Editor’s note: This is part of a package of memos to the president.
Mr. President:
Where to begin? As soon as you regained the highest political office in the United States, you began the process to withdraw the country from the Paris Agreement, joining the exalted ranks of Iran, Libya, and Yemen—the only other countries not party to the agreement.
You proclaimed Alaska “open for business” for all kinds of resource extraction, from mining to timber, with special attention paid to liquified natural gas and other energy projects.
You declared a national energy emergency, even though the United States currently produces more oil and gas than any other country. You commanded federal agencies to “exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them” to facilitate the production of domestic energy resources—but not wind! “We aren’t going to do the wind thing,” you said.
The editorial brief for this memo was “advice for the incoming president that he might actually take.” Does such a thing exist within the climate arena, Mr. President? I polled some Bulletin contributors to see what they would suggest.
Consider the real estate. “My $0.02 for the incoming president would be that if left unchecked, climate change will certainly impact golf courses and real estate values in Florida,” writes Toby Ault, the director of Graduate Studies for Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. Researchers have estimated that US real estate is overvalued by $121 to $237 billion because of flood risk alone—and that figure doesn’t even take into account the risks from wildfire or other climate-related disasters. This creates a giant property bubble that could spell disaster for the US financial system, if and when it pops.
And that golf courses comment sounds like a joke, but it’s really not. In 2021, Jason Straka, the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, told CNN that many golf courses in Florida were having to close more frequently due to flooding and were at risk of permanent inundation. “If they don’t go out and literally lift their footprint up in the air, they’re going to be in a perpetually deeper and deeper bathtub,” Straka said. “If they think they have problems now, in 10 years, they’re going to be a swamp.”
You yourself must be aware of the threats from sea level rise, as the Trump International Golf Links in Doonbeg, Ireland, has sought (unsuccessfully) to build a sea wall to protect the course from coastal erosion.
A reminder, Mr. President: Sea level rise is the result of global warming, which can only be stemmed by eliminating climate-warming emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Security through environmental stewardship. “A piece of advice for Trump that he might actually take, given his fascination with the military and an interest in presenting a stance of domination, is that environmental security issues pose the greatest threat to global stability today—economic, social, and ecological stability,” writes Drew Marcantonio, an assistant professor of environment, peace, and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame. “Regardless of the politics or recurring questions around belief in climate change or its causes, there is no question that environmental stresses are degrading livelihoods and communities, with conflict dynamics emerging in the wrought process. In short, focusing on lessening and adapting to environmental change is a security imperative no matter how you choose to look at it.”
Ault adds: “If we’re going to solve the immigration crisis in any meaningful way, that’s going to require addressing some of the climate drivers that are displacing refugees.” Although climate is not always a direct or primary factor for migrants coming to the United States, the indirect impact should not be underestimated.
See, for example, this 2024 Rand report on climate migration, which states: “A 2021 survey in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras found that the primary considerations for migration to the United States were economic; only 5 percent of respondents (PDF) mentioned climate as a reason for their decision. At the same time, 2020’s Hurricanes Eta and Iota and a 2018 drought decimated agriculture in the region, and migration increased after that. In other words, could survey respondents distinguish their economic problems from their climate problems? Have repeated disasters caused or worsened their economic problems?”
Build, baby, build. Robert Socolow, professor emeritus in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University, and a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, suggests investing in and encouraging low-carbon fossil energy, like gas combined with carbon dioxide capture and geological storage. Socolow has long been an advocate of working with the fossil fuel industry on climate change, instead of against it.
“Build a bigger tent,” Socolow says. “Give the oil and gas world a major new assignment. There’s already funding to support carbon capture and storage for centralized fossil-fuel-based projects in the Inflation Reduction Act, which will elicit many individual projects. But there is no systems view.” Socolow proposes a more comprehensive and better-coordinated effort—a giant infrastructure project akin to the National Highway System—building out regional networks of carbon dioxide pipelines connecting hundreds of capture and storage plants across the nation.
“For a critical design phase over the next four years that would establish durable policies and investments, President Trump, you would be at the helm,” Socolow writes. He points out that the oil and gas industry would benefit from new, profitable assignments at home, as well as from significant export potential for any new technologies proven here.
“History would assign this breakthrough to you, much as it assigns the National Highway System to President Eisenhower,” Socolow adds. “No matter how many shifts in our electorate’s priorities, this commitment would probably be durable because it would have a bipartisan consensus behind it. It would be a distinctive highlight of your legacy, Mr. President.”
Invest in science. Socolow’s second suggestion is to invest in more ambitious climate science. “As a nation, we can and should be the global leader,” he says. “We could have the best satellites and the best probes of the ocean and ice and forests, the leading models. Currently, every country is underinvesting in all those arenas, yet the returns from better information are immense.”
Specifically, Socolow says that the current United States Global Change Research Program budget is around $4 billion, but he thinks it should be at least double that.
“Although it is crystal clear that emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and a few other gases are warming the planet, climate scientists do not know how fast truly bad outcomes will arrive,” Socolow writes. “President Trump, you would be hedging your bets with stronger climate science. Best case scenario, new science will indicate that climate change isn’t as threatening as the most frightening futures consistent with current models predict. The world, then, might decide that it was OK to weaken its current stringent emission-reduction targets. You would have made yourself room to move to a middle position where you could say something like: ‘I was right that my predecessor was being insensitive to the disruption created by shutting down fossil fuels. Now let’s set a slower course, for which I, more than anyone, have prepared the world.’ Worst case, leaders who succeed you everywhere in the world will be grateful for clearer and earlier warnings of the dangers ahead.”
Cleaner air, cleaner water. In your first term as president, you said, “From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet. We want the cleanest air. We want crystal-clean water, and that’s what we’re doing and that’s what we’re working on so hard.”
I want that, too. A lot of people do.
The thing is, climate action can help improve water and air quality. Without climate action, air and water quality will inevitably decline.
Global warming is already worsening air quality around the country, increasing people’s exposure to ozone and particulate matter (from wildfires, for example). Burning fossil fuels releases air pollutants and greenhouse gases alike. Encouraging the expansion of fossil fuels runs directly counter to your stated desire for “the cleanest air.”
Water quality also hinges on a stable climate. Climate-fueled disasters like wildfires and floods can inundate drinking water systems and groundwater with pollutants and debris. Sea level rise is threatening coastal freshwater systems with saltwater inundation. Prolonged droughts and declining snowpacks are threatening the water security of Americans across the West. There’s no “crystal-clean water” if there’s no water.
Mr. President, not every expert I contacted thought it was even worth attempting to engage with you. “Much as I wish I could, I honestly cannot think of any proactive way to engage with Trump on climate, simply because there is no good faith whatsoever on his part, or on the part of the Republicans who support and enable him,” wrote Michael Mann, the director of Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania.
I didn’t have that luxury, because this story was an assignment. But also, because I know that taking action on climate is in everyone’s best interest—even yours.
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When billionaires get the best seats at inauguration, it's clear where Trump gets his policy from. For this reason, this prayer for logic above greed falls upon deaf ears. They just don't care. Not about the common man, not about the world, and certainly not about America. As an American myself, I am terrified of Donald Trump and the fascist plans millions of my fellow Americans are idly allowing to destroy us. I have no idea what to do. It seems like nobody else does either. All I know is that we can't just sit here and take it; complaining to politicians who hate us means nothing if we don't substantiate it with something.