The Big Con
President Trump spoke at the United Nations on 9/23/25, and while there was so much wrong with his speech the reason I am writing about it here is that he went full-on climate denial. What deep greed or delusion it requires to think that there is any reason to consider climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated …” and to not recognize the vast amount of good science and accurate predictions (if anything some not dire enough) that make us certain climate change is real and due to human activity (for details see our “Summarizing the Science” pages on this website that outline the science and debunk the climate deniers).
It is interesting how those who lie, con and obfuscate find it convenient to see it in others; being charitable, l might suppose it is all they know of the world, all they can imagine. Or simply that their pathological grab for power, greed and the need to have certainty, that they know more than the experts, is so vast as to distort their thinking. But I suspect it is much more calculated and cynical than that.
He thinks he is doing some sort of Jedi mind trick, but it isn’t working. As summarized on Climate Central:
· The latest global data show that most people want to see more climate action — which is the focus of Climate Week NYC and major U.N. meetings this week.
· But surveys also show that people in the U.S. and around the globe vastly underestimate how much their fellow citizens care about climate change.
· These widespread misperceptions matter because they can lead to silence and inaction on climate.”
As we described in our most recent podcast, episode 8 “Unsung Climate Victories” clean energy makes economic sense. By denying that reality in favor of fossil fuels does, however, put the United States in the position of being behind China (and many other nations) in rational thought. I have no reason to think the Chinese government is investing in clean energy for altruistic reasons; in fact, with a planned project to put a dam on a river that feeds into countries in southern Asia they are threatening both international stability (by controlling water access to other nations) and an immense area of the Asian environment.
But it just makes sense to move away from fossil fuels, as we discussed in our last podcast episode. We are no longer leaders but not even followers, much to the detriment of our economy and the trust the world has in us, to say nothing of the harm to the environment.
Meanwhile this website is about planetary health, the intersection of the environment and health. Air pollution is estimated to result in 9 million premature deaths a year around the world. There are well-documented health impacts from living near oil and gas refineries in the United States. Meanwhile this administration is gutting the EPA and other science-based regulatory agencies and making decisions based on poor or nonexistent science to fit their ideological and political agendas.
This is not an inherently left vs. right issue, and was much less polarized in the past, as we described in our podcast Episode 4 “Gaslighting: Big Oil Knew” We also review the history of what we learned through the efforts of many scientists over the last 200 years about the subject. We had a guest, a conservative environmentalist who works for Citizens Climate Lobby, for our episode 5 podcast, “Talking Climate with conservatives.” Last week I watched a fine presentation by a policy expert through the group RepublicEn, a conservative environmental group. It was informative and accurate. We disagree on some aspects of finding paths to take to deal with the issues, but these pale in comparison to the rhetoric and actions of the current administration and the Republican party that supports it.
Most of the politicization and cultural wars weaponization of environmental issues is clearly greed and power grabs that many in the Republican party have signed on for, or at least remain silent about; it has become a political issue because of Trump’s enablers, his “willing executioners.”
On the other hand, the Democratic party today, 9/24/25, submitted new legislation. According to Heat Map News:
“The electricity affordability crisis has arrived on Capitol Hill. House Democrats introduced a new package of legislation today taking aim at high power prices — and signaling a huge shift in how the party will talk about energy policy during Trump 2.0.”
While I don’t have details about the legislation yet, I look forward to learning more. The Democrats have brought us significant legislation in the past, as even some conservative environmentalists acknowledge, even if they objected to some aspects. The fact is the Democrats are the only game in town right now outside of environmental organizations.
Please consider this and think about taking political action, perhaps joining in peaceful demonstrations, contacting legislators, talking to friends and family, having a voice. Clearly violence on any level is unacceptable. Today I note Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night, likely in large part because of the outcry about free speech (many of us cancelled Disney subscriptions; any one cancellation is meaningless, but it was record-breaking numbers. Be part of the solution, it adds up; a tsunami is made up of water molecules, after all!). Perhaps a relatively small thing but it shows that we are best served by speaking out and taking even simple actions. As we say in science, proof of principle.
Photo image by Susan Levinson: an oil well adjacent to a park, Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Los Angeles, where children play. Working wells where people live and work are a real planetary health issue in California and many states. Windmills have some problems, there is no free lunch. They are economic and effective and, contrary to the proclamations of those in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, windmills don’t cause cancer in those living near them, but there is good evidence that these gas wells and fossil fuel refineries do increase the risk of some cancers, as well as respiratory problems and other diseases in those who live near them.