Quick & Dirty: When Capitalism Eats Itself
[a climate and energy perspective]
Because capitalism is the single unifying religion of the US demographic, no one in the US can hope to counter the rapacious extent of Trump and Musk’s gutting of the US government and revoking of the US constitution.
The US is in a dangerous position; it finds itself weak although wishes to appear strong, despite knowing that it’s place both as the largest exporter of fossil fuels and also the planet-destroying effects of shale oil and gas production - completely avoided by climate scientists but inherently understood to be the main driver of recent decadal heat spikes, globally - means it is continually losing it’s relevance as a global leader on the world stage.
There are not many cards left to play and most Americans are aware of this. Years of profiteering by Big Finance, private equity and other morally ambiguous financial actors simply mean that corporate America is the only game left standing. There are no more trusted institutions or funding bodies to save anyone - apart from in some more progressive states like California where the drive to achieve net zero is more tangible.
This leaves the US with only a few options: see how things play out, and hope that the four-year administrative cycle will eventually return order to government and institutional agencies; disregard the ideological undercurrent of what Musk and Trump are doing (difficult in this current age); or simply go with it - because the last real option is probably a major fall in standing for the US, dollar hegemony and other metrics, and therefore appearing to make progress of any kind is better than not making any progress at all. The situation really is dire: for anyone following Musk's X posts in the run up to Trump's presidency, we can see how his understanding of what the situation is is actually quite clear - the US receives an average of $5.5tr in tax revenue, but it is spending far more. If we subtract the $1.1tr in interest payments to service the US national debt, an estimated $500bn on hurricane Helene, and recently up to $300bn on the recent midwinter California wildfires, among many other costs - the budgetary situation is not in any good shape at all.
Really, anything is better than a path of avoiding these budget costs and the ballooning debt; but sadly rather than taking a pragmatic, long term view of the situation, Trump is simply doing what private equity has done with national services in all countries it has been implemented: destroyed any quality for taxpayers, and initiated a vast transfer of wealth to private shareholders as the country sinks further into the abyss. By doubling down on fossil fuels by actually banning renewables, the US' role in mitigating any of the effects of its fossil energy practices has completely vanished, and given the almost immediate effect of methane on the climate system, the US and the globe are now guaranteed to witness a further acceleration of hugely expensive climate impacts.
The transfer of wealth to shareholders and private interests could not be more striking - and picking up the pieces ostensibly via the democratic process in four years time will be a tough call if it is really even that possible at all. Considering that massive budget cuts will unfortunately be unlikely to stave off the looming threat of these climate impacts, the efforts made by Musk and his DOGE team are mostly going to lead only to a further reneging of responsibility, as sheer greed overcomes the US leadership team.
Gutting aid funding, the Department of Education, the EPA and NOAA among many others will mean only one thing - far more money for tax breaks to the already super-rich. Add to this NYT headlines such as - 'the age of low rent prices is now ending', while at the same time the price of staples such as eggs, meat, orange juice, coffee, flour etc have doubled in the past five years, means that life for anyone within an already disadvantaged income bracket is likely to be even less tenable.
The only bright spot on the horizon is fuel prices, but as many are aware, it is this strict adherence to low fuel prices that has led to the current position the US now faces. Dollar hegemony, the reality that exists by virtue of oil being traded in dollars, and therefore being the world’s reserve currency, is likely to be the one thing that Trump wishes to hold onto the most. Mostly, dollar inflation is paid for by those countries using the dollar as stability for their own currencies, but if Trump decides to keep printing (if Wall Street banks accede) this status will be eroded even faster than is already the case. It is a wicked problem, where the US needs to maintain petrodollar supremacy while at the same time it is fossil fuels which are both the domestic and global inflationary driver.
Sadly, because most US climate scientists were already fearful of a wayward US administration cutting grant funding and tenureships (as is now in full swing) any talk of shale drilling being the leading cause of climate collapse and by extension economic collapse were already completely absent. So the US energy department (now led by fracking boss Chris Wright) was never even going to admit the dire quandary US energy policy and thus economic policy has found themselves in.
In fact many climate scientists such as Zeke Hausfather and Jesse Jenkins have openly promoted shale, with an added proviso that in fact, tipping points resulting from massive temperature increases may not actually exist.
So we are left with a situation where America's main problem can now never really be talked about, and perpetuating petrodollar hegemony is the singular goal of a president that knows there are precious few remaining economic exits from the looming cataclysm.
It is at this point that genuine, enduring constitutional reform - both internally and/or of the jarring four-year administrative cycle becomes probably the only hope.
Having displayed almost zero regard for existing governmental or constitutional orthodoxy, the current administration leaves the door open to something much better to replace it. However, at the heart of the problem lies oil: and the complex relationship the US economy and US dollar have with fossil energy use.
It is probably not yet time for hydrogen to fully replace shale oil in the US for its primary use case being transport fuel, but already electrolysed hydrogen production could significantly undercut annual retail gasoline sales, by up to a factor of 10 if programs and subsidies were implemented without interference by lobbyists, in many cases purporting to be voicing the concern of civil society groups.
However, if this agenda were kept on the back burner (Europe is fast tracking the replacement of coal and other fuels with hydrogen for heavy industry use, potentially at massive scale) a window of opportunity may open at some time in the future.
