Column By John Young
What does the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 have to do with who runs Venezuela?
Everything.
What does a fee by the International Maritime Organization have to do with the fate of the National Center for Atmospheric Research?
Everything.
Everything — that is — desired by oil, gas, and coal interests from the man their millions helped put back in the White House.
Name a thing that would tickle Big Carbon’s taste buds: Declare CO2 not a pollutant. Declare climate change not a thing.
The biggest spenders (and polluters) behind President Smog’s re-ascent have a list of polluter-friendly favors as long as the New Jersey Turnpike. He’s checking off every item.
Migratory birds? A while back, ExxonMobil paid a pittance of a fine — $600,000 is a trifle for a corporation that racked up $22 billion in profits last year — for the deaths of protected bird species.
Last March, the White House made sure that it wouldn’t happen again. The protections were gutted.
Maritime shipping?
More than 100 countries, including ours, agreed to assess fees on cargo ships that emit black smoke across the waters.
The New York Times reports that not only did the White House pull us out of that agreement, but participating countries also report being “bullied” by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to do the same.
We thought Rubio’s job was to navigate international crises, not to be a knuckle-cracker for polluters.
Whatever Big Carbon wants — from massive to utter minutiae — we will make it happen. We. Taxpayers.
In his 2024 campaign, over a lavish Mar-a-Lago dinner, Mr. Smog challenged industry donors from oil, gas, and coal interests to come up with $1 billion to help him retake power. That’s some Happy Meal.
The donors didn’t hit the “b” mark, but they did come up with $75 million so he could warn voters via TV ads about hairy men invading girls’ volleyball teams.
Having sold his soul, from Day 1, President Smog set out to make good on Big Carbon’s generosity. Know that it has far transcended, “Drill, baby, drill.”
Consider the White House’s plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. – hangman-bound for its “alarmism” (meaning scientific assessments) on climate change.
Of course, NCAR, a vital institution since 1960, is about much more than that. It is about foreseeing and understanding weather disasters – hurricanes, droughts. Who cares about that?
Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech, said dismantling NCAR is like “taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”
Whatever Big Carbon wants. Just buzz the front desk.
The sledgehammer analogy is apt. When our government discounts carbon dioxide as a concern, it is also giving accompanying tailpipe and smokestack pollutants a pass.
But President Smog has a list and is checking it twice.
One item is to promote “clean, beautiful coal” – or so say his Coal Country donors. A problem with that is that the marketplace has turned away from coal because it’s not “clean and beautiful.” It is black, smelly, and wrecks lungs.
The president is trying to revive coal incineration pursuant to donors’ demands, but utilities long ago started finding cleaner ways to make electricity.
Colorado is phasing out all six remaining coal-fired utilities. Gov. Jared Polis says it is not as cheap as advertised. And there’s that matter of Earth-suffocating emissions.
Yeah, well, this president will hear nothing of that. Just look at his “honey do” list from the industry that put him back in office.
Add all together, as the Princeton-affiliated REPEAT Project did, and the result will be an added 7.6 billion tons of greenhouse gases over the next decade, equal to what 150 million gas-powered cars would emit.
The Energy Department is no longer about saving energy. It’s all about production. That’s what campaign underwriters want. They put down their money. They will have what they desire.
Way back in 2021, Congress established the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to study non-polluting means of generating power. President Smog dismantled it.
Hard to keep track. Was that item No. 132 or No. 476 on Big Carbon’s list?
And now, unbelievably, liberating Venezuela’s oil has become U.S. military policy. If you’re aghast like I am, you didn’t make the list.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
