March 16 2026, 08:15 
The world is experiencing yet another oil supply crisis, this time initiated by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombing campaign in Iran. Considering our planet has also suffered from human-caused pollution, resulting in considerably higher surface temperature since the 1970s, let us use this crisis as an opportunity to significantly advance the funding for research and installation of clean, renewable sources of energy.
Though not an exact translation, the Chinese word for crisis, wēijī (危机/危機), is often cited as being a combination of “danger” (wēi) and “opportunity” (jī), implying that danger contains opportunity to emerge stronger.
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Toward the end of President Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1979, the world suffered an energy crisis triggered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution, which caused global oil production to plummet and oil prices to roughly double. This led to severe gasoline shortages and long lines at service stations.
Carter initiated a phased deregulation of domestic oil prices to encourage production. He also promoted energy conservation and advocated for renewable sources such as solar energy. He even installed solar panels on the roof of the White House to lead by example. In addition, he enacted a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies to inhibit them from making exorbitant profits at the public’s expense.
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“Drill baby drill,” the Republican battle cry seemingly coined by Sarah Palin and referring to domestic oil sources, is unfortunately what Donald Trump has pushed during both of his administrations.
This, however, is simply unsustainable. In the words of President Barack Obama in 2012: “But you and I both know that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices – not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.”
Trump’s call to “drill baby drill,” along with his repealing of regulations on fossil fuel emissions and on limits of gas and oil drilling, mining, and deforestation, will severely increase the chances of the death of planet Earth.
If we “drill baby drill” by increasing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and reducing research and funding for renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, we will accelerate the already alarming rate of global climate change, thus placing all living things at increased risk of extinction.
In addition to the over 70 environmental regulatory rollbacks under Trump’s first administration, as reported by the New York Times, the Polluter-In-Chief gave a stunning announcement on February 12, 2026, that he has further loosened the reins on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), leaving the country with an agency that can more aptly be titled the Pollution Rollbacks Of Fossil Fuels Increasing Toxicity Substantially (PROFFITS).
The EPA press release states that the administration has revoked “both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.”
Specific items on the administration’s agenda include loosening standards for vehicle tailpipe emissions, weakening rules regulating power plant emissions, defunding research and implementation of renewable energy sources, increasing drilling and fracking for fossil fuels, eliminating financial incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles, and revoking other pollution directives.
During his latest State of the Union address, Trump was clearly proud when he announced, “American natural gas production is at an all-time high. Because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.”
Why would anyone, and especially the President of the United States, glow with pride as their policies continue to devastate our global environment? Why would
Is it somehow more “masculine” to fill one’s gas guzzler “muscle car” with oil? Do they consider electric cars to be “feminine” woke vehicles driven only by women and gay beta males? Do they really believe Trump’s lies that wind turbines cause cancer in humans and massacre millions of birds?
We are increasingly experiencing the unprecedented intensity of our planet’s climatic conditions. Hurricane Harvey, for example, dumped more rain on Texas alone than any past storm in the history of meteorological record-keeping, and Irma remained a category 5 hurricane longer than any Atlantic hurricane ever, caused in large part by extraordinarily high Atlantic water temperatures.
Through Harvey and Irma, we are witnessing our future. Today, meteorologists use terms like “unprecedented” and “historic” to describe the conditions of these two climatic events. Tomorrow, we will hear them defining similar storms as “normal.”
The Biden administration conducted an extensive study, its National Climate Assessment, which found conclusively that our global climate is changing and that this is happening primarily due to human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.
The assessment examined approximately 12,000 professional scientific papers on global climate change and found that in articles expressing a position on global warming, 97% acknowledged both the reality of global warming and the certainty that humans are the cause.
Additional studies report that we will experience more category 4 and 5 hurricanes and the onset of the depletion and eventual collapse of glaciers in Antarctica, which could raise worldwide sea levels by an additional 4 feet. This depletion is now irreversible.
What seems obvious to the scientific community seems like science fiction to many key politicians, including Trump and members of his administration.
Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change and severely gutted regulations on corporations that seriously pollute our water, air, and ground, all while reemphasizing fossil fuels and deemphasizing clean energy sources.
During Trump’s first term, he chose former Texas Governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy. Perry flat-out admitted he was unaware of the function of the department he was to administer, and, in his infamous “oops” moment during his 2012 presidential run, he actually forgot that it was one of the three federal agencies he intended to eliminate.
To lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump picked Scott Pruitt, who contradicted reliable scientific evidence when in 2017 he said he doubts that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to climate change:
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
This aligns with Trump’s statement on the campaign trail, when he called climate change “a hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese, even though the EPA stated on its website (before Trump had the agency delete it) that “carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.”
Against mountains of irrefutable evidence to the contrary, the climate deniers, including Trump and significant numbers of his party members, are perpetrating a delusional fraud against volumes of reputable evidence to the contrary. If allowed to continue, this fraud will end in the extermination of all life on this planet (except, of course, cockroaches, who seemingly survive almost anything).
Ecoism
Environmental oppression refers to human activities that result in contamination of the Earth and the environments of space.
Oppression, a noun, means “the unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” on the individual/interpersonal, institutional, and larger societal levels. Human treatment of the environment certainly falls under this definition.
I define “social justice” as the concept that everyone has equal and equitable access to the same rights, benefits, privileges, and resources, and where everyone can live freely unencumbered by social constructions of hierarchical positions of domination and subordination.
This concluding phrase is of prime importance. When humans place themselves into “hierarchical positions of domination and subordination,” environmental degradation inevitably results.
A non-regulated, privatized, so-called “free-market” economic system lacking in environmental protections is tantamount to a social system deficient in civil and human rights protections for minoritized peoples.
I have attempted to find a term for environmental oppression that is parallel with other forms of oppression, like racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, adultism, ageism, classism, cissexism, lookism, and ethnocentrism.
Since “environmentalism” refers to concerns for the environment rather than to a form of oppression, and I have yet to find another appropriate term, I have coined my own: ecoism.
By extension, we can consider as “ecoist” those actions taken by individuals, groups, organizations, nations, and humanity at large that contribute to destroying our planet.
During this dangerous time, we have the opportunity to change course and divert energy and funding from weapons of war and destruction to renewable, clean, and safe sources of energy so our children and their children and all the children yet to come will have a real chance.
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