Earth Matters: Cabinet crackpots claim to be climate realists while touting more production of oil, gas and coal

Our world is a dynamic place. We live on a planet where giant continents move around and speeding asteroids clobber us from time to time, all but pushing the reset button. The climate has been so cold, the Earth was once a “snowball,” and so warm that palm trees and dinosaurs once lived in Antarctica. Halfway through the planet’s life, single-celled creatures utterly altered the atmosphere and the entire ecosystem by adding oxygen. But that took hundreds of millions of years. Now the most apex of Earth’s apex predators is altering the climate not over an eon but in what amounts geologically and climatologically to a finger snap.

Over the past 169 years, scientists have gone from rudimentary laboratory experiments proving greenhouse gases increase temperatures to an ever-fuller understanding of how human beings’ industrial cleverness has placed us on the precipice of climate cataclysm. Today’s scientists, in consensus, have repeatedly told us what we have to stop doing if we are to steer clear of that destination: We must no longer burn fossil fuels that are the foundation of modern civilization and the chief source of the global warming emissions that could wreck it.

It’s no surprise the administration of a guy who has called the climate crisis a “Chinese hoax” would install like-minded folks in his cabinet. They are leading an ongoing effort to kill or sabotage federal climate programs, as well as end grants to states, nations, and NGOs, while blowing up environmentally protective legislation and rules.

A CNN program last Sunday reported Pentagon officials saying that failure to focus attention on climate change would produce military “readiness issues.” One un-named official told a reporter: “I think they’re stuck on the word ‘climate’ and not seeing the operational impacts.” Following CNN’s report, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth dutifully proved himself to Dear Leader with a post on Xitter: “The [Department of Defense] does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”

We’ve heard similar from Hegseth in the past. It’s now policy. A Project 2025-flavored statement on Feb. 19 from acting deputy Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said: “Through our budgets, the Department of Defense will once again resource warfighting and cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs as well as excessive bureaucracy.”

Nonsense. The U.S. military has been seriously looking at the impacts of climate change on national security since 1990, long before the slang term “woke” had made it into broad public discourse. That year, a Naval War College report concluded that “nearly all areas of operational effectiveness are threatened” by climate change. That wasn’t a one-off. There’s a chronology of the military’s focus on climate you can read here.

While Hegseth’s adherence to a stance that endangers national security is to be expected given his paltry credentials on just about everything, the views expressed by the highly experienced Secretary of Energy Chris Wright are far worse.

At his confirmation hearing, the former oil CEO said he agreed that climate change is happening. That’s been the declaration of ever more Republicans who used to say climate change wasn’t happening but have altered their public views as the impacts have become impossible to ignore. In fact, however, since Wright has taken the oath of office, his already transparent mask has come completely off. He has said that climate change shouldn’t even be in the nation’s top 10 priorities.

While Hegseth was tweeting malarkey Monday, Wright was in Houston speaking at the annual CERAweek fossil fuel conference where he has been a fixture at for many years. There, he said, “The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens.” Now there will be a “pivot,” he said, declaring that renewables can’t provide all the energy that’s needed, and focusing on them “impoverishes” people. Not only will nuclear be needed to meet energy needs, he added, but so will more fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, but also, especially in Africa, including coal.

He conceded greenhouse gas emissions were warming the planet, but complained that “there is no physical way” renewables could replace the uses of gas. This assertion is disputed by experts here and here.

Wright dares to label himself a “climate realist.” It’s true that he has in the past conceded that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased and warmed the planet since pre-industrial times, but said this is a necessary “trade-off” for development that has saved lives.

“The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is: a global, physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world," Wright said. The Biden administration’s focus on climate was “myopic” and "economically destructive to our businesses and politically polarizing,” he said, adding, "The cure was far more destructive than the disease. And in what seemed to be an audition for stand-up comedy, he said, “The Trump administration intends to be much more scientific and mathematically literate.”

Wright has also touted one of the climate change deniers’ fallback positions—that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a good thing, spurring the growth of more greenery. That’s a stance Emily Atkins at Heated demolished. And then there’s this: Plants Are Losing Their Ability to Absorb Carbon Dioxide as Emissions Rise.

Allie Rosenbluth, U,S, Campaign Manager at Oil Change International, responded to the Houston speech:

“Chris Wright, a former fracking CEO who essentially purchased his Cabinet position through $450,000 in Trump campaign contributions personifies the deadly alliance between the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry. His speech made clear that he and the rest of the Trump administration are ready to sacrifice our communities and climate for the profits of the fossil fuel industry — which spent $445 million in total to influence Trump and Congress last election cycle. His performative extension of Delfin LNG’s export authorization during his speech represents just how deeply intertwined the Trump administration is with the fossil fuel CEOs at CERAWeek.

