But he is not a threat to the planet.
Whatever happens on Nov. 5, Earth will be fine.
Earth doesnt care about Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks about the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in climate action in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 4, 2024.Peter Zay/Anadolu/Getty Images
To her, he is a flea that shits on a gold-gilt toilet.
If we fuck that up, were all in big trouble and so is every living thing around us.
There is no democracy in a world ravaged by climate-driven war, disease, displacement, and economic mayhem.
Thats the choice we have in this election.
Ive seen the bodies of people who died from extreme heat.
Ive seen starving polar bears and talked with water-panicked farmers.
Ive looked through a microscope at a malaria-carrying mosquito.
We are driving our gas-guzzling SUVs into a shitstorm the likes of which no humans have ever witnessed before.
Ive also talked to people who see this whole thing very differently than I do.
They show me junky graphs that argue the recent warming is just part of a natural cycle.
Maybe youre cynical about politics and think it doesnt really matter who is president.
Maybe you dont want to vote for her because of the ongoing horrors in Gaza.
But we live in the world we have, not the world we wish for.
Theres no room here for a crash course on climate risk.
Forest fires have also shifted north and become more severe.
This is a global emergency beyond any doubt.
Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled.
TRUMP THINKS CLIMATE CHANGE is a hoax.
He makes jokes about sea-level rise creating more oceanfront real estate and how wind turbines kill birds and whales.
And oh, there is so much more.
But to call Trump a climate denier doesnt really capture what whats going on here.
In fact, Trump is running a pro-climate chaos campaign.
To him, a superheated planet is a feature, not a bug.
Hecan play politics with disaster relief, giving federal money to his pals, or his constituencies.
Trump loves fossil fuels not only because hes too stupid to grasp the promise of clean energy.
They are the pushers, we are the addicts.
No wonder Trump hates them.
But Harris has not said much about how she will build on the success of IRA if she wins.
That said, Harriss record on climate is strong.
She has called climate change an existential threat.
As California attorney general, she prosecuted oil companies for environmental violations.
The science is clear,she said.
Extreme weather will only get worse, and the climate crisis will only accelerate.
Why has she been so soft-spoken about it during the campaign?
In a word, Pennsylvania.
But how how many voters are we talking about, really?
Trump claims500,000 workersin the state are employed by fracking, but that is (of course) bullshit.
If you count indirect jobs, the overall job figure would be about 55,000 about one-tenth of Trumps number.
Its a tricky line for Harris to walk, to be sure.
Especially considering the fact that Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020 by only80,555 votes.
But in the end, thats on us, not Harris.
On Nov. 5, we have a chance to change that.
A vote for Kamala Harris is not a vote to save the planet.
But it is a vote to save ourselves.
