He is promising to bring the coal jobs back, but his action won’t do that. The economics of power production are making coal an expensive, uncompetitive energy source, even aside from its filthy, lung-wrecking, climate-killing side effects. Trump said one of the reasons for trying to bring these jobs back is that coal miners prefer them. This is a brand-new standard for Republican policymakers. The rest of the time it’s always “go find a different job, you lazy whiner.” But when it comes to trying to find a way to grease the oily skids for carbon-intensive fuels, any reason or hypocrisy will do.

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Trump cites economic considerations but then signs an order that will slow the development of the genuine future of energy production in clean energy such as solar and wind, ceding the edge over these forward-facing technologies to the rest of the world. His administration seems completely ignorant and baffled by the costs the United States will have to bear battling the severe consequences of climate-driven extreme weather, as well as the Pentagon-identified costs and risks to climate-fueled global destabilization.

Oh, and one more feature. The effects of this setback to hard-fought climate action are likely to be this: permanent. That’s right. You don’t make the sea level go back down with an executive order. You don’t turn the floodwaters aside with a photo op. You don’t stop an advancing wall of flame with a fountain pen.

If nothing else, the permanent nature of the damage Trump is doing makes this the one action he has taken that has to be reversed. Now. Either Trump reverses it himself, or it is the one final reason he needs to be removed from office. If he isn’t, it is incumbent on the GOP-led Congress to reverse these climate rules. If they don’t, it is absolutely essential that the American people see to it that the GOP is removed from government control in 2018. The party has just declared war on the future of your children.

I’m not sure what it will take for Americans to realize what a cancer this administration is on the country, but this action alone ought to suffice. The world is simply out of time to resume playing this kind of lying, blind, suicidal game with climate politics.