excerpt from:
Jeremy Scahill's podcast
American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump
An Intercepted audio documentary series offers a comprehensive analytical
history of the Trump presidency. Featuring in-depth examination of Trump’s
extreme agenda, the roots of U.S. history, and the policies of Trump’s
predecessors, the series seeks to analyze the question: Is Trump the worst
president in U.S. history?
PART SEVEN: CLIMATE CARNAGE
Trump has stacked his anti-science administration with corporate polluters,
gutted environmental regulations, and opened protected land for extraction.
JS: In the big picture in the U.S., corporate negligence and greed, cultivated
by corporate-friendly bi-partisan policy-making and Republican-led
deregulation is to blame for polluting our air, water, land, and food, as our
earth becomes uninhabitable.
It’s clear that another Trump term would be catastrophic for the biosphere.
The administration would continue to flat out deny science is, in fact,
science and govern accordingly. Here’s how vice presidential candidate
Kamala Harris described Trump’s overarching perspective on climate during
her debate with Mike Pence:
Kamala Harris: I served, when I first got to the Senate, on the committee
that’s responsible for the environment. Do you know this administration
took the word science off the website? And then took the phrase climate
change off the website? We have seen a pattern with this administration
which is they don’t believe in science.
JS: Harris is, of course, correct here. But there are indications that a Biden
administration may continue to squander the remaining opportunity to
reverse course.
Though Biden has agreed to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, many
scientists believe those principles don’t go far enough, and more robust and
immediate action would be needed for what they see as a five alarm fire.
While young climate activists beg politicians to sign on to the Green New
Deal, Biden won’t. In fact, Biden has gone out of his way to say he opposes
the Green New Deal.
Joe Biden: Pardon me?
Chris Wallace: You support the —
JB: No, I don’t support the Green New Deal.
DJT: Oh you don’t. Oh, well that’s a big statement —
JB: I support the Biden [cross talk] —
DJT: That means you —
JB: I support the Biden plan that I put forward.
CW: OK.
JB: The Biden plan, which is different than what he calls —
JS: In a sea of lies that the Trump team has unleashed during this campaign,
they have inaccurately attacked Joe Biden as a radical environmentalist.
They’ve also suggested that Biden would ban fracking — a method for
extracting natural gas or oil that scientists have long warned is a destructive
process that could pollute water and air, and may cause earthquakes. The
problem is, that is not Biden’s position.
In fact, Biden’s campaign has gone to great lengths to make sure people
understand that he will never ban fracking. Here again is Kamala Harris. .
KH: So first of all, I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe
Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.
JS: Activists, particularly those from younger generations, have made it
clear who they believe is responsible. They have demanded urgent and
unprecedented action.
Betsy Reed: Ever since NASA climatologist James Hansen testified before
the Senate in 1988, we’ve known that our planet is warming to dangerous
levels because of human activities. And yet, since 1988, 100 companies
have been responsible for 70 percent of continued greenhouse gas
emissions.
JS: Betsy Reed is the editor in chief of The Intercept.
BR: We know who to blame for polluting our air, and heating our oceans. We
know who is responsible for this emergency. But still, the culprits have
slithered out of accountability. The tides are turning though, and it’s clear
that the younger generation won’t rest until they can extract a measure of
what they call climate justice: meaning that those who have committed
these crimes will pay a price, while those who have suffered as a result will
find safe haven and relief. It’s a simple idea, really. The 16-year-old climate
activist Greta Thunberg has become controversial for making a point that
should be obvious: Corporations should be held to account for what they’ve
done.
JS: Last year, a global movement to confront the climate crisis gained
unprecedented visibility and support. Teenage activist Greta Thunberg of
Sweden launched a worldwide climate strike and used her platform to
chastise heads of state at the United Nations.
Greta Thunberg: The world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on
Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.
How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just “business as usual”
and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining
CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.
There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures
here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still
not mature enough to tell it like it is.
You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your
betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose
to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.
JS: In the U.S., a national conversation around the Green New Deal was
ushered in by first term Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
[Clapping]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Because today is the day that we truly embark on
a comprehensive agenda of economic, social, and racial justice in the United
States of America. That’s what this agenda is all about because climate
change, climate change, and our environmental challenges are one of the
biggest existential threats to our way of life, not just as a nation but as a
world. And in order for us to combat that threat we must be as ambitious
and innovative in our solution as possible.
JS: But the Green New Deal is hardly being enthusiastically embraced by the
elite rulers of the Democratic Party — not Joe Biden and not Nancy Pelosi:
Nancy Pelosi: We welcome the enthusiasm that is there. The Green New
Deal points out the fact that the public —
JS: There was also this moment in early 2019 when longtime Democratic
Senator Dianne Feinstein was confronted by a group of young school
children asking her to back the Green New Deal.
