Hot & Bothered Podcast #7: What Trump’s Victory Means for the Climate Movement

Kate and Daniel try to wrap their heads around climate politics in the age of Trump, and how movements can step up to defeat his extremist agenda.

Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, October 29 (Gage Skidmore)

Hot & Bothered #7 is a little different. The national election this past Tuesday was a $#$#*(@ disaster. Donald Trump will be president of the United States. We did not expect this. We did not plan for this. But the future of our species will in part depend on how successfully we can fight back.

By chance, Kate happened to be in Philadelphia, where Daniel lives, on November 10. So we sat down on a couch, poured a couple glasses of wine, and tried to wrap our heads around climate politics in the age of Trump. We talked about a lot. Fundamentally, we tried to grapple with how in this dark moment, more than ever, we need to merge the agendas of climate justice, economic justice, racial justice, and social justice writ large. The timeline for climate action is really, really tight already. The world cannot afford to lose four years of U.S. climate action.

But there’s no separating climate from violence, from bigotry, or from class struggle. If Trump’s victory represents climate emergency, it also portends wide-scale violence for countless people in this country. In our hour-long conversation, we got past our immediate, desperate emotional reactions to Trump’s victory to discuss the how the climate movement can, and must, connect its agenda to the movements already blossoming to resist the onslaught.

Tweet your dread and your hope to #HotBotheredClimate. We’re feeling them both. We don’t know what’s next. We do know that we’ll be thinking, debating, organizing, and fighting back.

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Conversation

Energy World Rocked by Trump Win (E&E News)

Al Gore offers to work with Trump on climate change. Good luck with that. (Washington Post)

Kate: After Trump’s Win, Our Job Is More Clear Than Ever: Organize. (In These Times)

Kate: LIUNA’s Rank-and-File is Challenging Union Leadership on Standing Rock—and Beyond (In These Times)