Local opinion: Anti-climate agenda means higher monthly bills – Arizona Daily Star


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The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Rick Rappaport
Hopes of a fatter paycheck and lower household expenses pushed Trump to a 49.8 to 48.3% national voting margin of victory. Those hopes were decimated on Trump’s Day One as he began a systematic takedown of all things climate in federal agencies: No talking about it. No writing about it. No money to mitigate it.
Hopes were dashed because climate change costs real dollars from every American household every single month. The U.S. Treasury in 2023 published a 40-page footnoted report titled “Impact of Climate Change on American Household Finances.” It describes how climate change affects monthly bills: property damage, higher prices for consumer products, increased spending on energy, disruptions to dependent care, lost earnings and access to employee benefits, increased transportation costs and reduced availability, access to healthcare and rising expenses, insurance coverage gaps with higher premiums/deductibles and reduced availability and increased costs of credit.

Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, which could turn the tide against a continuously warming planet and constant climate catastrophes. He withdrew from the World Health Organization effectively shutting America off from vital information about new contagions arising out of a warming planet. He wants to gut the Inflation Reduction Act that ironically mostly helps Red State economies while boosting energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. He will sacrifice America’s air quality for gas car production by removing emissions standards, stating: “… the EPA should terminate, “where appropriate, state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.” To him, “everywhere” is appropriate.
As the U.S. Treasury report shows, there is a steep price to pay for these anti-climate actions. Voters are unlikely to realize Trump’s false promise of lower household costs precisely because he is fixated on obliterating the only strategy which could reduce those monthly bills: climate mitigation. Vilifying climate mitigation is low-hanging fruit for Trump’s cultural harangues that food prices and gasoline pump prices will rise unless he takes charge and drills for more and more oil. Armed with that blasphemous lie, he will drill baby drill wherever a hole can be poked in the ground. Nothing is safe. America’s wetlands, forests, and ecosystems everywhere — even National Parks — are fair game. And he’s begun removing Federal employees who stand in the way of his “party on” fossil fuel policies, including Justice Department attorneys responsible for protecting our natural world. As of now, there is no one to stop him except public opinion. He stacked the courts in his favor last go round, so all we’re left with is using the same legal delay tactics he’s used so successfully to avoid jail.
Oppose his “Retribution Tour” anti-climate agenda, and he will use any means at his disposal to exact revenge. Dystopian fires and human misery in California, the largest Federal tax base in the U.S.? Screw ’em, they didn’t vote for me. Fish dying in droves from a warming Pacific Ocean? They’re all Blue States. See ya!
Global warming has always been one of those slow-moving blobs of havoc that can wait another day to really address. It’s ripe for his culture war against anything or anyone advocating climate mitigation strategies. But as the U.S. Treasury report describes in great detail, climate change is undeniably responsible for escalating monthly bills for every American. Check no further than your utility bills for gas or electricity. Then check out your insurance renewal — if you can get one.
Without climate action, things will only worsen and household monthly bills will only go higher and higher. There’s a cinch belt around the world economy, and you will pay for every climate disaster no matter where it is. Trump has swept climate mitigation under the rug and has jackboot-stomped on it.
You know those card games where you are drooling over the top card but if you take it you have to also take all the cards underneath? Well, Trump’s top card was the bait of lower costs and higher paychecks, and now we get all the cards underneath.
Rick Rappaport is a member of Arizonans for Community Choice, the Greater Tucson Climate Coalition and Tucson Chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, although the thoughts expressed here are his own alone.
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Rick Rappaport
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