Trump Promotes Energy Abundance and Decries Prophets of Doom at Davos

President Donald J. Trump gave a powerful speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 21, in which he challenged nearly every politically correct platitude held by the billionaires, global managerial elite, and left-wing activists in attendance. In particular, he disagreed with the energy-rationing agenda of the climate-industrial complex, which dominates discussion in Davos:

To protect our security and our economy, we are also boldly embracing American energy independence. The United States is now, by far, the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, by far. It’s not even close. While many European countries struggle with crippling energy costs, the American energy revolution is saving American families $2,500 every year in lowering electric bills and numbers that people said couldn’t happen, and also, very importantly, prices at the pump. We’ve been so successful that the United States no longer needs to import energy from hostile nations. With an abundance of American natural gas now available, our European allies no longer have to be vulnerable to unfriendly energy suppliers either. We urge our friends in Europe to use America’s vast supply and achieve true energy security. With U.S. companies and researchers leading the way, we are on the threshold of virtually unlimited reserves of energy, including from traditional fuels, LNG, clean coal, next-generation nuclear power, and gas hydrate technologies.

Trump also spoke about the positive effect that his administration’s deregulatory actions were having on economic growth. The major discordant note in the speech from my perspective was when he announced that: “[The] United States will join One Trillion Trees Initiative being launched here at the World Economic Forum. One Trillion Trees. And in doing so, we will continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing, and better managing our trees and our forests.”

But Trump went on to dismiss the “perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse” and did so without mentioning global warming or any of the prophets in the audience, notably Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg:

This is not a time for pessimism; this is a time for optimism. Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action. But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune-tellers—and I have them and you have them, and we all have them, and they want to see us do badly, but we don’t let that happen. They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the ’70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate our liberty. America will always be the proud, strong, and unyielding bastion of freedom. In America, we understand what the pessimists refuse to see: that a growing and vibrant market economy focused on the future lifts the human spirit and excites creativity strong enough to overcome any challenge—any challenge by far.

Rupert Darwall provides additional commentary in The Hill from an English perspective on Trump’s speech.