terminal, which has been opposed by both climate scientists and environmental justice activists. As Louisiana’s Roishetta Ozane said Tuesday:
The CP2 LNG facility is an assault on everything I hold dear. It’s a direct threat to the health and safety of my community and an assault on the livelihoods of our fishermen and shrimpers.
I’ve seen my kids struggle with asthma, eczema, headaches, and other illnesses that result from the pollution petrochemical and LNG plants dump into my community. I won’t stop opposing this project in every way I can, because my children—and everyone’s children—deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a healthy environment. I refuse to let Venture Global turn my community into a sacrifice zone for the sake of its profits.
But my guess is that such facilities won’t be pumping for as many decades as their investors imagine. Europe pivoted hard to renewables because Russian President Vladimir Putin proved an unstable supplier of natural gas; Trump’s America is hardly more reliable, since the president has made it clear he’ll tear up any agreement on a whim. Any rational nation will be making the obvious calculation: “I may not have gas of my own, but I’ve got wind and sun and they’re cheap. I’d rather rely on the wind than the windbag.”
Trump’s a conman, but he’s also a mark.
"We are hoping Maritime Executive's readership are reminded that investing in a fuel that will expedite the rapid decline of life on the planet is not a good look (or a good investment)," one spokesperson said.
When readers of The Maritime Executive peruse the magazine's latest issue on Friday, they will be in for a surprise.
Page 15 of the magazine displays an ad for GreenCurrent Group, which bills itself as a "full service communications and marketing agency specializing in supporting commercial maritime operators and energy providers investing in LNG [liquefied natural gas]—the most exciting and misunderstood marine fuel."
But when curious maritime or energy executives follow the QR code at the bottom-right corner of the ad, they will discover that no such company exists. Instead, they will be directed to a satirical video commercial for "Scrubby Greenwash," a giant anthropomorphic green sponge that promises to "scrub, scrub, scrub sad facts away."
The false ad and video are the latest hijinks from underground activist collective The Yes Men, who have used humor and pranks to target corporate wrong-doing since 1996.
"We are hoping Maritime Executive's readership are reminded that investing in a fuel that will expedite the rapid decline of life on the planet is not a good look (or a good investment)," The Yes Men's Natalie Whiteman told Common Dreams.
The Yes Men first made waves more than three decades ago with a mock World Trade Organization website that got taken seriously enough to win them an invitation to a real-world conference. Since then, they have used creative deceptions to call attention to various social, economic, and political issues from high drug prices to lack of accountability for the Bhopal disaster.
"We need industry leaders, energy producers, and all players across the supply chain to reject LNG as a climate solution."
Many of their past actions have targeted fossil fuel companies and raised awareness about environmental issues such as the climate emergency and corporate greenwashing. Over the past year, they have begun campaigning around LNG specifically.
"We've always been in favor of generally keeping living things still alive, and methane is going to make all of that not happen much faster," Whiteman said. "We thought hey, that's not cool at all."
"LNG is a massive issue," Whiteman continued. "and the industry is pouring enormous resources into convincing the public that LNG is a green fuel when in fact LNG is methane, with a warming capacity 80 times more powerful than CO2, that leaks across practically every step of the supply chain."
To tackle this issue, the group has taken Scrubby Greenwash on tour to major cities around the world.
How did they come up with the character?
"Greenwashing is the process of scrubbing inconvenient facts and science away to protect the reputation of a company," Whiteman explained. "It's a process of sanitizing their image with marketing, and so a delirious looking slimy sponge seems like the sensible choice."
Whiteman said that Scrubby was "building up a rabid fanbase all over the world" while "targeted companies don't seem nearly grateful enough for the services he provides in protecting their image."
The group also crashed the World LNG Summit in Berlin in December under the guise of a Royal Caribbean executive. They managed to hold a few one-on-one meetings and earn a panel invitation before being found out, in an adventure that will be fully shared in a documentary to be released next year.
Their focus on LNG parallels the work of more traditional climate activists, who have been sounding the alarm about its planet-warming potential and urging governments to curb the buildout of new LNG infrastructure.
However, following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, there has been backsliding on the regulatory end, with Trump declaring an energy emergency to stimulate more fossil fuel extraction and lifting a Biden-era pause on new LNG export approvals. On Wednesday, the European Union also announced a plan to fund new LNG exports, which was interpreted by some as a concession to Trump's pro-fossil fuel agenda.
The Yes Men's latest fake ad targets not governments, but shipping and LNG companies directly.
The false ad placed by The Yes Men in The Maritime Executive.
In the video ad, a table of men in suits sit around a table in "liquefied natural gas headquarters" as a news item announces, "A new investigation has revealed that cruise liners powered by liquefied natural gas produce more global warming than those powered by regular marine fuel. That's because methane leaks at every point in the supply chain, and gas traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide."
