Climate activists are slamming President Donald Trump following his recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, during which he called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world." Well, I run an environmental nonprofit — and he just might have a point.
The American people do not trust the modern environmental movement. This comes from years of extremists leading the charge. When they spend decades telling the public that the world is going to end (but it never does), the public stops believing them. It’s the age-old story of the climate doomers who cried wolf. And now, anytime well-intended conservationists want to protect our beautiful nation, they’re met with warranted skepticism.
The doomerist language. The "my way or no way" attitude. And the stunts like throwing soup on paintings and blocking traffic are not going to inspire environmental action. They will almost certainly do the exact opposite — and they have.
WORLD LEADERS LAUGH, SQUIRM AS TRUMP BLASTS UN ON CLIMATE, UKRAINE, GAZA AT GENERAL ASSEMBLY
In 1991, almost 80% of Americans considered themselves environmentalists. As of 2021, that number was cut in half, with just about four in every ten Americans self-identifying as environmentalists. Even so, the issues themselves are not divisive. Rather, core environmental issues receive some of the most overwhelming support of any subject in politics. 82% of voters support proactive forest management to reduce the threat of wildfires. 87% want to see action to protect our nation’s wildlife and habitats. And a whopping 95% recognize the importance of protecting the water in our lakes, streams and rivers.
The polarization of the environmental movement is not due to a lack of public consensus, it’s due to a lack of common sense.
The solution to the very real challenges we face — increased frequency and severity of wildfires, the Western water crisis, frequent natural disasters that devastate entire communities and regulatory inhibitors to conservation — is not more of the same. It’s a full reinventing of the movement itself. This is what I have dedicated my life to and the Trump administration has played an active role in promoting common-sense conservation initiatives.
This summer, Trump signed an executive order to Make America Beautiful Again, establishing the MABA Commission to expand access to public lands, promote responsible stewardship of natural resources and encourage collaborative conservation efforts. The Interior Department is investing over $100 million to conserve and restore America’s wetlands. And just this month, the Environmental Protection Agency upheld a Biden-era rule that requires producers to clean up "forever chemicals" like PFOA and PFOS.
These are all solid first steps towards a new kind of environmental movement, but there is, of course, still a lot of work to be done. A nonpartisan future for environmental issues depends on the actions of not only this administration, but future administrations. Conservation is a priority that we should always be fighting for — no matter political differences.
In a way, the president's statement was right — countries will fail if they continue on their current path.
Real leadership will not come from a constant flow of doomsday horror stories, unrealistic deadlines like the electric vehicle mandate, or baseless agreements like the Paris Climate Agreement. Real leadership on the environment will come from the United States continuing to lead the world in emissions reductions by expanding all energy sources, historic investments in restoring ecosystems and sustaining our environment like the Great American Outdoors Act and increased efficiency in transportation.
Most importantly, effective policy change will only come from durable cultural change. There are many radical pieces of the modern environmental movement, but nature itself has never been one of them. Of all the things we politicize — all the things that drive us apart — the natural beauty of this nation has the power to bring us together.
Protecting our most naturally beautiful places is patriotic. It is unifying. And it is desperately important.
Let this be a movement that stops crying wolf and starts empowering action.