Here’s the thing. Wright told senators he’s not a climate denier but rather a “climate realist.” That convinced 10 Democrats to vote to confirm him, one of whom, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said he did so because Wright “believes in science.” Kate Aronoff at The New Republic writes:

The supposed “realism” being projected in Houston isn’t exactly novel. Fossil fuel executives and the politicians they donate to routinely describe themselves as the victims of some fantastical green plot. Despite the fact that U.S. executives enjoyed record profits and production during the Biden administration, they love to whine whenever Democrats are in charge and take a victory lap when Republicans kick them out. What’s novel about this round of self-serving oil and gas industry grandstanding is how much it aligns with the “realism” expressed by ostensibly more climate-conscious leaders.

So-called investor-led alliances to align the financial sector behind climate goals have largely collapsed as bankers and asset managers follow the example of fossil fuel companies, which have walked back and reversed climate pledges. The Net-Zero Asset Managers Alliance suspended operations after its largest member—Blackrock—left earlier this year. The six largest U.S. banks (Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo) all opted to ditch the Net-Zero Banking Alliance in the lead-up to Inauguration Day. Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates—who championed their climate philanthropy over the last several years—have warmed to Trump and stayed silent about his attacks on climate statutes. Breakthrough Energy, the climate group Gates funds, dramatically cut giving to climate groups and slashed dozens of staff in the U.S. and Europe.

There’s nothing realistic about policies that eliminate support for renewables while paving the path for even more extraction and burning of fossil fuels than the record-breaking level we’re at already. Well, there is the realism that the fossil fuel industry Wright has been so much a part of for 30 years is determined to keep the profits flowing until the emissions from every last molecule of hydrocarbons on the planet have been added to the atmosphere. There will be a gargantuan trade-off from that.

—Meteor Blades

WEEKLY ECO-VIDEO

(Click here for more information on polar bears emerging from den.)

RESOURCES & ACTION

GREEN BRIEFS

States are moving forward with Buy Clean policies despite Trump reversal

The Biden administration In 2021 set up the Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership to enhance existing programs designed to speed efforts to create a larger market for cleaner construction materials. Federal agencies funded state governments and contractors to help them track emissions and make it easier for manufacturers to decarbonize. Here’s an assessment of what the partnership has achieved.

Buy Clean matters because embodied carbon in construction materials for buildings emits 11% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Thirteen states have enacted their own Buy Clean laws to boost demand for lower-carbon steel, concrete, asphalt, glass, and other construction products, with California first to enact such a policy in 2017. Since then, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, Hawai’i Washington, New York, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, and Massachusetts have followed suit.

Hanna Waterstrat, director of the Washington State Department of Commerce’s state efficiency and environmental performance office, told Canary Media, “We’ve [historically] invested a lot in policies to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. But the footprint of the materials — from the manufacture, transport, installation, maintenance, and disposal — can actually be the equivalent of, or bigger than, the entire greenhouse-gas footprint of operating a building through its lifetime.”

But in January President Trump abandoned the program and has attempted to claw back related grant programs, which has led to legal challenges. A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the freeze. Because of a lack of transparency by the administration, however, it’s unclear whether those rescissions have been rescinded and the money returned to its recipients.

—MB

World's critical food crops at imminent risk from rising temperatures

A new study has bad news about global warming’s impact on food crops. If the average global temperature rises 1.5°C (2.7°F) above the pre-industrial age, food security will become a problem in some places because food diversity will decline, the researchers say. Up to half of the world's food crop production may be affected. The really bad news is that the effects will be felt hardest in the lower latitudes. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the temperature rise is already 2°C (3.6°F ).

There the population is poorer, the land generally less fertile, irrigation less developed, and carbon emissions have been and remain barely a blip compared with the vast historical and current emissions of the rich nations of North, where at 1.5° the warming impacts on food crops will be less.

The changing climate means a reduction in the amount of cropland suitable for rice, maize (corn to Americans), wheat, potato, and soybean, five staple crops that make up more than two-thirds of the food energy consumed planet-wide. But global warming could negatively affect more than 30 food crops all told.

If the temperature rise hits 3°C (5.4°F), which is not out of the question based on our current trajectory, then at least part of the Northern latitudes will also see serious reductions in cropland and crops suitable for crops.