The newscaster continues, "That's bad news for everyone, but especially for the luxury cruise lines, like Royal Caribbean, which have been marketing themselves as green," at which point the camera pans over to a Royal Caribbean representative in a captain's uniform. "If the industry doesn't act fast, this information could hurt their bottom line."
It's at this point that the executives pick up the phone to call in the assistance of Scrubby, who comes bursting through a brick wall Kool-Aid style.
Whiteman said The Yes Men chose to target Maritime Executive and Royal Caribbean in particular because "the trade media is complicit in propagating the greenwashing that protects LNG's false reputation as a clean fuel. And the fact that Royal Caribbean is marketing their LNG-powered mega ships as sustainable is a criminal untruth, when they could be investing in zero-emissions alternatives or other efficiency measures.'
Ultimately, Whiteman told Common Dreams, "We need industry leaders, energy producers, and all players across the supply chain to reject LNG as a climate solution. It has proven to be anything but."
Trump threatens other nations with tariffs, and offers to make them go away if they buy some fracked gas. It’s akin to a protection racket. Pay up, or your windows get broken.
In the last few days, Taiwan, India and Japan made clear they will be buying exported American LNG in the months and years ahead. Why? Entirely in an effort to hold off tariffs from the Trump administration. As the Japanese prime minister put it,
“We will cooperate to strengthen energy security between the two countries including increasing exports of United States liquefied natural gas to Japan in a mutually beneficial manner.”
Here’s how Bloomberg described the Indian decision-making:
Indian importers are under pressure from the government to reach deals that could smooth relations with Trump, the people said, but they will be looking for the best possible terms before signing any agreements.
Meanwhile, as Sing Yee Ong reports from Taipei
Taiwan is preparing to buy more liquefied natural gas from the US to reduce its trade surplus and potentially avoid higher tariffs.
Oh, and more to come
South Korea, Vietnam and the European Union are among energy buyers trying to appease President Donald Trump — and reduce the threat of tariffs — by looking to increase purchases from the biggest exporter of the super-chilled fuel and largest producer of crude.
I want to highlight these shakedowns, which have mostly been lost amidst the thousand other terrible things the Trump administration has loosed upon the world, because I know that before long Big Oil will be holding them up as evidence that the world needs and wants more fossil fuel. In fact, the world wants to move in entirely the opposite direction: 85% of new electric generation in 2023 came from renewables, and the numbers for 2024 will almost certainly be higher. That, of course, terrifies the fossil fuel industry—which is why they spent record amounts on November’s election. As fracking baron Harold Hamm explained, “We’ve got to do this because it’s the most important election in our lifetime.”
And now they’re getting the payoff: Trump threatens tariffs, and offers to make them go away if they buy some LNG. It’s akin to a protection racket. Pay up, or your windows get broken. It’s not criminal—it’s all entirely legal. It’s just wrong.
This particular protection racket makes no sense for America at large. Forget, for a moment, that LNG is a huge driver of the climate change driving fire and flood (by the time you’ve shipped it overseas it’s far worse even than coal); exporting it in huge quantities also obviously drives up the price for Americans still reliant on fracked gas for heating and cooking. The Energy Information Administration just predicted that natural gas prices will rise 21 percent in the year ahead. Politico did the math
Paul Cicio, president of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America trade association, said U.S. LNG exports are pushing natural gas and electricity prices higher.
Every “dollar increase in natural gas costs consumers $34 billion plus about $20 billion in higher electricity cost,” Cicio said in a statement Tuesday. It's “only going to get worse from here as LNG exports increase.”t of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America trade association, said U.S. LNG exports are pushing natural gas and electricity prices higher.
As the Sierra Club points out, Trump’s strategy “makes no sense.” And they’re right—as long as we’re talking about the future of the planet or the cost to American consumers. But that’s not who Trump is thinking about. He’s got one constituency and one only: the Big Oil execs who bankrolled his campaign. For them, this is sweet payback, a 100-1 return on their investment.
And it’s a stark reminder that we have to fight back on the only turf we have: the fact that the sun and wind can deliver the same product as LNG, only more cheaply and much more cleanly. We can’t threaten tariffs to get our way; we can only make the case in such persuasive terms that we start to change the zeitgeist. That’s the point of SunDay project I described last week and that you are going to hear a lot more about. Many thanks to those who went to sunday.earth to help us draw some suns as we prepare for the official launch of this big effort. So many of you took part already. Here’s a beautiful example from the effervescent Ayana Johnson (whose book What If We Get It Right is a document for this tough moment):
And here’s one from Billy Parish, whose Solar Mosaic has financed something like ten percent of the rooftop solar in America
It may seem like a mug’s game to take on Trump’s thuggish power with economics, physics, music, art, and justice. But perhaps they still hold some force in this world—we shall see.