Han Dieperink: Orange is the new Green
This column was originally written in Dutch. This is an English translation.
President Trump hates green policies, but is inadvertently fuelling the biggest sustainability movement ever. His contrarianism is proving to be America's secret climate weapon.
By Han Dieperink, written in a personal capacity.
When recording a podcast that would also be available in the United States, I was told in advance by a compliance department that there were two words I was not allowed to use. The first was the name of the American president. ‘Just say “the current American government”,’ they whispered frantically. "And don't use the abbreviation “ESG” – apparently that's the new swear word in no fewer than eighteen American states.
Welcome to the bizarre universe where the person who threw the Paris Climate Agreement in the bin has accidentally become America's greatest climate hero. It's like your grandmother trying to fix your computer by repeatedly hitting it, and it actually works. Our orange friend (I mean “the current American head of government”) has a unique talent: the harder he opposes something, the faster it moves forward. It's the Trump paradox: the stronger the headwind, the higher we fly.
When he claimed during his first term that climate change was a Chinese hoax, various American companies and states spontaneously formed a “We'll Do It Ourselves” coalition. Apple, Google and Walmart went green en masse. Not because the government asked them to, but precisely because it didn't. It's like a teenager becoming a vegetarian purely because his parents are organising a barbecue.
And now, in his second term, it's happening again. His trade war with China is making products more expensive, forcing Americans to keep their stuff longer. Who would have thought that “Make America Great Again” actually meant “Repair Your Old Junk” or “Buy fewer Barbies”? Even his obsession with energy independence is accidentally working in favour of wind turbines and solar panels. After all, what could be more independent than energy that literally falls from the sky? No foreign power can hold the sun hostage or claim wind rights. This is what I call the “Trump method for sustainability”: achieving sustainability by explicitly opposing it. It's like dieting by opening a cake shop – it works surprisingly well, even though that was never the intention.
For environmental activists, this is a tough pill to swallow. Their arch-enemy turns out to be their greatest ally. It's as if Darth Vader suddenly walks around with a solar panel on his helmet. What are you supposed to do then? Glue yourself to a Tesla? Maybe it's time for a new strategy. Instead of protesting against Trump, we could just let him do what he does: accidentally save the climate by being against it. Rename “green energy” to “patriotic energy” and say that wind turbines make the American eagle stronger. Call solar panels “freedom panels” and see how quickly they appear on every roof.
Who knows, thanks to this president, the climate crisis might be solved – not thanks to him, but thanks to everyone who opposed him. It's the ultimate American dream: making progress by stubbornly swimming against the tide. So let's raise a glass (of Gooische Grazer, a locally brewed beer, of course) to the man we dare not name, the “orange guy” who has unwittingly unleashed the biggest green revolution since Al Gore.
Because apparently, in today's America, orange really is the new green – a colour change that no one saw coming, but which may be exactly what the planet needed.