No matter what you say about President-elect Trump, some troubling facts are self-evident. He is an old man stuck in old ways of thinking at a time when the world is changing at an unprecedented rate. Many changes will come in less than four years before voters have another chance to elect a modern-day president.
Debts in retirement are Noticeable for President Biden As the 2024 election approaches. Many voters thought that was why they chose Trump. However, Mr. Trump Problems due to his own age, It also includes 20th century views that are at odds with 21st century realities.
Take science, technology, and energy policy, for example. President Trump wants the US to achieve global goals “Energy superiority” By increasing oil and gas production. However, America is Already the world's largest oil and gas producera questionable distinction in this era of global warming.
Trump's views on energy reflect his thinking bad investment As a businessman. The American people and the American economy have repeatedly suffered from our dependence on fossil fuels. The US does not control the supply or price of oil. The same goes for the global oil market. This often resulted in energy supply and price shocks. Then came the economic recession.
Fossil fuels still available 84% of US energybut from an economic and environmental point of view, they are running on smoke. There is still plenty of oil, coal and gas in the ground, but the costs to society, the environment and national security are enormous. Unfortunately, the market hides most of these costs, and policymakers tolerate them by “externalizing” the actual debt for fuel, so it doesn't show up at the pump or meter.
Renewable energy, on the other hand, is free, inexhaustible, indigenous and clean energy. Objectively and holistically, fossil fuels are a dead industry. They are kept on life support by artificial means.
A younger businessman than Trump may want to give the United States a monopoly on the rapidly growing global market for clean energy. Predictions vary, but one is that the $1.2 trillion market in 2023 will grow at a compound annual rate. 17% or more Between now and 2030. international energy agency (IEA) predicts that by 2035, global renewable energy will be as big as the current global oil market and 50% larger than the current global natural gas trade.
Rather, China is seizing such an opportunity. it generates Twice as much as solar and wind power as the rest of the world combined. of IEA It says clean energy will account for 50% of China's investment growth in 2023. 20% in the US. In 2023, clean energy will contribute about 20% of China's GDP growth, one-third that of the European Union, but only 6% of the US GDP growth.
21st century leaders will understand that America's competitiveness depends on science and technology. In 1999, computer scientist Ray Kurzweil predicted what we would see. 20,000 years of technological progress Since the beginning of this century, exponential changes have occurred. The speed of this change is already creating major challenges for governments.
New technologies are more powerful and at the same time provide greater numbers. Max Rother of the University of Oxford said: “Which technologies are controlled by whom is one of the most important political questions of our time, because of the enormous impact these technologies have on those who control them.'' It is for the sake of great power.”
We are not talking about a better mousetrap, but machine intelligence that surpasses biological intelligence, the ability to explore and learn from the universe, the manipulation of Earth's cycles and life-giving systems, and advances in medicine. , about further decoupling between economic development and resource consumption. Environmental degradation and the role of technology in achieving global sustainable development goals.
Here too, the United States is lagging behind other countries. latest issue of magazine nature It highlights how Asian countries, and China in particular, are leading the world in materials research to improve life in a carbon-constrained world. Scientists aim to cool buildings without consuming energy, combat the urban heat island effect, convert carbon dioxide into consumer products and green fuels, produce recyclable polymers, and generate electricity on a local scale. We are developing materials that efficiently generate hydrogen from seawater.
This journal ranks the world's top 100 research institutions in materials science. Chinese universities occupy the top 21 positions, accounting for 59 out of 100 universities. Only 18 U.S. universities made the list.
But President Trump seems uninterested, if not incompetent, in guiding the federal government's important role in science. In August 2020, the Union of Concerned Scientists documented: 150 examples He described how the first President Trump attacked science with a “terrible pattern of ignoring, sidelining, and blaming the voices of scientists and their research.”
In each of President Trump's four budget proposals to Congress during his first term, he proposed deep cuts in research funding to the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and NASA. The research community is worried that Trump will once again put science on the chopping block.
On a more mundane but still important level, Trump's appointment appears to equate wealth in business with ability in government. He has assembled the wealthiest Cabinet in presidential history, appointing: 13 millionaires And an unspecified number of billionaires will take top positions in his administration.
President Trump may claim that wealth is evidence of talent, but success in capitalism is different from success in governance. Most government activities are not for financial gain. We provide critical services to the American people. Successful governance requires not only brains but also heart. By the standards of many business leaders today, successful capitalism is not. you'll know what happens soon The world's richest man proposes Mr. Trump began this way.
Trump has many flaws, but this may be the most serious. That is, he is a 20th century composer in a 21st century world. He seems intent on making America unfit for our time.
William S. BeckerHe is a former regional director for the U.S. Department of Energy and the author of several books on climate change and national disaster policy.100 day action plan to save the planet” and “The Creek Rises: People Living with Floods”