—MB

Florida is now a solar superpower. Here’s how it happened

The Sunshine State gets plenty of progressive ridicule for the actions of its past and current governors on climate change. For instance, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered many references to “climate” erased from government documents, but he wasn’t the first in that job to be a jackass about the climate crisis. Former Gov. Rick Scott ordered administrators in the state Department of Environmental Protection not to use the terms "global warming," "climate change," or “sustainability.”

When it comes to solar power, however, rooftop panels or small arrays, Florida really is a powerhouse. Last year, it aced out California for second-place behind Texas for installations of new utility-scale solar, 3 gigawatts of it. When it comes to rooftop solar, Florida is in second place behind California, the national leader, a position it has held since 2019.

“Climate” eraser DeSantis vetoed a bill to end net metering, which benefits the owners of rooftop panels, who clearly had some political clout. And, of course, one need not accept climate science to know there are other benefits to solar electricity made right where you live and work. Long before DeSantis’s veto, however, the 50-year-old Florida Power Plant Siting Act was applied to solar arrays smaller than 75 megawatts.

The law allows the state to pre-empt county and municipal zoning boards for any solar power plant smaller than that. Larger power plants get stiffer scrutiny and are more likely to be rejected. Scatter 15 or so arrays like that around and you’ve got a gigawatt project, likely one that doesn’t attract as much negative attention as a single gigawatt power plant would.

Alexander Kaufman at Canary Media reports:

“Floridians have long understood that not only is solar good for your pocket, it’s also good for your home resilience,” said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, the executive director of The CLEO Institute, a Miami-based nonprofit that advocates for climate action. “In the face of increasing extreme weather events, having access to reliable energy is a big motivator.”

The tax credits available under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act have also made buying panels cheaper than ever before, she said.

“A lot of people took advantage of that. I’m one of them,” Arditi-Rocha said. “As soon as I saw that the federal government was going to give me 30% back on my taxes, I decided to make the investment and got myself a solar system that I could pay back in seven years. It was a win-win proposition.”

—MB

RESEARCH & STUDIES

Extreme heat silently accelerates aging on a molecular level according to a study published in Science Advances.
The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand published by the Rhodium Group.
Dissociation is a coping mechanism that impedes effective climate action published in Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health.
Microplastics hinder plant photosynthesis, threatening millions with starvation published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)

Climate activists target Musk, Trump with ‘Project 2026’ by Corbin Hiar and Sara Schonhardt at ClimateWire. A climate activist group known for disrupting Democratic politicians is adopting a new strategy now that President Donald Trump is in the White House. The plan is called “Project 2026,” said Michael Greenberg, the founder of the protest group Climate Defiance. It’s a nod toward “what comes next after Project 2025,” Greenberg said, referring to the conservative policy blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation. Climate Defiance, like every other climate and environmental advocacy organization, is recalibrating under the Trump administration. The president has moved swiftly to reverse Biden-era climate regulations, withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and halt spending on climate programs. The drastic political shift has spurred a change in tactics for Greenberg’s group, which launched in 2023 during the Biden administration and made headlines for disrupting high-ranking administration officials and congressional Democrats.

Related: Defiantly Disruptive. Climate Defiance co-founder Michael Greenberg on meeting the moment and why direct action works.

Glowing pains: Developing nuclear power could cost Utah tens of billions by Eric Peterson at The Utah Investigative Journalism Project partnered with Utah News Dispatch. Gov. Spencer Cox announced Operation Gigawatt in 2024 to double the state’s energy capacity in 10 years. For the governor and state lawmakers an ambitious energy plan means big investments now in all energy options — including nuclear. For Utah to grow, Utah energy will need to glow. Since Utah has no nuclear infrastructure, lawmakers this legislative session passed bills to lay the groundwork for nuclear regulations, research and funding opportunities in the future. Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, the former CEO of Garkane Energy, pitched HB249 to a Senate committee, where he and committee members talked excitedly about the future potential of nuclear and its ability to bring reliable clean power and thousands of jobs to the state. It crossed the finish line Friday, the session’s final day, and now heads to Cox’s desk. “I’m not saying this bill is perfect,” Albrecht said. “But it is a start to get us over the bridge from fossil fuels.” While starting toward nuclear might be easy, finishing a nuclear project is not.

Cheryl Johnson of People for Community Recovery — Cheryl Johnson, head of People for Community Recovery

Hazel Johnson Launched an Environmental Movement in Chicago That Trump Is Trying to End by Brett Chase at the Chicago Sun-Times. The year before Hazel Johnson, founder of People for Community Recovery, died in 2011, her daughter Cheryl stepped up to lead the movement. Cheryl said her mother still inspires her. “I’m being challenged and just trying to live for what she fought for,” Cheryl Johnson said. “She was my best friend.” With a stroke of a pen in January, President Donald Trump ended that 1994 order signed by Clinton. Trump declared that the document, recognizing poor communities that often bear the brunt of pollution, amounts to “illegal discrimination” and is “radical.” Cheryl says MAGA can’t end a decades-long fight that affects poor white communities as well as communities of color.

