Trump’s actions hold consequences for us all

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/01/2025 (422 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Amidst the blizzard of madness being unleashed south of the border, news of Washington’s exit from both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Agreement were relegated to the second row in the theatre of the macabre.

And while there has certainly been plenty to occupy media bandwidth of late, the effect of Trump’s decision to pull out of the WHO and the climate accord inked at COP-21 promises to be tumultuous and quite possibility catastrophic.

When the most powerful economic and military power in the world so much as moves, the aftershocks are felt everywhere

At its core, this is an assault on global public health and climate survival efforts.

Earth’s human population is still reeling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemiologists and infection disease specialists promise that new pandemics and other public health crises are not only possible, but likely enough that system planning must treat them as near inevitable.

Likewise, while laughable climate science denialism still circulates in the mainstream, anthropogenic climate change is now indisputably upon us. The once-vaunted 1.5-degree threshold — the tolerable warming above pre-Industrial Age averages identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — is now all but dead in the water. The scientific evidence for change spanning the globe over and amassed over decades shows near unanimous consensus of profound environmental transformation.

In a sense, Trump’s orders ending enrollment in Paris and the WHO are consistent. Threats to the climate and to public health are analogous to the extent that they are both existential and global. Furthermore, they are both closely inter-related; human health quite clearly depends on the health of the planet. Rejection of one dovetails seamlessly with rejection of the other.

Contrary to Trumpian thought (an admitted oxymoron), attempts to meaningfully manage these issues require action on a global scope, and international coordination is paramount. Nation states, beholden to their corporate mandarins — big pharma and the fossil fuel extraction sector are two prescient examples in this context — have proven largely unreliable and unwilling to provide effective policies when left to their own devices. Trump’s move is in keeping with his ruthless, selfish methodology, but also fits into a larger pattern — one that existed long before MAGA — of placing profit over well-being.

Enter the people. The global citizenry must continue to apply pressure on governments to support global cooperation, such as collaborative relations on public health challenges. Direct action has also proven effective. Non-governmental actors — be they local or international — can have wide-ranging impacts when deployed appropriately. Inspiring and powerful stories of resistance and change emerge from the regions the world over.

What of those of us in rich countries like Canada? There has been much consternation over how to ‘handle’ Trump, a fruitless exercise which disregards how dangerous the normalization of this mindset has become. To make matters worse, the new American administration, in eschewing support for supranational entities like the WHO, emboldens like-minded governments and politicians who may seek to chart a similar course. Pierre Poilievre comes to mind.

But even without the absurdity that is Trump and his ilk, risks to public and planetary health have not been sustainably addressed. True, mobilization during COVID-19 was impressive in many jurisdictions. But the pandemic also revealed systemic fragility. The ensuing disarray amongst the Canadian health care system is a stark example here at home.

History teaches us that when society experiences a shock — and we are certainly witnessing shock on multiple levels — the volatility that follows provides opportunities for change amidst the carnage. What this change looks like is yet to be determined. History also tells us that ordinary people working together play a role in shaping the outcome.

The tired trope, that we are all in this together, is nevertheless true to a certain degree. Ultimately, climate and health concerns are interconnected, superseding national borders, as we saw with coronavirus and we continue to witness with warming trends. Yet, the privilege through wealth of rich countries like Canada means mitigatory measures — at least in the short term — will provide a buffer to us not available to much of the planet’s population.

Moral reasoning suggests that those who benefit from privilege — and through that privilege operate in centres of vast power — also hold an ethical accountability that necessitates support to others proportionate to the benefits privilege confers.

Just as these problems are global, so too must be our response.

For those not interested in satiating the irrepressible greed of the American oligarchy and their global corporatist allies, another world is possible. While this may take imagination, resolve, and hard work, the alternative — to acquiesce to the demands of a wealthy few — holds potential for unimaginable calamity. Epidemiological and climate pattern modelling depict massive and perilous challenges ahead.

These are indeed unsettled times.

Andrew Lodge is an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba and medical director of Klinic Community Health.