If he wins the election, Donald Trump will increase pressure on climate change

Army Lieutenant General (Ret.) Russell L. Honoré
| Austin American Statesman

Every election year, we hear the same things. We hear that the upcoming election will be “historic” or even “the most important election of our lifetimes.”

I’ve been voting in presidential elections since 1968. There have been many important elections in that time, but none as important as the 2024 presidential election — and not just for the reasons you might think.

It’s true that this time, Americans face a choice between a candidate who has dedicated his career to upholding the rule of law and a man who praises dictators and says he’ll become one on his first day in office. The stakes for our democracy couldn’t be higher, but so could our climate.

Donald Trump publicly promised the fossil fuel industry that if they gave him $1 billion to get reelected, he would use his presidential powers to give them whatever they wanted once he took office. Trump publicly demanding a bribe in this way should disqualify him from office.

The pledge of allegiance to the industry shows Trump’s corrupt intentions, but the fossil fuel industry is not like most others. Like tobacco and coal, it causes massive public harm in the pursuit of profits—and the cost of the destruction is borne by society, not just shareholders. In a recent speech at the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres even called fossil fuel companies the “godfathers of climate chaos,” before calling on nations around the world to ban oil-related ads.

Not only do fossil fuel companies continue to advertise their products, but their marketing and disinformation are the only reason we continue to rely so heavily on their fuels, especially for electricity generation. Renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels. But as Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M University, explained in The New York Times, the fossil fuel industry manipulates the energy market. At the same time, they influence climate change reporting and even school curricula and textbooks, all in an effort to keep the world hooked on coal long after the damage it causes outweighs its utility.

Meanwhile, renewable energy has never been a less partisan dividing line. It’s true that in the United States, one political party is more hostile to renewable energy, at least in its rhetoric. But look at what’s happening in the states, and the old red-blue divide is starting to break down. Columnist David Wallace-Wells examined them for his article, Clean Energy Suddenly Becomes Less Polarizing Than You Think and found that Texas leads the nation in green energy projects — and this one doesn’t even come close. He also points to research from the Rocky Mountain Institute that shows that while Republican representatives didn’t vote for the inflation-reduction bill, their states are making good use of the funds invested in green energy projects.

In other words, Americans (and especially American companies) know that renewables are the future. Only the oil and gas giants refuse to admit that they themselves are becoming fossil fuels.

This summer could be the hottest on record, but if we don’t change course and quickly end our addiction to fossil fuels, we may look back on this inhumane, hot summer and talk about it like it was the good old days. That means we all need to choose wisely this fall and reject a candidate who has already promised to sell out our democracy—and our climate!—to the fossil fuel industry.

Honoré is a former U.S. Army commander who led Task Force Katrina after the devastation of New Orleans. He is now the leader of The Green Army, an organization dedicated to finding solutions to pollution. This commentary appears exclusively in the American-Statesman.