In his first address to Congress, President Donald Trump rattled off a litany of supposed threats to the United States – immigrants, Muslims and regulations among them. But on climate change – the greatest real existential threat facing humanity – Trump didn't say a single word.

In short, denying the reality of climate change is now the official policy of the United States government. If there was ever any doubt, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt made it explicit when he told reporters recently that he "would not agree" that carbon emissions are "a primary contributor to the global warming that we see."

That denial puts us at odds with scientific consensus and with most of the world's governments. We see this dangerous denial at work both in Trump's policies and appointments.

Not least, there's Pruitt himself, the former Oklahoma attorney general who sued the EPA 14 times before being tapped to lead it. Worse still, he coordinated his war on the agency with fossil fuel companies, as revealed in a trove of e-mails activists got released over Pruitt's strenuous objections. For example, Pruitt's office directly solicited contributions from the oil and gas company Devon Energy to include in a letter to the EPA complaining about methane regulations.

That level of contact raises serious questions about Pruitt's conflicts of interest.

Editorial Cartoons on Energy Policy View All 166 Images

Then there's the State Department, which is now headed by Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest fossil fuel company. Under Tillerson's leadership, the company covered up decades-old research on climate change by its own scientists and intentionally misled the public by funding pseudo-scientific “research” to cast doubt on legitimate climate science.

Finally there's former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who's been tapped to head the Department of Energy. As governor, Perry famously called for Texans to pray for rain in response to record-breaking drought and forest fires in 2011. He did not, however, admit any connection between the drought and the activities of the oil and gas industry, the largest single industry lining his campaign coffers.

Unsurprisingly, this administration has moved quickly – and egregiously – to remove restraints on fossil fuel production.

First, in a sign of things to come, the new administration removed the climate change page on the White House website. It replaced it with an energy plan that promises more coal mining, oil drilling and fracking, while calling the prior administration's Climate Action Plan "harmful and unnecessary."

Then it greenlit the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipeline projects, showing disdain for environmental concerns and for Native American sovereignty, which activists spent years documenting.

Most recently it announced a staggering 25 percent proposed cut to the EPA budget. Among many other hamstrings on the vital agency, that would completely eliminate environmental justice programs that assist low-income people and people of color dealing with disproportionate environmental harm.

But federal inaction (and worse) doesn't mean that environmentalists have to give up. Instead, states and cities are acting on their own to curb fossil fuel use, expand the use of renewable energy, and make solar energy more accessible – all while creating good jobs, including for historically excluded people.

California alone has produced the kind of comprehensive climate plan one would expect from a sovereign nation. It's preparing rules to cut statewide emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, while acting on a detailed plan to adapt the state to the inevitable adverse effects of climate change.

Better still, the legislature has mandated that everything California does on climate change should be guided by the principle that its adverse effects disproportionately impact the "state's most disadvantaged communities."

In the White House's backyard, the District of Columbia has legislated that 50 percent of electricity must come from renewable sources by 2032. It's launched a community solar program to help renters and others benefit from shared solar arrays, while funding efforts to provide solar energy access to at least 100,000 low income residents.

Elsewhere, the state of Illinois voted last year to let utilities recover costs for energy efficiency measures, while exempting low-income households from paying extra. And Portland, Oregon has cut home energy usage by 20 percent while creating jobs that pay an average of more than $20 an hour, many of which are going to historically disadvantaged residents.