Ah, for the halcyon days of the first Trump administration when he had cooked up fewer ways to ruin everything!

This Earth Day (on April 22), there are SO many Earth-centric things to be upset and worried about and shameless attacks on SO many levels. I’ll try to keep this short and focus on one aspect of the damage that Our Leader is trying to wreak.

We are faced with an incredibly ignorant man, seemingly willfully so, one of whose favorite phrases seems to be: “It’s a hoax,” or as he might have said on Truth Social: “It’s A Hoax,” capitalizing many words as our 18th century founders did. (Though, in truth, I couldn’t bring myself to check). Such Capitalization will not fool me into Conflating this Person with The Founders. (More on hoaxes to follow).

Back to Earth Day. Did you know that, FINALLY, solar and wind are now among the cheapest — and often THE cheapest — sources of new electricity generation in the United States? (I have actually been actively dreaming of this for decades — that’s the truth). The go-to argument against these sources has been “they’re too expensive.” Don’t you think there’s a rich and painful (but transparently obvious) irony at work here? Our Leader is doing everything he can, with the assistance of corporate/industrial entities, wealthy individuals and a compliant Congress, to increase our reliance on oil, natural gas and coal, with nuclear not far behind, and to actively fight against renewables from many different angles. The reason for this is laughably clear: this will benefit his pals and benefactors who can make themselves and him more flush with lucre than is imaginable. Maybe you recall that dinner at Mar-a-Lago in April 2024 with oil executives where he straight out promised deregulation, opening of previously protected federal lands and protected offshore sites, etc., if they would donate $1 billion to his campaign. Wow!

This is enabled because of the disastrous “Citizens United” SCOTUS decision, in which money equals free speech.

When I wasn’t busy crying about Citizens United, I had to laugh ruefully at a study that showed that in 2016, political contributions by industry and wealthy individuals with fish to fry outpaced those of unions by 16 to 1. Maybe I need to cry again!

Consider solar and wind power and “Green Energy,” etc. Our Leader has described them variously as “Hoax,” “Scam,” “Con,” “Con Job,” “Joke,” “Bad,” and “Pathetic.” Again, this is when they are (often) CHEAPER than electricity from all other sources. And don’t get me started on climate change, which Our Leader also characterized as “A Hoax.”

Arguments for continuing to embrace fossil fuels and nuclear are largely indefensible. After all, they’re just crutches to get us to sustainable energy sources. But people and companies who stand to make billions, if not trillions, from extraction have plenty of lame, self-serving ways of looking at alternatives.

“Well, the sun doesn’t shine at night” is a popular mantra against solar. Ever hear of pumped storage, compressed air storage, battery storage, etc.? These are all proven technologies which are ways to store extra energy from daytime solar.

And wait, the wind does blow at night!

And wait again, as little as 10 feet underground it is a constant 55 degrees year round! Can you say “geothermal” or “heat pumps” (proven tech) and “I can’t believe we haven’t taken major advantage of this!.” We all know why we haven’t — just follow the money.

Just one example of rationalization and “hear no evil” thinking for these people: Nuclear waste is being stored on-site at reactors, mostly in concrete “casks” that are designed to last 100 to 1,800 years. (That 1,800 is a bit of an optimistic outlier). Sounds great, except that the half-life of many incredibly dangerous radioactive isotopes is measured in the six figures — estimates for some being up to 100,000 years. Admittedly, radioactivity wanes over time, but there is obviously a huge difference between a 100 to 1,800 year “cask life” vs. 100,000 years. There is NO central repository for these wastes except a failed and irredeemable one in Nevada that was closed down before it opened. When one reads about the solutions to this, we are steered to discussions of pilot schemes for long-term storage, but NOTHING that addresses the time scale involved. We can’t look past the ends of our noses about any of these kinds of issues, it seems. So tens of thousands of years — hello?

I could go on at great lengths about the crooked self-interest, incredible greed and unwillingness to look past the need of owning a second island or 13th vacation home (or whatever) that motivates these people. Suffice it to say, we are at a moment of incredible potential for good vs evil.

Hold on to your hats everybody! This is going to be a tough one.

Bassist John Arbo has been a member of Local 802 since 1980 and contributes articles on environmental activism to Allegro from time to time. Personal essays published in Allegro (including MEMBER TO MEMBER) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the officers, staff or members of Local 802. To give feedback on this article or submit something to Allegro for consideration, send to allegro@local802afm.org. We value the diverse views of our membership.