For me, Trump is ultimately the last president who could possibly have enacted and globally promoted actual climate science based reforms that at least might have stood a chance at preparing America and the world a way forward through what is going to be an extremely challenging next few decades.

This probably won’t make you feel any better, but with how long it takes our actions to make a significant impact on the climate, he could’ve been a climate messiah and the next few decades would probably still be the same.

I’m not sure when the tipping point was, but we’ve long since passed the point where we could avoid the whole problem by reducing emissions. We’ve been locked into a dynamic now where we not only need to reduce emissions to fix the climate, we need to take mitigative measures against the effects of climate change. These next couple decades are going to be a combination of promoting green energy and defending ourselves from climate change. We couldn’t stop the monster from being born, so now we have to fight the monster while also saving everyone from it.

I have hope we’ll manage it though. There was a report in early 2023 which said the efforts we’ve made so far on the climate have made a difference. We’re no longer on the path to an apocalyptic extinction event of +4 degC or higher. It’ll be hard work, but we can do it. My biggest regret is that I don’t think our generation will ultimately be able to fix it. We’re going to have to do what we can, but it’ll be our children who are able to finally fix it. There’s just not enough time left for us to do so in a human lifespan.