Child: Some scientists have said that we have twelve years to turn this
around.
Dianne Feinstein: Well, it’s not going to get turned around in ten years. What
we can do—
Unknown person: Senator, if this doesn’t get turned around in ten years,
you’re looking at the faces of the people who are going to be living with
these consequences.
Child: The government is supposed to be for the people and by the people,
and all for the people.
DF: You know, what’s interesting about this group is I’ve been doing this for
30 years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and say, “It has to be my
way or the highway.” I don’t respond to that.
JS: The recent wave of climate mobilization came after four decades of
inaction on scientists’ desperate pleas to combat the rising threat of global
warming. The Intercept’s Naomi Klein described the importance of that
mobilization, particularly the role of young people.
Naomi Klein: Every day, there seem to be multiple reports telling us in
different ways that we are seeing ecological unraveling at a speed that really
is ahead of schedule in terms of what we were expecting. You know,
whether it is species collapse, whether it is glacial collapse, sea-level rise,
historic storms, it’s all happening so very, very quickly. And so, there’s terror
there and I think we have to be honest. But at the same time, we are seeing
a level of climate mobilization that I’ve never seen in my life — a clarity, a
moral clarity coming from particularly young people who really understand
that they are fighting for their futures. They’re fighting for the right to plan,
the right to have options in their lives, to not have lives that are just
punctuated by massive disaster. So, we’re hearing that from the streets. And
I think even more than that, we’re also hearing — particularly in the United
States, thanks to the Sunrise Movement, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and
the way that dynamic redrew the map and put the Green New Deal on the
political agenda — we are also hearing a vision for a response to the climate
crisis that isn’t just better than total ecological breakdown, but is actually in
a lot of ways better than the kind of economy we have right now.
JS: Now even if the Green New Deal was enacted under a Democratic
administration with a Democratic-controlled Congress, it would not resolve
decades of inaction about mitigating global warming. As Naomi Klein points
out, the facts of our reality cannot be evaded.
NK: Within a neoliberal economy, everybody feels this sense of
precariousness and directing attention away from the responsibility of elites,
from the responsibility of their own nexus of corporate players that they all
represent in their various countries and directing it towards the most
vulnerable. So, I think we’re going to see more of this. And I don’t think that
we will have a response to it that doesn’t address these underlying causes,
that isn’t fundamentally about building a fair economy, that isn’t
fundamentally about redressing deep, deep historical injustices and
exclusions. And that is what the Green New Deal has the potential to do.
And I say the potential because there are various iterations of what a Green
New Deal might be and some of them are quite sort of shallow and
nationalistic. And some of them are deeper reckonings with the debts that
are owed to Black and indigenous people in the United States and also what
the United States as an economy, which is the world’s largest historical
emitter of greenhouse gases, owes to the countries on the frontlines of the
impacts of climate change, that have done almost nothing to create it
because the people there are too poor to emit carbon at high levels. You
know, I really do believe that we are at a crossroads, which is really about
what kind of people we are going to be as we face a future of more and
more dislocation, of more and more disasters. I mean, that’s already locked
in even with a best case scenario of keeping warming levels below 1.5
degrees Celsius.
JS: It is not often discussed but one of the consequences of the climate
crisis is the psychological toll it is taking on the people with the most to lose.
For young people, anxiety and depression resulting from the state of the
climate is a real and increasingly documentable problem. A recent study
done by the Environment Agency in the U.K. found that people who
experience an extreme weather event are 50 percent more likely to suffer
mental health issues for years to come. Another survey found that over 78
percent of Gen Z-ers aren’t planning on having children because of the
climate crisis. That same poll of 2,000 Americans found that 44 percent
believe the Earth will become uninhabitable, no matter what we do.
One recent book powerfully addresses this grief of the climate crisis. It’s
called “The End of Ice.” Here is author Dahr Jamail reading an excerpt.
Dahr Jamail: While Western colonialist culture believes in rights, indigenous
cultures teach of obligations that we are born into, obligations to those who
came before, to those who will come after, and to the earth itself. When I
orient myself around the question “What are my obligations?”, the deeper
question immediately arises “From this moment on knowing what is
happening to the planet, to what do I devote my life?”
JS: This has been part seven of an Intercepted limited documentary series,
American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump.
American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump is an Intercepted
limited documentary series. You can follow us on Twitter @Intercepted and
on Instagram @InterceptedPodcast. Intercepted is a production of First Look
Media and The Intercept. Our lead producer is Jack D’Isidoro. Our producer
is Laura Flynn. Elise Swain is our associate producer and graphic designer.
Betsy Reed is editor in chief of The Intercept. Rick Kwan mixed the show.
Transcription for this program is done by Lucie Kroening. Our music, as
always, was composed by DJ Spooky. Make sure to tell your friends and
even your foes about this series. Until next time, I’m Jeremy Scahill.
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