At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 6, soon after Donald Trump won his second term in office, the temperature in northern New Jersey where I live was 68 degrees, 18 degrees above normal. A Japanese maple gleamed in a brilliantly out-of-place way. A cloud of insects swarmed, tricked into thinking that spring had arrived. At the same time, a November hurricane was barreling toward the Gulf of Mexico, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported that the season’s first snowfall on Mount Fuji was later than any time in 130 years, and scientists announced that 2024 would likely be the hottest year on record. As wildfires blazed outside of New York City, the weather app on my phone flashed a “Red Flag (Wildfire) Warning.” It was the first time I’d seen that message.
But if this blatant example of climate change was preceded by presidential campaigns that showed any significant concern in regards to the planet boiling over, I missed it.
During her short presidential run, Vice President Kamala Harris largely stayed silent on the issue, presumably to avoid losing votes in Pennsylvania. When asked at the September presidential debate about fracking, she did not hesitate: “I will not ban fracking,” Harris said, staring down the questioner. “I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States. And, in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.” While she clearly supports action on climate change, her steely-eyed unwillingness to nuance her response, if at least to acknowledge the question’s climate implications, scared me.
It goes without saying that the president-elect still denies climate change. In April, Trump told oil executives they should donate $1 billion to his campaign in return for regulatory relief. In June and again this past week, his campaign confirmed that, if elected, he would (again) withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. In his August interview with Elon Musk, Trump dismissed the urgency of global warming and incorrectly stated that the sea level would only “rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years and you’ll have more oceanfront property.” According to NASA, the current annual level of sea level rise is already one and a half times Trump’s four-century estimate.
In situations like this, one would hope that faith communities could step into the breach. However, while large numbers of progressive faith groups worked hard on this election, Christians — especially white Christians — still largely backed the most anti-climate candidate in history throughout his campaign. In a September 2024 poll, 82 percent of white evangelicals expressed support for the president-elect, along with 61 percent of white Catholics and 58 percent of white non-evangelical Protestants.
International faith support for climate action as the annual U.N. climate talks approached wasn’t inspiring either. In advance of COP29, which began this week in Azerbaijan, 300 high-level faith leaders gathered and issued an anodyne statement that brandished empty phrases such as “the critical need to enhance collaboration among political, social, and religious leaders to tackle environmental challenges and climate change and foster global dialogue” and “the importance of establishing a permanent advisory council of religious leaders within the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Missing in the statement was any call for an increase in finance for the energy transition and climate-induced loss and damage — the actual purpose of COP29. Absent also was an affirmation of religious and civil society calls for a fossil fuel phaseout and a tripling of renewable energy development, calls that would at least have kept faith with ongoing religious advocacy. The statement, which earned a rubber stamp from the U.N. Environment Programme, was stunning in its lack of specificity. It furthered the recent pattern of COP host countries convening ineffectual multifaith gatherings bestowing them with a grandiose name, and issuing religious pablum that fails the fundamental moral duty to protect the vulnerable and to pressure those in power to do what’s right.
The next four years will be a climate train wreck. Trump and his ilk will dismantle as many policies and regulations as they can. Autocrats and newly influential far-right parties the world over will be emboldened to “drill baby, drill.” More parts of the world will burn, flood, and turn into desert. Refugees — who are treated with God’s passionate care in the Hebrew Bible — will be scorned, vilified, detained, and deported at borders and in global northern countries around the world. It will be painful. And yet, based on the patterns already in place, the world will do its best to look away. Broadcast journalists, and their producers, have long been clear that they think climate coverage leads to lower ratings. More local journalists, afraid of harassment and threats from hostile viewers, are often reluctant to speak out.
Being awake, wide awake, is a primary religious duty. The word “Buddha” means, very simply, “the one who has woken up.” The phrase “Ya ayyuhal-ladhina amanu,” meaning “O you who believe!” appears more than 80 times in the Qur’an (here, for example), and is a direct call to believers to pay attention to commandments, prohibitions, and matters related to faith and conduct. Jesus frequently tells his followers to stay awake, most poignantly as his arrest and crucifixion approach.
As the world sorts out the implications of a second Trump administration, a moral starting point for the coming 48 months is to stay awake to the impacts of climate change. To bear witness to its cruel destructiveness while offering each other the necessary spiritual support. To stand in solidarity with its innocent victims by being ready to speak up for Loss and Damage funding. To call on governments for change at the necessary scale, even as we cringe from the insanity of banging our heads against something that feels like a concrete wall but that, history shows, does have an unpredictable breaking point.
The climate implications of Trump’s landslide victory are nauseating and mind-numbing. But keeping the eyes of our hearts open will save our humanity. It will be the source of the energy we will need to rise and, eventually, to overcome. That time will not come soon; the days of a “victorious” end to the climate change story are dead and gone. But if we want the climate and the world to reach a better place, there’s no better way to start than by staying awake. Wide awake.
Rev. Fletcher Harper is executive director of GreenFaith, an international, interfaith organization helping people take action for Earth in the face of the climate emergency.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!
