As I sketched this essay, the temperature in Brunswick was a sweltering 91F. But that was nothing. Las Vegas hit a record 120F; Baghdad was 110. The earth had just experienced the hottest June ever recorded and the 12th record-breaking month in a row.

There is no longer any doubt; the climate crisis is here and it is now.

Across the world, vulnerable nations lurch from devastating floods to excessive heat deaths. The United States endures unprecedented billion-dollar weather damage events. And here in Maine, fierce south-easterly winter storms, reinforced by a fast-rising sea level, cause enormous coastal damage.

Pundits – and President Biden – have called global warming an “existential crisis.” They are right. The fate of our children and grandchildren, and of humanity itself, is at risk. The outpouring of greenhouse gases is irreversibly undermining the “Goldilocks” climate that enabled our species to multiply and thrive.

In this setting, two imperatives should be top of mind when we cast votes for President and Congress this fall: first, we must ramp up the worldwide commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate destruction; second, the United States must be a leader in the effort.

Why us? America has a moral obligation because we are a big part of the problem. Cumulatively, the U.S. has emitted more greenhouse gases than any other nation and our current emissions rank second only to China’s. America also has a strategic self-interest because our climate action – or inaction – shapes the rest of the world’s incentives and sense of obligation. Absent U.S. leadership, there is less leverage with China, India and other rapidly growing economies of the Global South.

The starting point for assessing the climate impacts of a Donald Trump victory is to recall the Biden Administration’s extraordinary accomplishments. The Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, negotiated with a closely split Congress, are inducing hundreds of billions of private investments – and creating thousands of high paying jobs – in renewable energy, battery storage, carbon capture, and electrical infrastructure.

On the international front, the United States rejoined the UN’s Paris Climate Agreement and has led the way in forging an ambitious methane reduction strategy and ramping-up clean energy assistance to low-income countries.

These accomplishments are all the more remarkable given right-wing obstructionism in the House of Representatives, the fossil fuel lobby and conservative media’s flood of misinformation and the Supreme Court’s shackling of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump’s first term, in sharp contrast, is remembered for global warming denial, coal industry support and “drill, drill, drill” cheerleading for oil and gas exploration. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement as part of his “America First” isolationism.

Earlier this year, Trump urged fossil energy corporations to donate $1 billion to his election campaign in return for a big payoff. The 2024 Republican platform, “Make America Great Again!”, was drafted by Trump’s team. Elements of it highlights the fossil energy payoff – and the climate peril – of a second Trump term:

· “MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR.”

· “Under President Trump, the US became the Number One Producer of Oil and Gas in the World – and we will soon be again, by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.”

· “Cut Costly and Burdensome [environmental] Regulations…end market distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal.”

· “Revive the U.S. Auto Industry by reversing harmful Regulations, cancelling Biden’s Electric Vehicle and other Mandates.”

In addition, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint recommends eliminating the Agency for International Development’s climate initiatives and suggests that USAID stop financing and working with organizations that advocate for climate action.

Whatever the outcome of November’s elections, it is not certain that America’s political-economic system can bring off the needed energy transformation. The U.S. election cycle and the capitalist reward system drive pursuit of short-sighted goals at the expense of far-sighted sustainability.

And, though most Americans recognize the climate crisis and support government action, we are conflicted. Our appetite for cheap energy, aversion to taxes (on carbon pollution), and skepticism of government are deeply ingrained. Climate action ranks low in voters’ priorities.

As the comic strip character Pogo lamented on the first Earth Day in 1970, “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.”

Despite any doubts, it is crucial to unite against MAGA’s destructive priorities. By defeating Trump and Trumpism, we can sustain climate progress – and hope for coming generations.