5 min read

Why Can't We Just Tell the Truth About Fossil Fuels?

Why Can't We Just Tell the Truth About Fossil Fuels?

I went on a call-in radio show this weekend, the focus of which was climate in the next election. I had also just talked to my friend and frequent collaborator Mary-Annaïse Heglar about this very question for the most recent episode of our climate talk show, Spill (check it out below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts). I talked to a physician trying to organize her colleagues to speak out more about climate and health, who told me they're afraid to explicitly say that burning fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to climate change. And I'm back from a much-needed break now so am monitoring social media feeds again too, which are filled with U.S. election chatter. A simple question keeps bubbling up in my gut amidst it all: Why are even activists so afraid to be honest about what's actually needed to deal with the climate crisis?

Instead it's a whole lot of politicking and coyness around whether Kamala would ban fracking, or even what constitutes a climate policy. Plenty of folks are arguing that we shouldn't talk about climate at all because this is an election about fascism or not fascism.

I don't disagree that Trump has promised fascism and would do what he can to deliver on that promise. But, as I've said many times before, the planet doesn't actually care about politics. The atmosphere doesn't respond to political compromises or clever messaging strategies, it responds to molecules, and we are dumping too many of the wrong kind of molecules into it to preserve a livable atmosphere for the maximum number of humans. Don't get me wrong, I understand how elections and politics work, I get why people think Kamala needs to hedge here and dodge there, and they may well be right about what it takes to win an election. [Caveat, I'm writing this before the debate. Maybe she'll actually mention climate during it, and maybe it'll be straightforward. The one very direct--and in my opinion smart--thing she's said is that oil companies are price gouging at the tank and she aims to do something about that.]

What I don't understand is why activists can't just say, explicitly, here are the things required to actually address the climate crisis in an equitable manner. Something that "Notes from America" host Kai Wright asked me on Sunday really stuck with me. He said on issues like voting rights or getting money out of politics, he knows exactly what to push for: passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and overturning Citizens United. But on climate, he said he had no idea. That people talk about "passing climate policy," but what does that mean? Especially in the wake of the IRA, which created tax credits and new drilling options for the fossil fuel industry with one hand as it incentivized renewables with the other, and yet is described (and rightfully so!) as the largest and best climate policy the country has ever passed. It's confusing. So he asked me, "You've been covering this forever, what would a politician have to be proposing for you to think okay this person is serious about tackling the climate issue?" And honestly I had a moment of panic there myself where I thought "is it okay to say: a plan to get off fossil fuels" or "regulations on emissions"? Then I figured well hell that's what the science shows we need to do--at least that--so why do I feel like it's some radical opinion? With the benefit of a few days, I'd add a couple more things:

  • a thorough energy transition plan, including details on how electricity costs will be kept affordable, an answer to questions about intermittency, a plan for reducing energy consumption so we're not tied to massive mining and industrial energy projects forever, and a jobs plan for those working in the fossil fuel industry;
  • an end date for new oil and gas development
  • regulations on black carbon and greenhouse gas emissions that incentivize the reduction of them.

Why does that seem remotely radical given what we know about this problem and how to solve it? And why aren't activists calling for these basic steps? As has been the case with criticizing the Biden Administration's stance on continuing to arm Israel as it decimates Gaza, climate activists have tended to encourage silence. We can't talk about genocide, lest people vote for Trump. Now we can't talk about basic climate science, or point out that no, Madame Vice President Harris, the IRA is not the same as the Green New Deal you once supported, lest people vote for Trump.

Instead, a rather loud chorus of voices within the "climate movement" praise a "methane fee" that has yet to be implemented and is mired in legal objections; they count those emissions as reduced or eliminated literally as they are being blown into the atmosphere. They celebrate the "LNG pause" while terminals continue to be built, even as LNG producers wring their hands about a glut (because whoops, warmer-than-average winters affect them, too).

But Trump would be worse! I can hear them crying out already. And they aren't wrong.

Something Mary said to me last week has stuck with me, too. Well, two things. First, she said explicitly that the climate movement's spinelessness has pushed her away for good. Great work.

And then she said: "Maybe we need to change the way we think about elections. You're not voting for your friend. You're voting for your opponent. If your primary issue is climate, who would you rather organize against to get that done?"

It's a good way to think about it. And here's hoping that if Harris wins, her climate backers will be ready with a clear list of demands, that they will be as ready to criticize her embrace of the gas industry as they have been to shout at those who dared talk about it pre-election.

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