Politicians Are Betraying Gen Z on Climate
Photo by Ma Ti
Like many other Gen-Zers, I have an interest in sustainability initiatives. Our rapidly changing climate — and our constant exposure to it on social media — encourages us to be more active in seeking out ways to reduce our environmental impacts.
As more Gen-Zers enter the workforce, 74 percent of us have reported wanting to find a sustainable employer. We also place a strong emphasis on supporting sustainability with our dollars, with Gen-Zers on average willing to spend 10 percent more on sustainable items and brands.
One surprising trend that’s taken off as a result of these concerns? Crafting.
Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called fiber arts — like knitting, embroidery, quilting, crocheting, and so on — have helped Gen-Zers channel their environmental concerns into their wardrobes while also expressing their creativity. Once labeled a “grandma activity,” a stunning 73 percent of crocheters are now between the ages of 18 and 34, according to one website dedicated to the craft.
The explosion of fiber arts on TikTok and Instagram inspired me to take up knitting, thrifting, and crocheting as a way to expand my wardrobe consciously while limiting the amount of waste I produce.
Last year, I knit a sweater for my mother for her birthday and crocheted a scarf for my father for Christmas. I love taking weekend thrifting trips with my friends, exploring new areas as we purchase second-hand clothing. Engaging in fiber arts and eco-conscious shopping helps me feel closer to my community while reducing my environmental impact.
But while young people are knitting sweaters and thrifting new clothes, our representatives in Congress are passing huge giveaways to the fossil fuel industry and attacks on sustainability.
President Trump’s recently passed “Big Beautiful Bill” will significantly reduce funding for sustainable programs. It will drastically scale back the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits, which have accelerated the clean energy sector. This will hinder the transition to clean energy, raise energy prices, and substantially increase carbon emissions.
The bill also introduces “pay to play” provisions that will allow large companies to pay fees for expedited environmental reviews, effectively repealing the National Environmental Policy Act. By bypassing these reviews, these companies can avoid regulatory requirements to streamline gas or oil drilling projects.
The bill also included a measure that would have forced the unprecedented sale of 250 million acres of public lands. These lands, which include hiking trails, drinking water, and critical wildlife migration corridors, would be made available for companies to purchase for oil drilling.
This provision was stripped after a massive public outcry, but the danger remains that it could be reintroduced in one form or another.
These changes are accompanied by a historic increase in the military budget, throwing an extra $150 billion into the Pentagon, which has a carbon footprint larger than most entire countries. This will raise the total Pentagon budget to over $1 trillion annually.
Unless it’s repealed, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill will be a disaster for the planet — and my generation. It’s incredibly frustrating as an individual trying to lessen my impact on the environment — spending hours knitting, crocheting, and thrifting — while watching politicians on Capitol Hill greenlight massive polluters.
My actions, and the collective actions of my generation, deserve to be acknowledged. We deserve to have our sustainability concerns reflected in our federal budget. We’re doing our part — don’t erase our progress.
Al Gore Puts Down ‘Climate Realism’
Youtube screenshot.
Al Gore, speaking in Nairobi, gave a TED speech that set the stage for where the world stands in its search for Net Zero by 2050: “Many of the oil, gas, and coal producers and their financial allies are now advocating a new approach that they call ‘climate realism.” (Al Gore, TED speech, Nairobi, Nigeria, June 2025)
The fossil fuels industry’s ‘climate realism’ displaces decades of science in the worldwide struggle with two likely outcomes for the climate system by 2050:
1. Net Zero is achieved, resulting in a livable climate system.
2. Global temperatures ramp up +2-3-4°C pre-industrial, resulting in hothouse Earth, much of the planet unlivable.
By all counts, the ‘B’ option has the highest probability because ‘A’ is based upon wishful thinking and a very bumpy record. Whereas ‘B’ is based upon factual data of the current trajectory of climate change, which is well ahead of scientist’s expectations, going in the wrong direction, with some claiming it may already be too late. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry pretends, and hopes for, the ‘A’ option with adaptation measures. This is the genesis of fossil fuel ‘Climate Realism’. In a soft-spoken manner, they claim they can fix what emissions harm.
