03/28/2026
Trump called environmentalists “terrorists” the other day, and we shouldn’t dismiss that incendiary rhetoric as just Trump being Trump. The US, the UK, Germany, and Australia have slowly but surely been criminalizing climate protest since roughly 2018 — when the public started taking climate change more seriously and listening to the activists calling for the phase out of coal, oil, and gas. Why is the call for fossil-fuel phaseout so threatening? Because the phase out of coal, oil, and gas — halting global heating, in other words — would destroy the system of profit and vast sums of capital that make up the wealth of pretty much only the wealthy. (Whatever middle-class prosperity fossil fuels built in the 20th century, that prosperity is now being chipped away by high energy bills, high home-insurance bills, high health-care costs from the social costs of air pollution, not to mention multiple multi-billion dollar disasters every year, which are only really getting started.)
Everything that Trump is doing right now (in Venezuela, in Iran, at home in the US) seems insane, but that insanity is devoted to sustaining the system we already had before Trump took office. That’s why oil and gas interests support him. Exxon’s CEO said at the White House that “one of the reasons why we see many industry players [supporting Trump] is we’re in a depletion business ... and as a depletion business, the biggest challenge we have is finding resources. There’s an opportunity in Venezuela with all the resources there.” Trump is cornering the global market for fossil fuels on behalf of the US, preventing the switch to clean energy, and forcing coal, oil, and methane gas down the world’s throat, even if it means destroying the future forever.
If you’re worried that by fighting back you’re going to be called a terrorist, or worse, and you’re in New York City, come to
on Monday 4/6 at 7pm, and find out what you can do. I’ll be there! The link to register is in their bio.
