Introduction
With Trump and his cronies in power, the climate crisis will worsen.
In a Nov. 14, 2024 post, after Trump was reelected to a second presidential term, there was good reason to worry about Trump’s plans for dealing with the climate crisis. He is a well-known climate-denier.
Here’s a few paragraphs from that post.
“Trump, a climate-crisis denier, will undoubtedly as president exacerbate the problem and give open-ended support to fossil fuel production and consumption and the industries that benefit from them. Rising emissions and the rising temperatures they produce represent an existential problem that will likely threaten to generate massive dislocations of people and threaten the survival of millions, if not billions, of people in America and around the globe.
One of Trump’s signature slogans is “drill baby drill,” which means, as he told us, his upcoming government, once installed after January 20,2025, will (1) increase government support for fossil fuels, (2) reduce support for solar, wind, and geothermal, (3) encourage more export of fracked natural gas, (4) eviscerate or close the Environmental Protection Agency, (5) open up public land to drilling; and (6) serve as an international model for other countries to follow his example.
Mike Ludwig reminded us in his November 2024 article that “Trump is threatening to unleash pollution, increase emissions and incapacitate the most robust EPA in a generation (https://truthout.org/articles/biden-made-slow-but-steady-progress-on-climate-trump-is-poised-to-dismantle-it). And he will have the power to do it, as result of being chosen to be president by millions of American voters in the recent election.
“…efforts to meet international climate commitments,” Ludwig writes, “seem certain to stall, if not end abruptly, after Donald Trump is reinstalled in the White House and Republicans take over the Senate if not all of Congress. According to the most recent information, as of Nov. 12, Republicans will control the White House, both branches of the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court when Trump and his party come into power after January 20, 2025.”
With such political power, Ludwig continues, “[t]he damage will go far beyond global warming. If Trump’s rhetoric and first-term record are any indication of what is ahead, the president-elect and the industries willing to curry his favor are poised to make the U.S. a more polluted and dangerous place to live.”
The fulfillment of Trump’s climate denialism is underway
Willim S. Becker pens a critical assessment of Trump’s climate denialism in an article for The Hill titled “Happy Earth Day from Donald Trump” (https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5256390-trump-climate-change-earth-day). Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director and special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. He is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. Here’s some of what he writes.
“People around the world will celebrate Earth Day in many different ways tomorrow. This year’s theme is ‘Our Power, Our Planet,’ a push to triple the world’s use of clean energy by 2030. Organizers have created an interactive map with the details of hundreds of celebrations across the planet.
“President Trump, always the contrarian, is celebrating in his own way. He began in January, as soon as he reassumed the presidency. He has been busy, too, implementing comprehensive policies to make the planet warmer, its weather more violent, its biodiversity less robust, and its human population much less safe.
Some Americans, especially the captains of the fossil fuel industry, are delighted. Everyone else should be concerned.
“During his first term, the Trump administration rescinded more than 125 federal environmental rules and programs. It was very inefficient; they did it one rule at a time. This time, Trump is doing it all at once. He’s putting a five-year sunset date on many regulations related to energy production. They all would disappear at once unless some are extended.
“Trump and his wingman Elon Musk have inserted a new verb in the government lexicon. Their Department of Government Efficiency is DOGE-ing thousands of federal employees, programs and departments. Unfortunately, many DOGE cuts allow the government to dodge its responsibility for environmental stewardship on behalf of current and future Americans.”
“The president is celebrating Earth Day in several other ways, too. In an impressive example of multi-tasking, he is curtailing federal climate science, defunding programs to help America track its weather, rescinding federal clean energy grants, and banning over 250 unacceptable words from federal literature and websites. They include clean energy, climate crisis, climate science, pollution, science-based, social justice and vulnerable populations.”
Trump also wants to bring back coal. In early April, he issued an executive order “to ‘reinvigorate America’s beautiful clean coal industry,’ which simultaneously recognizes Easter and Earth Day with Trump trying to resurrect the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel from the dead.”
Trump’s Earth Day Purge
This is the title of Keith Schneider’ article published by Circle of Blue, April 21, 2025 (https://circleofblue.org/2025/opinion/trumps-earth-day-purge). The 1970 environmental movement set a positive example of how to deal with global warming and other environment problems.
“The first Earth Day, and each of the next 53,” Schneider notes, “celebrated the momentous course correction in how our industrial society regarded its responsibility to land, water, air, and public safety. America no longer idly accepted the damage and danger from rank exploitation of forests and wild lands, and the insidious tide of chemical and biological pollution.”
