Nicholas Goldberg: Americans don’t care about climate change. Here’s how to wake them up and inspire them
Americans are getting more and more accustomed to hearing about climate change, but at the same time they are increasingly aware that it is not just a threat, but a challenge, to every facet of life.
So what we’re going to do is talk about some of the ideas that are at the forefront of climate change debate, as well as some of the most important things that a progressive government and a democratic nation can do right now on climate, and how you can do those things yourself, and inspire others to do them, too.
Welcome to the “Citizen Engagement” episode of In These Times. I am Nicholas Goldberg.
The current administration is in the midst of a campaign to convince the American public that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese to destroy U.S. manufacturing jobs.
And President Donald Trump has been doing a good job at convincing the public that climate change is a scam to get more government control, to undermine environmental protections, and to allow corporations to drill for fossil fuels in the middle of millions of acres of public land, with the support of the Obama administration.
Trump has talked about taking away the environmental protections that protect public lands, and drilling in them. He has said he plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up for drilling. With a stroke of his pen, he would have opened up the largest open-water gulf in the world, to drilling.
The president even said in an interview with Axios, “We’re going to have to get used to the idea that we will have more and more of the U.S. government controlling things like energy production and transportation.”
Environmentalists are calling this reckless and dangerous, and many are worried that Trump actually wants to unleash climate change on the American people, and turn them into a giant, global fossil fuel consumer.
So we’re going to talk about those ideas, and then we’re also going to talk about the best ways you can act right now to make sure that America stays on the right side of environmental activism.
To be fair, as they say, he’s not doing it on his own — it’s part of a well-o