It’s ten years since Paris ’15 when 195 nations agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050. Yet, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), ten years later (2025) fossil fuels still account for roughly 80% of the world’s energy supply. This is the same percentage as Paris 2015. It also includes ten years of positive renewable energy development throughout the world, but it’s still 80% fossil fuels. Alas, Net Zero paradoxically looks farther away every year. Is it ever attainable?
Moreover, what is ‘climate realism’ in the eyes of the fossil fuel industry, and what’s the likelihood it’ll keep civilization humming along? The oil and gas industry’s ‘climate realism’ inherently provides for abandonment of efforts to deal with the principal cause of the climate crisis, which is burning of fossil fuels. This new genre calls for focusing on “adaptation” whilst burning more fossil fuels. According to their climate realism school of thought, energy transitions have taken place slowly over the past couple hundred years. So, it is simply unrealistic to expect it could change faster now. In fact, according to Al Gore, the new theory claims society has “no right” to expect anything other than a slow transition, or maybe no transition, like what history has shown to be true. But Gore takes issue: “According to ‘climate realism’, it is cheaper and more practical to continue using the sky as an open sewer than to rapidly reduce the principal cause of the climate crisis, or the burning of fossil fuels.”
In that regard, the United States, arguably the economic model for the world since WWII and seen as the fortress of some brand of capitalism, has literally tossed in the towel on fighting the climate crisis, wholeheartedly adopting “climate realism,” informing the world: Deal With It!
But Al Gore, in his TED talk, referencing current scientific research, challenges ‘Climate Realism’ by exposing real climate realism, to wit: (1) at current rates of change, scientists estimate two billion climate refugees by 2050 (2) the past ten years were the hottest ever recorded with recent readings in the Persian Gulf of 126.7°F and Pakistan 122.9°F and summer’s just started (3) already, a couple million climate refugees have prompted a political upheaval of authoritarianism and ultranationalism, what of 2 billion? (4) whole regions of the world are becoming property-uninsurable, especially in the US West and Deep South (5) mainstream sources’ estimates claim world housing could lose $25 trillion in value because of climate change (6) Deloitte claims climate inaction will cost the world economy $178 trillion but over the same time frame climate action would add $43 trillion (7) Greenland is losing 30 million tons of ice every hour, threatening coastal megacity sea levels (8) Antarctica’s acceleration of ice loss threatens sea levels more so than scientific models ever expected, as 450 polar climate scientists recently held an emergency meeting (9) sea level rise has doubled since 1990s satellite monitoring (10) the worst droughts in history have clobbered the Brazilian Amazon rainforest as 90% of Amazon River in Columbia went dry (11) third year in a row of massive apocalyptic scale wildfires in Canada (12) particulate air pollution from burning fossil fuels and petrochemicals kills nine million per year. Gore’s real climate realism list goes on and on, well beyond the items listed above because of the worldwide impact of a raging out of kilter global climate system principally caused by fossil fuels. And everybody knows it. Yes, everybody sees it on nightly news programs.
In China 200 million Gig Workers are eligible to receive a “heat wave allowance” or danger money when working in extreme heat conditions. (Bloomberg Green Daily) In 2024 China recorded the hottest year on record. According to The Lancet, heat-related deaths in China have doubled this century.
A Positive Trend Versus Fossil Fuel Emissions
Gore’s speech noted positives in the alternatives space. For example, the costs for renewables have plummeted to levels making fossil fuels unproductive in comparison. Exxon’s own predictions that solar capacity would only achieve 850GW by 2040 was dead wrong; as of year-end 2024, it is already at 2,280 GW, nearly triple the Exxon projection for 2040. Solar is now the least expensive source of electricity in human history. Since the Paris Agreement, solar electricity generation has soared by 732%. And electric vehicle sales have increased 34x since 2015.