That legacy, Schnieder writes, is now being discarded under Trump.
“This year, the 55th anniversary of Earth Day is no celebration. It is scarred by President Trump’s foul and careless campaign to nullify the environmental achievements of the last half century. The expanse and depth of the attack is much more aggressive than any previous president’s effort to unleash polluting industry from oversight. The agencies and institutions that sustained America’s program of environmental protection are being pulled into the government-wide purge of people and policies viewed as a threat to Trump’s authoritarian impulses, and what his aides call the ‘woke and weaponized’ bureaucracy.”
Schnieder continues.
“Virtually every feature of the regulatory infrastructure that sets limits on contamination and safeguards habitat is a target. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, committed last month to dissolve the agency’s scientific research office, reduce the agency’s staff by 65 percent, and take 31 actions to kill regulations or programs affecting toxic air emissions and water discharges, climate change, and waste management. Zeldin is prepared to undo bans on PFAS, the ‘forever chemicals,’ and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.
“Zeldin’s scheme is also meant to end environmental monitoring and increase toxic pollution that amplifies health hazards. “It is the leading edge of a much larger administration campaign to dig into the code of federal regulations and to eliminate hundreds of consumer, workplace safety, and environmental rules, or not enforce them.”
Schnieder goes on, “Trump’s assault goes much farther than putting executives of polluting industry in charge of the EPA and other regulatory agencies, which was the favorite pro-business tactic of previous Republican administrations. This president is bullying major universities by holding hostage billions of dollars in federal research grants, many of which are meant to improve environmental monitoring, and develop non-polluting agricultural and industrial practices.
The administration eliminated USAID, which brought to a close the extensive international conservation programs that protected endangered species, battled poaching and illegal fishing, and provided millions of people clean water and safe sanitation.
“He is pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, a collaborative international agreement to slow global climate change. He’s working out how to evade the 2007 Supreme Court decision that enabled EPA to limit carbon dioxide emissions.
“He’s cancelling grants, incentives, and levying tariffs intended to squelch production and sales of clean energy generating equipment and electric vehicles.
“Trump also wants to waive requirements for polluters to collect and report their emissions of CO2, and the other heat-trapping gases that cause climate change.
Schneider’s last word is vaguely optimistic. He writes, “I’ve spent my entire life in service to environmentalism and its achievements. Trump’s madman bid is to return to the era of exploitation and hazard. My response, and the responses of every American I know, regardless of party affiliation, is this: We’re not going back.”
EPA plans to cut scientific research program
Matthew Daly reports on this issue for APNews, March 18 2025
( https://apnews.com/article/epa-science-layoffs-trump-doge-8a5743b9281e3f82afdf2cdd5f972d5f).
Daly makes his point, “The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants.
“As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists — 75% of the research program’s staff — could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.”
“EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said he wants to eliminate 65% of the agency’s budget, a huge spending cut that would require major staffing reductions for jobs such as monitoring air and water quality, responding to natural disasters and lead abatement, among many other agency functions. The EPA has also issued guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 require approval from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
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The Office of Research and Development — EPA’s main science arm — currently has 1,540 positions, excluding special government employees and public health officers, according to the memo. A majority of staff — ranging from 50% to 75% — “will not be retained,’' the memo said.
California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the science committee, said in a statement that the agency’s research office was created by Congress and ‘eliminating it is illegal.’” Lofgren continued: “EPA cannot meet its legal obligation to use the best available science without (the Office of Research and Development) and that’s the point,’' she added.”
Daly cites Ticora Jones, chief science officer at the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, who said Trump’s EPA ;yet again is putting polluters over people.’
“She called on Congress to ‘stand up and demand that EPA keep its scientists on the beat so that we all can get the clean air and clean water we need and deserve.’
Concluding thoughts
Trump’s actions threaten to undo and prevent any progress toward a cleaner environment. As pointed out, he is a long-term climate change denier, pushes for an energy system that is increasingly grounded in fossil fuels, and has an aversion to science. Sadly, he is using his power to advance his dystopian vision that involves the unlimited burning of fossil fuels. When you include his dim-witted tariff policy, the anti-democratic and chaotic work of Elon Musk and his team, the US is moving toward being the leader in producing greenhouse gas emissions and denying the historic means and hopes of Earth Day.