Donald Trump’s election is a triumph for the politics of the doomsday bunker, which is bad news for the world’s environment.
This is the idea that in an age of climate disruption, nature extinction and ever wider social inequality, the best chance of survival for those who can afford it is to construct a personal shelter, where they can keep the desperate masses at bay. It is survival of the richest.
Apocalyptic thinking like this may once have been the stuff of science fiction but it has been normalised by billionaires such as the Palantir founder, Peter Thiel, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and others who have been building underground bunkers or buying superyachts and private jets to whisk themselves away to remote islands.
Tech billionaires were instrumental in Trump’s victory, particularly the Tesla boss, Elon Musk, who poured millions into the campaign and used X as a loudspeaker, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose newspaper, the Washington Post, blocked its editorial staff from endorsing Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump’s election is a triumph for the politics of the doomsday bunker, which is bad news for the world’s environment.
This is the idea that in an age of climate disruption, nature extinction and ever wider social inequality, the best chance of survival for those who can afford it is to construct a personal shelter, where they can keep the desperate masses at bay. It is survival of the richest.
Apocalyptic thinking like this may once have been the stuff of science fiction but it has been normalised by billionaires such as the Palantir founder, Peter Thiel, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and others who have been building underground bunkers or buying superyachts and private jets to whisk themselves away to remote islands.
Tech billionaires were instrumental in Trump’s victory, particularly the Tesla boss, Elon Musk, who poured millions into the campaign and used X as a loudspeaker, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose newspaper, the Washington Post, blocked its editorial staff from endorsing Kamala Harris.
Once you get into a bunker mindset, you become invested in apocalypse. Out goes any idea of looking for solutions to the cause of the world’s problems, and in comes the idea that you survive by amassing wealth and weapons, throwing up higher walls and asset-stripping the wasteland outside.
From the perspective of the global south, such thinking in the most powerful country on Earth is a disaster. Survival in the Amazon rainforest, where I live, or the African savannah or the flood plains of Asia depends on a stable climate, abundant nature and peaceful cooperation.
The first Trump administration diminished environmental protections. Trump 2 has the capacity to take this to a new level because there are fewer constraints. Voters have given Trump the authority of an emperor. This is cause for multiple alarms, not least a US exit from the global climate fight.
Polls suggest this was not high in the minds of most voters, and the climate and nature crisis barely featured in election debates and speeches. But the climate created the setting for Trump’s economy-first win: the devastating impacts of hurricanes such as Helene and Milton making the federal government seem impotent, droughts worldwide adding to food price inflation, and higher temperatures everywhere creating more stress and foreboding. Throughout the world, ever more extreme weather is sparking
Once you get into a bunker mindset, you become invested in apocalypse. Out goes any idea of looking for solutions to the cause of the world’s problems, and in comes the idea that you survive by amassing wealth and weapons, throwing up higher walls and asset-stripping the wasteland outside.
From the perspective of the global south, such thinking in the most powerful country on Earth is a disaster. Survival in the Amazon rainforest, where I live, or the African savannah or the flood plains of Asia depends on a stable climate, abundant nature and peaceful cooperation.
The first Trump administration diminished environmental protections. Trump 2 has the capacity to take this to a new level because there are fewer constraints. Voters have given Trump the authority of an emperor. This is cause for multiple alarms, not least a US exit from the global climate fight.
Polls suggest this was not high in the minds of most voters, and the climate and nature crisis barely featured in election debates and speeches. But the climate created the setting for Trump’s economy-first win: the devastating impacts of hurricanes such as Helene and Milton making the federal government seem impotent, droughts worldwide adding to food price inflation, and higher temperatures everywhere creating more stress and foreboding. Throughout the world, ever more extreme weather is sparking see more
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