Tthe world is experiencing yet another oil supply crisis, this time initiated by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombing campaign in Iran. And seeing as our planet has suffered from human-caused pollution resulting in considerably higher surface temperature since the 1970s, let us use this crisis as an opportunity to significantly advance funding for the research and installation of clean, renewable sources of energy.

Though not an exact translation, the Chinese word for crisis, wēijī (危机/危機), is often cited as combining “danger” (wēi) and “opportunity” (jī), implying that danger contains opportunity to emerge stronger.

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Trump is killing the planet & marginalized groups will pay the biggest price

Toward the end of President Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1979, the world suffered an energy crisis triggered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution, which caused global oil production to plummet and oil prices roughly to double. This led to severe gasoline shortages and long lines at service stations.

Carter initiated a phased deregulation of domestic oil to encourage production. He also promoted conserving energy and advocated for renewable sources, such as solar energy. He even installed solar panels on the White House roof to lead by example. In addition, he enacted a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies to inhibit them from making exorbitant profits at the public’s expense.

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The conservative Republican battle cry, seemingly coined by former Vice President and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to “Drill Baby Drill” into domestic sources of oil is unfortunately what Trump has pushed during both of his administrations.

This, however, is simply unsustainable. In the words of President Barack Obama in 2012: “But you and I both know that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices – not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.”

Trump’s call to “Drill Baby Drill” and his repealing of regulations on fossil fuel emissions and on limits of gas and oil drilling, mining, and deforestation will severely increase the chances of planet Earth’s death.

To “Drill Baby Drill” by continuing and increasing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and reducing or eliminating research and funding for renewable energy sources (such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric) will increase the already alarming global climate change rate, thus placing all living things at increased risk for extermination.

In addition to the over 70 environmental regulatory rollbacks under Trump’s first administration according to New York Times research, the Polluter-In-Chief gave a stunning announcement on February 12 that he has further loosened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting the environment. His announcement now leaves the country with a government-mandated new agency that can be titled the Pollution Rollbacks Of Fossil Fuels Increasing Toxicity Substantially (PROFFITS).

This agency has revoked “both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond,” the official government announcement stated.

Specific items on the administration’s anti-environmental agenda include loosening standards for vehicle tailpipe emissions, weakening rules regulating power plant emissions, defunding research and implementation of renewable energy sources, increasing drilling and fracking of fossil fuels, eliminating financial incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles, and revoking other anti-polluting and pro-climate directives. 

During his latest State of the Union Address, Trump was proud when he announced that “American natural gas production is at an all-time high. Because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.”

Why would anyone, and especially, the President of the United States glow with pride as their policies continue to devastate our global environment? Why would Trump wish to reduce the breathable air and potable water on our native planet?

Is it somehow more “masculine” to fill one’s gas guzzler “muscle car” with oil? Do they consider electric cars as “feminine” woke vehicles to be driven only by women and gay beta males? Do they really believe Trump’s lies that wind turbines cause cancer in humans and massacre millions of birds?

We are experiencing with increasing frequency the unprecedented intensity and duration of our planet’s climatic conditions. For example, the 2017 Hurricane Harvey dumped more rain on Texas alone than any past storm in the history of meteorological record-keeping. Meanwhile, the 2017 Hurricane Irma remained a category 5 hurricane longer and, also, clocked the highest sustained winds of any Atlantic hurricane ever. This was caused, in large part, by extraordinarily high Atlantic water temperatures.

By examining Harvey and Irma, we are witnessing our future. Today, meteorologists use terms like “unprecedented” and “historic” in describing the component conditions of these two climatic events. Tomorrow, we will hear them defining similar storms as “normal.”

The Biden administration conducted an extensive study, its National Climate Assessment, which found conclusively that our global climate is, in fact, changing, primarily due to human activity, in particular, because of burning of fossil fuels.

The assessment investigated approximately 12,000 professional scientific journal papers on the topic of global climate change, and it discovered that, in the articles expressing a position on global warming, fully 97% authenticated both the reality of global warming and the certainty that humans are the cause.

Additional studies report that we will be experiencing more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, and the beginning of the depletion and ultimate total collapse of glaciers in Antarctica, which can continue to raise worldwide sea levels an additional four feet — this depletion is now irreversible. 

What seems obvious to the scientific community seems like science fiction to many key politicians, including Donald Trump and members of his administration.

Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, severely gutted regulations on corporations and industries that seriously pollute our water, air, and soil, while reemphasizing fossil fuels and deemphasizing clean energy sources.

He chose Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to head the Department of Energy during his first term. Perry admitted he was unaware of the function of the department he was to administer and, in his infamous “oops” moment during his 2012 presidential run, he actually forgot that the department was one of the three federal agencies he intended to eliminate.

To “lead” the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump picked Scott Pruitt who contradicted reliable scientific evidence when he stated he doubts that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor of climate change.

“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s [CO2] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Pruitt said.

This view aligns with Trump’s statement on the campaign trail, calling climate change “a hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese, even though the EPA’s conclusion on its website states (before Trump had the agency delete it) that “carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.”

Against mountains or irrefutable evidence to the contrary, the climate deniers, including Donald Trump and significant numbers of his Grand? Old Party are perpetrating a delusional fraud against volumes of reputable evidence to the contrary that if allowed to continue, will end in the extermination of all life on this planet (except, or course, cockroaches who seemingly survive almost anything).  

Environmental oppression refers to human activities that result in contamination of the Earth and the environments of space.

“Oppression,” a noun, means “the unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” on the individual/interpersonal, institutional, and larger societal levels. Human treatment of the environment certainly falls under this definition.

As opposed to “oppression,” I define “social justice” as the concept that local, national, and global communities function where everyone has equal access to and equitable distribution of the rights, benefits, privileges, and resources, and where everyone can live freely unencumbered by social constructions of hierarchical positions of domination and subordination.”

This concluding phrase is of prime importance. When humans place themselves into “hierarchical positions of domination and subordination” over plants and animals, environmental degradation inevitably results.

A non-regulated privatized so-called “free-market” economic system lacking in environmental protections is tantamount to a social system deficient of civil and human rights protections for minoritized peoples. 

I have attempted to find a term for environmental oppression that is parallel with other forms of oppression, like racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, adultism, ageism, classism, cissexism, lookism, ethnocentrism, and many others.

Since “environmentalism” refers to concerns for the environment, rather than signifying a form of oppression, and I have yet to find an appropriate term, I have coined the term “ecoism.”

By extension, actions taken by individuals, groups, organizations, nations, and humanity at large in destroying our planet, we can consider as “ecoist” actions.

During this dangerous time, we have the opportunity to change course and divert energy and funding from weapons of war and destruction to renewable, clean, and safe sources of energy so our children and their children and all the children yet to come will have a real chance of living to an advanced age.

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