Photo by Rubén Bagüés
Global warming is accelerating, according to Reuters October 20, in a welcome display of journalism’s keen sense of the obvious. Reuters quoted Potsdam scientist Johan Rockstrom, who “said damage to coral reefs and the Amazon rain forest was close to becoming irreversible. Parts of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system, including the current that moderates Western Europe’s climate…were close to collapse.” This is all lousy news, but the ignorant can’t say scientists didn’t tell them long ago. In fact, climatologists have been screaming about this for years, while Big Money, embodied in, say, oil corporations, has financed lies that these worries are baloney: a view duly parroted by politicos like Donald “Let the Earth Burn” Trump.
As the earth heats and the atmosphere fills with water, leading to runaway floods, fires and lethally high temps in spring, summer and fall in zones previously considered temperate, we can’t say we weren’t warned. In the 1920s, Soviet scientists fretted about the atmospheric effects of industrialization and predicted global warming. Needless to say, not a word of this ever seeped into western media or consciousness – Soviet scientists? Who in the west cared what they said? Environmental hazards of industrialization? Hadn’t Karl Marx, among others of his ilk, complained about this and, well, we know what western elites thought of him. So since at least the 19th century, it’s been a commonplace that industrialization trashes the environment. But awareness of climate change really zoomed up in the late 20thcentury, so, here in 2026, there’s no excuse for the United States being the world’s climate albatross.
A new UN report blames the U.S. for a rapidly heating world. “If all countries do what they promise to reduce heat-trapping emissions,” AP wrote October 21, “Earth will still likely warm another 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit,” according to the UN report. “This is a worse outcome than expected last year, as a result of the formal withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement,” notes the report, which “also blames the United States for increased emissions last year, saying all the other top 20 major economies reduced their carbon pollution.” The UN report accuses America bluntly: “In terms of magnitude, the increase in the United States of America (133 megatons of CO2 equivalent) far exceeded that of all other countries and was driven by…a rebound of coal power generation.” Donald “I Dig Coal” Trump can take credit for turning earth into a greenhouse gas chamber. I’m sure he’s proud to.
Meanwhile, China makes more solar panels and wind turbines than anybody. True, China also burns coal and emits tons of carbon. But if huge markets, as in the U.S., were more open to renewable tech, it seems likely China would switch gears. In any event, it’s easier to shame Beijing into striving for carbon neutrality than it is the U.S., a country now run, apparently, for the benefit of oil companies. Indeed, Washington is going “hell for leather trying to block renewables,” per the UN report, “while actively promoting and subsidizing dirty coal – and its diplomacy is trying to make other countries pull back on action.” This is disgusting. It’s Trump thumbing his nose at humanity, sneering, “You want to survive climate change? Fat chance. I’m gonna make the planet scream.”
Just as Middle East expert Trita Parsi concluded October 21 on X that Trump’s motive for his planned attack on Iran is revenge – revenge on a nation that successfully defended itself against a war Trump himself chose – so too a gallon of vindictiveness seems to have leaked into Trump’s eagerness to render Earth uninhabitable. Also, a bit of “apres moi le deluge,” because Trump is old and so will not live to suffer what he has caused. But the vindictiveness seems truly off the deep end: environmentalists never harmed Trump; his animus toward them seems to be that they’re a bunch of nosy do-gooders who interfere with his and his cronies’ God-given right to make money. Though even that explanation doesn’t hold water. Because there’s money to be made in renewables and in EVs. So it’s nonsensical and capricious.
And then there’s Hormuz, oil spigot for 20 percent of the world’s oil, currently bottled up due to Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s insane hubris and lack of foresight, and likely to remain strangled thus until the oval office occupant changes. Oil, everywhere, or at least at its two biggest sources – Russia and the Persian Gulf – is under military attack. What an irony! Trump, the ruler determined to pour gasoline on the planetary fire called climate change, has ensured that, for instance, more Europeans will now buy EVs. The freakin’ combustion engine is just too darn expensive, what with Moscow’s energy facilities under idiotic CIA/Ukrainian bombardment, with Saudi oil infrastructure getting blasted to smithereens by the Houthis and with Iran targeting western tankers in Hormuz. As of October 23, oil hit $118 per barrel, thanks to Trump’s psychotic threats to annihilate Iran.
Also likely will be the exemplary energy resilience during this oil crisis of those Global South countries that China loaded up with solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable tech. How stupendous that it is the overweening arrogance of the world’s preeminent climate trasher that has created an international move away from oil. If only enough environmentalists and renewable tech execs saw this to ensure the opportunity isn’t lost. To them one can only say, carpe diem! It may not come again for years. And this moment is critical, according to Earther, an online magazine – founded by, full disclosure, my daughter, environmental journalist Madeleine Stone – as of October 24, “Earth’s shallow coral reefs may have just 50 years left.” This is the time to act.
But even if smart people seize this chance, trouble, big climate trouble, still looms. “Worldwide renewable energy installations have grown by 415% since 200,” wrote Robert Hunziker in the October 23 CounterPunch. “But it has not budged the biggest problem facing humankind: too much CO2 in the atmosphere.” The culprit? He cites CO2 emissions in 2026 at 42.4 gigatons, a 70% increase in 25 years. Hunziker blames a global population explosion and “the world’s oil and gas industry [putting] the pedal to the metal. World petroleum production has increased 42% since 2000.” Ahem, I would advise all serious people to focus on this second cause and skip, and I mean skip, the first.
It is a weakness, I believe, of the environmental left to keep harping on the evils of childbearing. Humanity is going to continue to reproduce and probably prodigiously, period. Complaining about this, especially considering that most of that demographic growth occurs among people of color in the Global South, only feeds the poisonous fire of those neo-fascist “environmentalists” who have popped up in recent years, ringing alarm bells about the climate perils of too many brown and black people. To left environmentalists, I can only warn, eschew this. The whole line of argument. Those Global South women who do not want 10 children will eventually – if they get assistance, namely birth control – have fewer babies. Helping them control their bodies is one thing. Doing it in an attempt supported by racists, should be carefully avoided.
Besides, the demographic trend in many of the world’s biggest nations, China, the U.S., Russia and in the EU, is downward. This spreads when living standards rise; so better to concentrate your energies on that than on the perils of too many kids in the Global South. Meanwhile, best to counter the environmental effects of exploding populations with massive infusions of renewable tech and infrastructure. China leads the way here. We and all people of good will should follow. Our species depends on it.
