Climate change is stoking life-threatening heat and wildfires in Europe while tens of millions of Americans in the South, Southwest and Midwest broil under excessive heat this week. Much of California is under strict outdoor watering restrictions because of severe drought. But President Biden’s best hope for serious climate action has collapsed.
On Thursday, Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III said he would not support his party’s climate legislation, extinguishing any lingering prospects of congressional action and increasing the likelihood that we and future generations will experience catastrophic levels of warming. On Friday, Biden was in Saudi Arabia fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a reprehensible dictator whose power lies in his control of some of the world’s largest oil reserves.
These two events are more related than they might seem. That’s because the future being foisted upon us by Manchin and the entire Republican party — one of continued reliance on planet-endangering fossil fuels — makes our country weaker by prolonging our dependence on petrostate autocrats. As the war in Ukraine has made clear, only true energy independence derived from clean, renewable sources will free us from this kind of shameful groveling in service of lower gas prices.
