If you weren’t already aware of the president’s fixation on oil as a solution to the world’s problems, his recent social media bloviation on Greenland should make it evident (“Trump says oil, gas, and mineral exploration in Greenland is set to begin. It’s not that simple,” BostonGlobe.com, Oct. 14).
In the aftermath of his imperialist usurpation of Venezuela’s oil, he set his sights on Iran. As that war imploded, he resorted to a huge oil deal with President Vladimir Putin of Russia aimed at staunching the rise in gas prices that his war of choice caused. Now he’s moved on to Greenland.
The fact that Greenland has never produced significant amounts of oil and gas is beside the point. What’s relevant is that President Trump’s obsession with acquiring ever more fossil fuel resources regardless of the cost in lives or geopolitical relationships is skewing both energy policy and foreign policy. Combined with his ideological antagonism for renewable energy, his monomania for oil and gas has left our nation years behind China, our strongest adversary, in the necessary transition to renewable energy sources that do not exacerbate the already alarming warming of the atmosphere and oceans.
Does Trump hope to fool us into believing that promoting oil exploration in Greenland is going to fix the price of gas? In fact, it’s just another handout to the fossil fuel industry that funded his campaign and another chapter in the ongoing story of an energy strategy that history will judge to be foolhardy.
Frederick Hewett
Cambridge