We are betraying our children with fossil fuel pollution

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

The national conversation about global climate change has gone through ups and downs over the last 75 years. Climate science entered politics in the 1950s and led to bipartisan support for action in the 1970s. But the issue became intensely partisan in the 1990s, when big oil companies aligned with Republicans.

Congress did virtually nothing about global warming until 2022, when it passed the country’s largest-ever investments in clean energy. But over the last 18 months, President Trump has blocked the investments, suppressed clean energy, and accelerated America’s fossil fuel production.

Democrats’ response has been so muted that a new term — “climate shushing” — has emerged to describe it. They apparently consider the issue a nonstarter in a Congress controlled by Republicans and a country preoccupied by the rising cost of living, so they want people to stop discussing it.

Meantime, fossil-fuel pollution keeps accumulating in the atmosphere like a metastasizing cancer, causing a slow-growing fever that’s changing the planet’s metabolism. But over the decades, whether we paid attention or not, one thing has remained constant: Our failure to get global warming under control is the greatest betrayal that any generation has ever imposed on its children. We are letting oil oligarchs get rich by robbing our children’s future.

This is not the American way. With the industrial revolution, Western societies in general adopted the ethic that each generation should make life better for its children. We are not keeping that promise now.

After all these years, fossil fuels still provide more than 80 percent of America’s and the world’s energy. In America’s corrupt campaign-finance system, the industry uses its wealth to purchase the loyalty of politicians who help it maintain its dominance and avoid accountability for its pollution.

A 2014 study found that economic elites and business interests dominate government policy, while “average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” The government delivers what special interests want rather than what most Americans want.

The people know this. According to Gallup, voters believe the nation’s most important problem is not immigration, the economy, or inflation; it’s government and political leadership. Only 10 percent of Americans approve of how Congress does its job.

Trump serves Big Oil by pulling America out of international climate treaties, emasculating federal climate science, eliminating pollution controls, and helping U.S. oil companies access foreign oil reserves.

The world’s largest banks are willing partners. Although nearly 140 countries are trying to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century, 65 banks committed more than $900 billion to the coal, oil, and gas industry last year. A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, the biggest lender, said it supports energy that provides “reliability, affordability, security, and long-term resilience.” Yet, the current energy crisis proves that oil and gas cannot guarantee any of those things.

Gus Speth, the former dean of the Yale School of the Environment, puts our situation concisely: “We are in the late stages of a struggle to prevent a ruined planet. Why this does not motivate us sufficiently is a question we must ponder.”

Still, it’s a mistake for politicians to assume that voters don’t care. A fresh Yale/George Mason University poll shows that 64 percent of registered voters say global warming is raising the price of utility bills, groceries, vehicle ownership, and home insurance.

Importantly, Americans care about future generations. Last month, researchers from Arizona State University found that the average person thinks lawmakers should consider the impacts of their decisions on the next 17 generations, about 425 years. Regarding climate policy, “Americans often underestimate how much support already exists for major mitigation measures.”

The mismatch among the people, Congress, and the current president proves that our principles and laws are insufficient to protect future generations from fossil-fuel emissions that remain in the atmosphere and disrupt the Earth’s climate for hundreds or thousands of years.

What can we do about it? The next Congress should send the states a constitutional amendment that explicitly extends fundamental rights to future generations, including the right to a healthy natural world. The amendment should codify the Public Trust Doctrine with respect to global warming, including an explicit obligation to protect the atmosphere, oceans, forests and soils (all vital to maintaining the planet’s carbon balance) for present and future generations.

No generation anywhere should have the right to burden its children with unpayable debt.

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations for the White House as well as House and Senate committees on climate and energy policies.