How Rooftop Solar Makes Electricity Cheaper for Everyone by John Farrell at the Institute for Local Self Reliance. The California Public Utilities Commission issued in August 2024 an analysis that purported to show current rooftop solar customers are causing a “cost shift” onto non-solar customers amounting to $8.5 billion in 2024. This rather simplistic analysis started from an incorrect base and left out significant contributions, many of which are unique to rooftop solar, made to the utilities’ systems and benefitting all ratepayers. Rooftop solar saved not just panel owners, but all California customers $2.3 billion on utility bills in 2024, according to a blockbuster new report. The study found that the rooftop panels saved non-solar customers $1.5 billion, rebutting the utility industry’s bogus “cost-shift” myth.Researchers found that rooftop solar made electricity cheaper for all California customers by lowering peak demand for electricity and reducing the amount utilities need to spend on buying energy and expanding the grid. Because utilities build the cost of purchased energy and capital investments into the rates they charge customers over a period of years, the money saved in not building out the grid and buying energy translates to lower rates down the road. The researchers, from environmental analysis firm M.Cubed Consulting, found that rooftop solar had displaced 15,000 megawatts of peak load since the start of California’s Million Solar Roofs initiative in 2006 – adding up to $2.17 billion in savings in 2024.

Copper Mining Is an Environmental Nightmare. This Collaboration Aims to Limit the Harm by Robin McKie at Mother Jones. It is the key ingredient of bronze, the alloy that helped create some of the world’s greatest civilizations and took humanity out of the stone age on its way to modern times. For good measure, the metal is invaluable for electrical wiring, plumbing, and industrial machinery. We owe a lot to copper.But the metal now faces an uncertain future as manufacturers prepare to expand its use to make the electric cars, renewable power plants, and other devices that will help the planet move towards net zero. Unrestricted extraction could cause widespread ecological devastation, scientists have warned. The issue is to be the prime focus for the new Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials, based at Imperial College London in partnership with several international university groups. A total of $150 million has been set aside for its first 10 years of operations.

Kennecott Copper open pit mine in Utah — Kennecott Utah Copper, a division of Rio Tinto Group, operates the Bingham Canyon open pit copper mine, one of the planet’s largest, extracting about 1% of the world’s copper output each year.

Industry-Backed Legislation Would Bar the Use of Science Behind Hundreds of Environmental Protections by Sharon Lerner at ProPublica. Most people don’t know IRIS, but it is the scientific engine of the agency that protects human health and the environment. Its scientists assess the toxicity of chemicals, estimating the amount of each that triggers cancer and other health effects. And these values serve as the independent, nonpartisan basis for the rules, regulations and permits that limit our exposure to toxic chemicals. Now IRIS faces the gravest threat to its existence since it was created under President Ronald Reagan four decades ago. Legislation introduced in Congress would prohibit the EPA from using any of IRIS’ hundreds of chemical assessments in environmental rules, regulations, enforcement actions and permits that limit the amount of pollution allowed into air and water. The EPA would also be forbidden from using them to map the health risks from toxic chemicals. The bills, filed in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives earlier this year, are championed by companies that make and use chemicals, along with industry groups that have long opposed environmental rules. If it becomes law, the “No IRIS Act,” as it’s called, would essentially bar the agency from carrying out its mission, experts told ProPublica. “They’re trying to undermine the foundations for doing any kind of regulation,” said William Boyd, a professor at UCLA School of Law who specializes in environmental law.

WEEKLY BLUESKY POST

ECOPINION

The US Has Never Been More Divided on Climate. Here’s How to Build Bridges (and It May Surprise You). The first step is to listen and acknowledge that people of all political stripes are feeling confused, overwhelmed, angry, and scared. By Renée Lertzman at DeSmog. Even as it seems the U.S. is accelerating backwards on climate action, what if we are radically under-estimating our capacity for real social change? In recent days, I have been thinking a lot about this question, and the tools that I’m convinced can unlock what we may believe is unthinkable. Namely, moving from a “yell, tell and sell” theory of change, where people often shut down, turn away and deny, to one of guiding people with very different views towards taking steps to address climate change. To do this, we have to be open to revising our own theories of change. We have to be able to listen and acknowledge what millions of people are feeling and saying: that we are confused, overwhelmed, scared, angry, and threatened. No amount of cheerleading, educating and ‘righting’ at people is going to change that. People respond neurologically to being heard, respected and yes, redirected to what is in our joint best interest. What I am describing is an evidence-based, scientifically sound approach to shifting mindsets, hearts and behaviors. It is also reflected in the fields of social neuroscience, relational psychology and motivational interviewing in the public health sector. As the psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Siegel says, “name it to tame it.”

