By Tom Schuster, Director, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter
We’ve now had a month to come to grips with the outcome of November’s election. Donald Trump will return to the presidency in January, which feels like a bit of a knockout blow in the fight to stabilize the climate. So many of our members and supporters were deeply involved in campaigning this year, from participating in the endorsement process, to donating and fundraising, from letter writing to canvassing and phone-banking. The more time and energy you invest, the harder it hits when we get results like this. Taking time to grieve, regroup, and re-center is important. It is also essential to understand that we can, and we must, get off the mat and fight for our values. And I see a few reasons to be hopeful, even though we have our work cut out for us.
1st reason for hope: Trump is not great at governing.
The Donald is a pretty skilled political campaigner, but is more interested in headlines than substance. During the first Trump administration, we experienced one of the most relentless assaults on environmental laws and programs in history. We had oil barons in his cabinet, and climate deniers running the EPA. Sierra Club filed more than 300 lawsuits challenging illegal actions taken by the Trump 45 administration and prevailed and almost all of them, because the work they did was rushed and sloppy. During that time, our Beyond Coal Campaign secured dirty power plant retirements at a faster rate than during either the Obama or Biden administrations. Which brings me to my second reason…
2nd reason for hope: Trump cannot stop the clean energy revolution.
The president-elect loves to dig stuff up and burn it, but in today’s high-tech world, the economics no longer support that. Renewable energy is now the cheapest option for new power generation just about everywhere in the country now, and in most places it is even cheaper than existing power, even without subsidies. So no matter what Trump tries to do to prop up the fossil fuel industry, wind and solar projects will keep coming online and eating their lunch, because there is money to be made.
Plus, although Trump has railed against the climate-friendly programs in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, he can’t touch either without an act of Congress, and even Republican lawmakers who opposed the law to begin with are seeing investments in their districts they don’t want to lose. Many programs, from school bus electrification, to vehicle charger deployment, to Solar for All, which helps lower income households access solar are already well under way and will continue to produce climate benefits.
To be clear, I’m not saying that everything will be fine. The clean energy transition is not happening fast enough, and Trump’s anticipated attempts to gut environmental and public health safeguards for the fossil fuel industry will do major damage. But because the economic and technological winds of change are at our back as we organize to defend climate progress. And that organizing is the most important reason to be hopeful…
Best Reason for Hope: We are coming together.
When we lose an election as big as this, it feels really awful. Trump’s parade of disturbing nominees, from fracking executives to vaccine deniers, over the past two weeks has only made that worse. But I’ve seen power grow from loss like this.
When I lived in Las Cruces, NM in 2004 (when NM was still a swing state) I was all-in to beat Bush, working 80-hour weeks for months. After that election it was hard for me to get out of bed for days. In the weeks that followed, a mutual support group formed from the ashes of the campaign, grew and morphed into the Progressive Voter Alliance. The following year, the PVA was instrumental in electing a progressive majority to City Council in the state's second biggest city for the first time. In 2008, it flipped its solidly red congressional district. Today New Mexico is a leader in environmental and progressive issues, has adopted a 100% clean energy standard, and consistently sends environmental champions to Washington. All that is to say, the fight is not over - it is shifting to a new phase and we can learn from it and find new strength.
That spirit is already starting to show up in enthusiasm for post-election events that we’ve hosted, and I’m hearing similar stories from partners in the movement. It is a different kind of energy from the surprise of eight years ago, but there is definitely energy.
Things will be rough, and we will be fighting on multiple fronts at once. But what I love about Sierra Club is that we offer spaces for folks to be in community and face adversity together, and be stronger because of it.
Please join us. Check out our events calendar here. Reach out to us directly with questions or ideas here. Get involved - we need you, our planet needs you, and our descendants need you!
This blog was included as part of the December 2024 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!