Trump's State of Disunion (2020 Edition)

Trump's 2020 State of the Union address reaffirmed his ongoing penchant for dishonesty, his utter lack of civility and his conspicuous avoidance of climate change. Trump began by refusing to shake the hand of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and he went on to deliver the most divisive State of the Union speech in the modern memory.

Trump bragged about the fact that the US is the world's largest producer of fossil fuels. He did not acknowledge the mounting evidence that suggest fossil fuels are on their way out, and not once did he mention renewable energy. As is often the case with this president, he tried to take credit that is not his to take. "The United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far. With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years." The truth is this happened in 2012, four years before he was president. Trump boasted about energy jobs but what he failed to say is that there are now more renewable energy jobs than there are jobs in the fossil fuel industry.

Fossil Fuel Powered Anti-Science Climate Denial

Despite a spate of solid peer reviewed science indicating that our current trajectory is "catastrophic," Americans are not worried about climate change. There are at least two primary reasons, the first has to do with the nature of climate change itself and the second has to do with the influence of powerful forces in the old energy economy.

At the end of 2013 a Gallup survey found that only 24 percent of Americans worry a great deal about climate change. Fifty-one percent of them worry about it very little or not at all.

Part of the problem is the fact that the leading cause of climate change (CO2) is invisible and its most devastating impacts will take place in the future. People are not exposed to the suffering it will cause and to make matters worse, we feel powerless to anything about it.

The other half of the denial equation concerns the devious efforts of powerful interests who stand to benefit from delaying political action as long as possible. They have used their limitless wealth to muddy the waters of climate science.