We should empower youth to fight for environmental justice in their own neighborhood by Layla Johnson at Environmental Health News. I’m a recent high school graduate who lived and breathed for most of my life in Braddock, Pennsylvania, about nine miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Braddock is home to the Edgar Thomson Steel Mill, owned by U.S. Steel, which Nippon Steel recently tried to purchase before the deal was blocked. During the last year of my high school career, I opened my eyes to the realities of environmental injustice in my neighborhood. It also became clear to me that we need more opportunities for young people like me to learn how to navigate advocacy. My journey began in summer 2023 when I attended the Public Health Science Academy at the University of Pittsburgh. There I learned that PM2.5 — air pollution particles that have a diameter of 2.5 microns or smaller — is dangerous because these tiny particles penetrate lung tissue, enter the bloodstream, and cause many health issues including respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and mental health problems. My neighborhood in Braddock has higher levels of PM2.5 than 95% of other places in the U.S., a higher proportion of minority residents than 84% of the country, and a higher rate of poverty than 94% of the country, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Environmental Justice Is under Attack: We Need Local Advocacy Power Tools by Olivia Guarna and Yosef Robele at the Sabin Center’s Climate Law blog. In January of 2025, the Trump Administration removed almost 80 crucial executive orders, including those supporting environmental justice, and set into motion a false “energy emergency” and directives to “Unleash American Energy.” [...] These efforts reverse decades of progress for equity, public health protections, and urgent climate action. So what can we do? To meet the moment, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School and WE ACT for Environmental Justice have partnered to create new resources to empower local environmental justice advocacy around development projects to ensure that communities are both protected from harms and can create legal agreements associated with those projects that respond to community needs and priorities. This work is a part of the Dismantling Injustice project, which began with a series of model environmental justice legislation and resources. As part of the launch, WE ACT and the Sabin Center held a webinar on March 5, 2025 to introduce the resources and explain how they can be used most effectively. A recording of the webinar is available here.

Trump’s Climate Cuts Are a Symptom of Wider Climate Apathy by Christopher Chin at Common Dreams. Instead of telling governments to fix a leak because the "data says so," we need to emphasize the positive impact on people. How will decreasing your abstract methane emissions lead to better health for human beings? How will donating trillions to some abstract goal of "1.5°C" benefit people in your local community that you personally care about? If we want the climate crisis to be seen as not just an "existential" environmental problem, but a horrifically human one happening right now close to home, we need to stop sharing negative stats and start telling hopeful stories. Especially with staunch resistance from a second Trump administration, we need to communicate the climate crisis in a much more human and much more ethical way if we are to inspire global action.

There Is a Stupidly Easy Way to Make Heat Pumps More Affordable by Emily Pontecorvo at Heatmap. One of the most significant actions a person can take to fight climate change is to swap out their fossil fuel-fired furnace or boiler for electric heat pumps. But while rebates and other subsidies can help defray the up-front cost of the switch, the price of electricity relative to natural gas is still a major deterrent in many places. Lower emissions for higher monthly bills is not much of a tradeoff.Could the solution be as simple as utilities giving heat pump users a discounted rate in the winter? There’s a growing consensus among climate and clean energy experts that this is a crucial and urgent step toward decarbonizing, at least in the near term. A number of recent reports make the case not just that discounted rates for heat pump users will help spur adoption of the technology, but also that these customers are currently being overcharged.

How Science Can Adapt to a New Normal by C. Brandon Ogbunu at Undark. Scientific institutions are in full scramble. No amount of diplomacy or charity can interpret the modern moment as anything other than an attempt at destroying the foundations of the modern scientific machine. [...] What do we do? There is nothing new to say that hasn’t been said during other political calamities: despair only serves our masters, humans have been through worse, the mention of the arc of the moral universe, and other aestheticizing (and often wrong) cliches. And the naive optimism of many scientists — that it just can’t get much worse, because yesterday it was fine — is equally impotent. No one is coming out of the sky to give you your grant money. Your citation portfolio won’t survive this market crash. Your credentials mean nothing. Everything is going to change. In response, we need to swiftly adopt a harm reduction model, where we use our ingenuity — driven by the same mental muscle that we use in our science — to build a different profession that is still capable of defending and practicing science.