The world has been making strides towards a clean energy future, with wind and solar power increasingly playing a role.
There are several reasons why ditching clean energy is a terrible idea: greenhouse gases, air pollution and health risks, energy insecurity, environmental damage, and economic stagnation are the main issues.
In this article, we’ll look at those reasons, as well as the consequences of a pro-clean-energy president being replaced by one who takes the country back to a time when its energy came from burning fossil fuels.
In the U.S., President Joe Biden accomplished a lot in terms of climate legislation. He set deadlines for the country to become carbon neutral to combat global warming. He pushed the country towards using clean energy, like solar and wind power. In fact, he was called the First Climate President in the U.S.
As a bonus, with every clean energy project he created, jobs followed in that community.
Many voters (myself included) were focused on Biden’s inaction when it came to handling Benjamin Netanyahu and the genocide in Gaza. We condemned him for it.
Meanwhile, we were missing all of the progress the administration was making with clean energy projects to combat climate change. (Maybe it was just me. I honestly didn’t know about all of the climate legislation that was passed during his term.)
“President Biden did more for the environment than any other president in history. He signed 326 climate-related bills.”
They should have campaigned on their accomplishments on the climate crisis. If I, someone who has an IV line pumping news and politics into her veins 24/7, missed it, then there’s a good chance people who are not politics-obsessed are unaware of it as well.
Return of Fossil Fuels: Goodbye Clean Energy
Donald Trump won the 2024 election and on his first day back in office, he reversed all of the progress the country had made in protecting the planet and combating the damage fossil fuel companies had caused.
Even with Project 2025 available to the public, people still weren’t prepared to have every clean energy accomplishment erased.
Instead of continuing to protect the environment, President Trump handed it over to the companies that caused most of the damage in the first place.
He promised big oil executives that he would end regulations on fossil fuel companies, allowing them to do as much damage to our planet as they want.
Exxon Mobil
50 years ago, in 1977, Exxon’s scientists told the executives about climate change and how their actions were damaging our planet. The scientists also shared what would have happened if they hadn’t stopped back then.
11 years later, in 1988, the American people first learned about climate change when it emerged as a public issue.
Imagine if oil executives had taken climate change seriously in 1977. They could have warned the government so our leaders could begin educating themselves on global warming to create a plan to halt its damages.
Had something been done back then, we wouldn’t be experiencing the extreme weather events we are now, or witnessing the damage to ecosystems caused by years of global warming.
Polluters exposed
It was decades later when someone discovered internal documents from Exxon revealing that years earlier, climate scientists had warned company leadership about the damage they were doing and what that meant for the environment.
Yet, they continued unfazed for decades. Even worse, knowing that their activities were bad for the planet, they consistently advertised the opposite until Americans became aware of climate change and caught on to what they were doing.
It’s distressing to think about how different things might be today if the people who were causing global warming had stopped when they first became aware of the damage they were causing.
We can’t repair the damage that’s already been done to our planet, but we can stop damaging it further.
The next four years are going to be tough for environmentalists, climate activists, and kind people in general.
President Biden has done more to protect, restore, and secure our health and environment than any president in U.S. history, and the proof is in the numbers. President Biden has taken more than 320 environmental actions to address climate change.
Now we know that fossil fuel companies and billionaires care more about money (they don’t need) than they do about the possibility that human beings might be floating around in space after the planet becomes uninhabitable in the future.
There is no planet B.
We should have been prepared for these moves by President Trump—both emotionally and mentally—because the plans are clearly laid out in Project 2025.
There are directives like: ‘get rid of any mention of the term “climate change” throughout the federal government.’ And they have.
I’ve used online government resources to fact-check information over the years and links to any page that referenced climate change, clean energy initiatives, or climate science, all lead to the same page:
China has bullet trains, well-maintained infrastructure, and they are way ahead of the U.S. in the transition to clean energy. Why? Partly because they haven’t been in a war since 1979, so the trillions they would’ve spent on war were invested in the country.
The U.S. spent trillions on wars. Just on conflicts in the Middle East after 9/11, alone, we spent $8 trillion.
Wind Energy
As Trump signed an executive order shutting down offshore wind farms, his comments made it clear that he’s still salty about the “windmills” that were visible from his golf course in Scotland.
He recently made the comment “Show me a wind farm in China.” or “Try to find a windmill in China.” Something along those lines.
Well, Mr. President:
Ever since Donald Trump lost a court battle to have the wind turbines near his golf course in Scotland removed, he has spread misinformation and lies about wind energy.
Because of the lies he told about clean energy (likely due to ignorance), many Americans now question how electricity would be generated on a cloudy, windless day. The lies have also created an epidemic of climate denialism in this country.
After years of Republican politicians bashing renewable energy to please donors, Climate change is commonly viewed as a “hoax” by Republican voters (Democratic politicians also take money from fossil fuel companies, they just aren’t as brazen about rooting for them).
Climate Catastrophe
The push by President Trump to revert back to using fossil fuels instead of clean energy presents a serious threat to our planet and our well-being.
He has even brought back coal-fired power plants. They produces black soot and causes respiratory issues in people who live near them.
He recently forced a coal-fired power plant that was closing to remain open and operating at a cost of $1 million a day against the wishes of the plant owner, whose wife developed cancer after years of inhaling the polluted air produced by the plant.
Here are the main reasons why switching from clean energy to fossil fuels is a horrible idea:
Greenhouse gases
Fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. Burning coal, oil, and natural gas releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and causing:
🚗 Rising global temperatures
🚗 More frequent and intense extreme weather events (heatwaves, droughts, floods)
🚗 Melting glaciers and rising sea levels
🚗 Disruption of ecosystems
Air pollution and health risks
Fossil fuel combustion pollutes our air with harmful pollutants like:
💨Sulfur dioxide
💨 Nitrogen oxides
💨 Particulate matter
💨 These pollutants cause:
💨 Respiratory illnesses (asthma, bronchitis)
💨 Heart disease
💨 Lung cancer
💨 Premature death
Energy insecurity
Relying heavily on fossil fuels makes us vulnerable to:
📈 Price fluctuations in the global fossil fuel market
📈 Geopolitical instability in oil-producing regions (as we are currently experiencing)
📈 Supply chain disruptions
Environmental damage
Fossil fuel extraction and transportation can have devastating consequences:
🌎 Oil spills contaminate oceans and coastlines
🌎 Fracking contaminates groundwater
🌎 Mining destroys habitats and pollutes waterways
Economic stagnation
Investing in fossil fuels locks us into outdated, polluting technologies, hindering innovation and competitiveness in the growing renewable energy sector.
Shifting away from clean energy sources like wind and solar power is a dangerous step backwards. It threatens our planet, our health, and our economic future.
We must prioritize a transition to a sustainable energy system that protects our environment and ensures a healthy and prosperous future for all of us.