In April 2025 China installed 45 gigawatts of new solar capacity. This is equivalent to 45 brand new giant nuclear reactors installed in one month. (ed. Technocrats in America want to build risky nuclear plants… why?) Regarding intermittence, the cost of utility-scale batteries has dropped a whopping 87%, making solar w. battery-back-up extremely attractive. Who needs expensive, risky nuclear?
Nevertheless, Gore claims: “In spite of this progress, we are still moving too slowly to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have got to accelerate it. We have the ability to do so. But the single biggest reason we have not been able to do so is because of ferocious opposition to virtually every policy proposal to speed up this transition and reduce the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.”
The fossil fuel industry has been using sleight of hand to convince the public that fossil fuels are just great, no problem, e.g., carbon capture and storage and direct air capture and recycling of plastics will handle everything. Oh please! “These things are much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions!” (Gore)
They are also very adept at using politicians to fool the public, for example: Tony Blair, speaking on behalf of his foundation, which gets massive funding from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Middle East producers, in a speech claimed, “the center of the battle has to be carbon capture and direct air capture.” Gore: “He really should know better.” His foundation discovered a fountain of riches in the battle for how to approach climate change.
Carbon Capture – If inefficient, the ‘climate realism’ argument is destroyed.
Al Gore: “Carbon capture is a fraud.” It is like fool’s gold taken to the bank and not worth the costs to get it. Carbon capture cannot physically costs-effectively reduce emissions: Carbon Capture Has a Long History of Failure, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 1, 2022.
Carbon Capture Simply Won’t Work to Meet Net-Zero Targets, S&P Global, Sept. 2, 2022.
“If you spend $1 on carbon capture instead of on wind, water, and solar, you are increasing CO2, air pollution, energy requirements, energy costs, pipelines, and total social costs,” Researchers (Stanford) Uncover Major Flaw in Technology Used by Top Corporations: It Should be Abandoned, TCD, March 20, 2025.
Why Carbon Capture and Storage is Not the Solution, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, July 10, 2024: “Carbon capture and storage (CCS) continues to be hailed as a potential way to reduce emissions, even though it is more likely to increase them.”
If there’s any chance of hitting net zero, forget about carbon capture, instead, it’s imperative that funds be made available for developing countries. They are totally underfinanced and overlooked. For example, the entire continent of Africa has fewer solar panels than Florida. Yet, the continent has 60% of the world’s prime solar resource space. The potential for renewables is huge, but lo and behold, new plans for pipelines to remove fossil fuels from Africa to be shipped to developed countries have tripled as the fossil fuel industry ups the ante in Africa.
In the final analysis, Al Gore believes there is hope with renewables. Of all the new electricity installed in the world in 2024, 93% was renewables, mostly solar. This is a telltale sign of hope but still overpowered by a fossil fuel industry that is fighting for every last dollar by rebranding climate change as “climate realism” with shiny objects (carbon capture) falsely saving the day. Climate realism Newspeak promotes fossil fuel production, and it is winning to the tune of $7 trillion globally per year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in government subsidies such as direct payments, tax breaks, subsidized loans, and the provision of resources at below market rates.
Just imagine $7 trillion per year invested in renewables. Visionary leaders would switch the $7T to renewables. According to Bloomberg NEF, renewable investments in 2024 amounted to 10% of fossil fuel subsidies or $728 billion. But the United States is cutting renewable subsidies at the very moment when record global temperatures and disruptive ecosystems are awakening people throughout the world to Al Gore’s real climate realism. It’s on TV, almost nightly.
Still, the “it’s already too late” core of climate scientists should prompt world leaders to fight back harder than ever and not allow doom and gloom to dictate the future, making US anti-science, anti-renewables policies seem devilishly out of sorts, flashing danger to the world.
P.S. An excellent 23-min. video that explains in detail the climate issue: The Ruling Class is Causing Climate Collapse, Our Changing Climate (Charlie Kilman – Creator), May 2025, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G96PUbxxR2w
No comments:
Post a Comment