SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Donald Trump campaigned on many controversial commitments, which he seems intent on fulfilling through a sweeping series of executive orders. During his first week in office, Trump has penned actions to loosen Affordable Care Act provisions, create a Muslim registry, authorize construction of a wall along the Mexico border, declare martial law on Chicago and eliminate “sanctuary cities,” the latter of which elicited a bizarre response from the president: “I’ve seen ‘Logan’s Run’ on TV a million times; I love the idea of Carousel, maybe adding Muslims to the list, but sanctuary is a terrible lie. Why force taxpayers to fund a myth? You know, that D.C. hasn’t crumbled into ruins?” While some orders seem dubious to enforce, Trump’s gutting of environmental protections could come to fruition. Unlike the repeal of Obamacare, the president did offer a replacement -- a “climate-friendly energy plan” that he said would create jobs, restore a dying industry and provide low income families with affordable fuel: clean burning whale oil.

The First 100 Days, the First 100 Cuts

Many of the executive orders stamped by Trump honor key elements of the 100-Day Plan he released in November. Curbing environmental regulations to expedite coal and oil production is no exception:

American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Get rid of solar and wind power. Period. The sun doesn’t shine all day, folks, and wind is dirty. You ever see the mess after a gale? Your three swimming pools, atrium, and Rolls Royce are covered in leaves and debris. Let’s restore the grandeur of coal and gas, giant smokestacks farting billowing profits into the heavens. While we’re at it, we should explore real renewable energy sources like whale oil. Create a bunch of new jobs. Maybe even steal some from the Japs. Yeah, I’m launching that one on December 7. Suck my Moby Dick, Shinzō.

According to some global economists, fuel reserves could run dry within 46 years, even if demand were to remain flat. Barring existing constraints on supplies, the world would likely see a 110-percent jump in demand by 2050, equivalent to 190 million barrels a day. But without discovering major new reserves or alternative energy sources, experts anticipate the growing demands to remain unmet. Even diversifying to natural gas would fail to ease the pressure on oil because its supply is as geographically dense.

President Trump therefore faces a challenging dilemma. He wants to maintain economic strength through existing business interests, namely the gas and oil industries. But renewable energy markets are outpacing traditional power suppliers in terms of job growth. As CNN reported:

“Strikingly, there are more US jobs in solar energy alone than in either oil-and-gas extraction or coal mining, according to a 2016 report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA. ‘Jobs in the solar industry grew 12 times as fast as overall job creation in the US economy,’ the report says. The country’s 209,000 solar industry jobs in 2015 outnumber those in oil and gas extraction -- 187,200 -- and coal mining -- 67,929.”

However, pushing the green agenda would risk alienating Trump from his apocalypse-eager, rapture-ravenous base through a tacit admission of climate change reality. It would also require the administration to pay developers to upload all the deleted White House Web pages that had referenced global warming and ecological threats until a week ago.

A return to whaling, Trump believes, achieves the perfect balance. He recalled the events of “Moby Dick” to illustrate his point. In the novel, an uptight Quaker captain wages war against a heathen crew, the animal kingdom’s affront to God, and everyone who questions his command or interferes with his ruthless quest for business gain.

The story represents nostalgia. It symbolizes the man versus nature struggle for dominion. It portrays the plight of repressed, puritanical and fanatically religious lower classes in rural America (Quakers in 19th-century Nantucket making up the bulk of the industry). More importantly, the events of Melville’s novel depict the terrifying dangers posed by communities of mixed races and non-Christian immigrants. For Trump’s conservative, fundamentalist supporters, whaling could present an appealing middleground between fossil fuels and alternative energy.

“I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment,” Trump told business leaders on Monday. “I pay a lot of Mexicans, the non-rapey kind, to tend the grounds of my terrific estates. Lots of grass, lots of nature, just so much environment. I also take up a lot of space, so I’m a big part of the environment. I have seen so many wonderful forests and landscapes in my business travels, so much beautiful environment we cleared away to build our casinos. Just tremendous memories. I’ve received awards on the environment. Just ask anyone. They’ll tell you I’ve won all the best awards.”

One Russian intelligence official confirmed Trump’s statements, describing how the president even found productive uses for human waste during a previous business trip to the country.

Trump’s Whale of a Task: Renewing Dead Industry for Renewable Energy

For the undertaking, President Trump consulted with Yoyodyne, Inc., San Narciso County’s largest employer. Mike Fallopian, Yoyodyne vice president and chairman of the conservative Peter Pinguid Society, agreed that exploring pre-industrial age business processes could help locate new fuel sources.

“My colleague, Stanley Kotex, expressed the gravity of the situation a few days ago in an interview with this publication,” Fallopian explained. “He said, and I’m quoting, ‘Oil and gas are not renewable resources; they will dry up one day, and we must be prepared. But wind and solar are equally non-renewable. Look at it logically. You can’t predict when the wind will blow, if it will at all, and scientists keep telling us the sun will burn out one day. The sun’s inevitable demise poses the greatest threat to ending all life on the planet.’ Stanley’s recommendation, which Yoyodyne fully supports, is to usher in a renaissance of the U.S. whaling industry.”

Fallopian called the Obama administration’s “hippie” stance on clean energy an absurd and unrealistic ideology, not a solid economic plan. He praised Trump for taking immediate steps to save the planet by way of preserving its lifeblood: profitable corporations.

“Wind and solar are pipe dreams, not pipelines,” Fallopian said. “I think we’ve established that. You know what’s clean? Pure-burning whale oil. But if we’re really serious about looking for renewable energy sources on the planet, we need to stay focused on the Earth, not on meteorological phenomena from beyond, like wind currents and highly radioactive UV rays. The United States would do well to emulate the Japanese whaling bonanza.”

The president applauded Yoyodyne’s devotion to the project, and brushed off anticipated protests from animal rights activists.

“I know that PETA fanatics have their small opinions and limited world view,” Trump opined, “but whaling is our heritage. Ever seen that ‘Moby Dick’ movie with Gregory Peck? Fantastic film. Much better than the Mockingbird piece of crap. In the fish [sic] picture, he’s a great hero, not a shameful villain. Anyway, we saved the whales in the 70s, and now they’re everywhere. Kill a couple of whales, heat a hundred homes. They’ll reproduce. Circle of life, people. Not to mention all that clean burning oil to power our stoves and cars and perfumeries.”

“And the best part is that nothing will go to waste,” the president added. “After extracting the ambergris from the fish [sic], the carcasses can be processed as a new culinary delicacy. You know, like sushi. Eskimos and Japs eat that stuff. They thrive on it. We’re talking about brown and yellow people who are so poor that they live in tents made out of ice cubes or weird paper houses. Seriously, I’ve got golf courses and stuff in Japan. A lot of slants [sic] live in these, sort of, origami apartments. So now we can feed our poor people, too, with whales. No more food stamps or government assistance.”

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